“There is only one day left, always starting over; it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.” — Jean-Paul Sartre

mycuppa October 2017 Newsletter

At a glance

Why are some coffees tasting different? - well, almost 1/3 of our coffees have rolled over in new arrivals during the last six weeks. This means there are plenty of new lots, and our blends have been re-engineered.

 

In a pricing and strategy update, we drop a hint on introducing new products on the horizon.

 

For our opinion piece this month, we discuss the constant changes faced in the world of coffee and why we are pushing through incredible transformations within our domain.

 

The ATO believes you must achieve a practical life of 20 years from roasting systems. Still, we dismantle and rebuild our entire infrastructure every two years, literally ten times faster than the expected industry life cycle.

 

Product and pricing strategy update

 

We do our best to hold prices down as we know too well that competition from all sectors of the market subject our offerings to constant threat.

 

These threats come from all segments, whether it's the convenience of the supermarket and its lower-grade, relatively stale coffee-based products or the new hit-and-miss local roaster on his "L plates" desperately keen to add customers with cheeky marketing and infectious enthusiasm.

 

Generally speaking, roasted coffee is simple to source in Australia. The freshness, quality and value change considerably across suppliers and areas. Still, the end consumer inevitably wants what we define as the magic 3 - a delicious experience, simple convenience and reasonable value.

 

Fail on any of that magic 3, and you don't get a second chance.

 

Consumers often need clarification on choice, and our natural human instinct defaults to equating price with perceived quality. However, with roasted coffee, you can't rely on price to evaluate any finished product's suitability or value.

 

An example is that Kenyan coffee can be twice the price of a Colombian - does that mean it's twice as nice?

 

Taste is king, and it's tough to trust when you can't try beforehand.

 

Many other coffee suppliers use visibility in the cafe segment as their brand-building strategy. However, it's important to note that the experience at a branded cafe may differ from a DIY result at home.

 

There are several reasons why, but one of the biggest is that some suppliers deploy a somewhat questionable approach of using cafes to build up their reputation and "halo", supplying these high-profile cafes with a heavily customized specialty product yet flogging entirely different grades of coffee to their consumers - it's marketing speak for the deceptive practice of "bait and switch".

 

Australia's most prominent coffee brands have used this trick for decades.

 

Unfortunately, similar types of deception have also extended into coffee competitions. We discontinued participation in coffee roasting events determined to reward "chequebook $100/kilo beans" cleverly disguised as entries in their "everyday coffees" packaging.

 

Coffees that can never be commercially viable or readily accessible to the general public, enabling a continuing betrayal in promoting everything as "award-winning".

 

Despite the rapidly escalating costs for gas, electricity, labour, rent and raw ingredients, we are preparing the release of some new, lower-priced roasted coffee blends.

 

The intent is pretty straightforward - a weapon to use against competitive pressures and convert even more customers from the insanity of "dead" supermarket coffees.

 

These new products will sit alongside our existing portfolio and offer even more excellent (albeit possibly confusing) choices for consumers.

 

Overwhelmingly, we respect that our coffees sell by relying upon the performance of our product and the incredible loyalty and advocacy of our customers.

 

Turning over our holdings

Whilst discussing change, we received a record number of new season coffees in our facility during September.

 

This brings about several differences from the coffees you may be used to.

 

Over one-third of our single origins have changed, including many African, Indonesian, and Central American varieties.

 

All our blends have changed (as they use coffees from our single origins).

 

More of our coffees will change in the coming months until we reach a stabilization point, likely around December.

 

Variety is good - it keeps life interesting. Fresh is even better!

 

 

As coffee constantly changes, so must we

Many times in the last decade, we have written about why coffee constantly changes.

 

The question remains - why is coffee so incredibly different to everything else we consume?

 

Suppose you look at the quality segments of food or beverage ingredients such as meats, bread, fruits, chocolates, beer, wine, etc.

 

In that case, manufacturers of those products can pull rabbits out of their hats when it comes to maintaining relative consistency over extended periods, or maybe it's got more to do with our expectations and sensitivities of those differences being less amplified.

 

You know the feeling - that first gulp of wine is different from what you were expecting, but by the end of the glass, you don't care.

 

Attempt to do the same with coffee, and you dig deep, futile holes.

 

Coffee is one of the planet's most delicate and volatile ingredients - wrestling with all the variables is both time-consuming and utterly exhausting.

 

Coffee also happens to rally divisive debate - everyone has their individual opinion or interpretation of what's "good" or "great", and consensus or universal agreement is nigh impossible.

 

Growing conditions (temperature, rainfall, etc.), farming practices, processing, blending, sorting, grading, segregation, storage, transport, roasting, age, etc., all affect the finished product with such incredible influence that despite applying the most stringent controls and precision, you are still exposed to a bunch of fluctuating variables that sometimes feel outside of your grasp.

 

Gosh, there are times when we buy multiple tons of the same lot and see wide variations for coffees that were apparently from the same farm/estate.

 

The most important thing I've learned over the last decade in coffee (unfortunately, an epiphany that arrived way too late) was to stop struggling against change. My natural engineering brain is wired to consistently achieve 100% precision, eliminate deviations, and perfect or compensate for slight nuances.

 

An artist or poet may be more suited to roasting coffee as they are less bound by the rigid science of facts, figures and analysis that power the rotation of the coffee wheel.

 

Roasting coffee is the largest influence over the final product, and it's here that the game is either won or lost, along with sourcing ingredients. For the last nine years, we have constantly optimized our profiles almost daily.

 

This loop never stops as the inputs are changing weekly.

 

With roasting coffee, just like golf, tennis or any other discipline, a skilled practitioner reaches a point where gains or improvements are no longer possible, and the emphasis then shifts to consistency by compensating intelligently.

 

Many coffee companies get a decade or more from their roasting infrastructure. The ATO believes you can only depreciate coffee roasting equipment over 20 years.

 

We constantly strive to improve ourselves, and our track record of replacing our roasting equipment every two years shows our willingness to dismantle and rebuild everything we have worked hard for in pursuit of excellence.

 

The time has again arrived for a significant, bold, new initiative.

 

In early 2018, we will commission the world's most technically advanced roasting platform.

 

This investment positions us for the next era of change in our competitive local coffee market.

 

My darling, long-suffering wife Dianne has issued the final request - this is the last time we are doing this crazy stuff.