“If you obey all the rules, you’ll miss all the fun.” — Katharine Hepburn

mycuppa October 2018 Newsletter

Do you enjoy the crisp mornings and sunny afternoons of spring?

Last week, the temperature rapidly rose from 2 to 20 degrees.

Some customers need clarification about how to open the mycuppa 500g box bottom bags. See our note below for more details.

Sendle has been a double-edged sword, with customers either loving or hating. Freight companies are never going to be perfect or suit everyone.

We see both rapid deliveries surpassing AusPost Express and, at times, painfully slow arrivals - unfortunately, it's impossible to predict which end of the spectrum you can expect.

In many cases, it comes down to whether someone was present to accept the parcel on the 1st attempt.

Please ensure to send your feedback directly to Sendle - unfortunately, we can't change or influence Sendle's performance.

October's Secret Label is a cracker and will hit the perfect spot for lovers of rich, sweet and balanced coffees. Intense, jammy, complex and delicious - there are just too many superlatives to describe this sensational coffee - see below for more info.

We have a small amount of a wonderful Nicaraguan - just lovely. It's our feature coffee this month with desirable cup notes of almond nougat, candied orange rind and dark chocolate. Nougat in a coffee is "the best".

October Secret Label

We waited not so patiently for months and months when this lot arrived; it's everything we'd hoped for and a lot more.

October's secret label is a standout gem - exceeding our expectations in rich flavours and sweetness.

A high-quality single-origin lot from a micro Co-Op in a renowned coffee-producing country.

Freshly roasted and off the boat - now add newly ground and brewed.

Scoring a solid 86+ points.

Use it black or with milk; it doesn't matter when coffee is this good.

Let's unpack what you might get in the cup; there's so much going on:-

• It is Jammy and sweet and makes for a deliciously fruity shorty (espresso).
• It is a very long finish - the money shot - what we all live for with coffee.
• Well balanced - bringing it all home.
• Juicy, nectar-like sweetness, bright, hazelnut finish - apricot, black currant, chocolate, grape, peach, pear, pineapple, plum, raspberry jam, stone fruit, tangerine
• Simply stunning as a cappuccino, latte or flat white

Buy as much as you want - we will roast it daily.

Only available in 1kg bags, sorry, no 500g packs and no ground packs.

 

Nicaragua - a giant awakens.

Our feature coffee this month is a beautiful example from an origin that tends to miss out on much of the headlines in the world of coffee - from a small lot in Nicaragua, the Dipilto - Nueva Segovia.

Whilst I've gone ga-ga over this month's Secret Label coffee, my darling wife Dianne is obsessed with this Nicaraguan beauty.

It's the almond nougat - not often found in coffees, and she can't get enough of it - pestering me to roast more.

Nicaragua is one of the largest countries in Central America, but it's historically one of the poorest in the Western Hemisphere.

Protests and violence have gripped the country due to high unemployment rates, resulting in port operations and goods processing challenges.

Nicaragua's reputation in the coffee world is a "middle" and "conservative" position - the coffees taste like classic coffee with nutty, chocolate and a hint of tobacco.

A lot has stayed the same in the Nicaraguan coffee industry over the last decade - farms are generally remote and far from physical infrastructure.

More importantly, there needs to be more technical support for agronomy compared to the likes of Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras - all origins rising to the challenge of innovation in farming and processing techniques and investing enormous resources into improving their general qualities.

However, there are pockets of exceptional coffees, and the Cafetos de Segovia micro mill is a labour of love from the Albir family, now second-generation sisters Ana and Martha Albir inheriting their passion for coffee from their father, who bought a coffee farm in 1991.

Their father worked the farm with dedication until political strife forced his family to leave the country and cease the farm's day-to-day operations.

In 2007, Ana and Martha decided to take over the farm and continue their father's tradition. 2015, they invested in a mill and commenced their milling operation as Cafetos de Segovia in 2016.

The mill provides coffee cherry processing and exporting services for their family farm and 11 nearby farms owned by friends and family.

Nicaragua is known for producing larger quantities of standard coffees, and micro lots are much less common, despite the presence of suitable quality varieties like Bourbon and Caturra.

Lower elevations throughout the country and the prevalence of coffee-leaf rust (Roya) make it difficult for producers to achieve micro lot status.

The Albir sisters and their associates are interested in producing specialty coffee.

They go the extra mile to separate lots based on various experimental processes such as honey and natural - unusual for Nicaraguan coffees.

Thoroughly washed lot grown at 1300–1500 masl

Cup - Raspberry, lemon, almond nougat, candied orange rind, dark chocolate.

We have only 270kg of this lovely coffee - get in early.

500g Box Bottom Bags - they are different

In January of this year, we developed new custom 500g bags using the box-bottom quad design that has become a de-facto industry standard for modern coffee packaging.

The previous radioactive green 500g bags were based on the traditional stand-up pouch used for various alternative food ingredients besides coffee.

The box bottom bag was initially designed for physical retail shelves, but its space-efficient footprint is not relevant to our business.

Nonetheless, these bags do appear more attractive and should fit better in the cubed environment of parcel cartons.

Box-bottom bags are complex to manufacture, involving a construction process using four separate pieces - they are also more expensive.

Our custom bags are deliberately larger in size compared to standard 500g box-bottom bags - we did this to improve the process of filling and sealing.

Our 500g custom box-bottom bags use a different system from a traditional zip-lock - it's called a "rippa-zippa", and recently it's become obvious that some of our customers are not aware of how to open the 500g bags or they struggle to use this new bag and can't affix the bag closed after cutting off the top seal.

We've had people get a bit grumpy at us for using these "stupid" bags - with the most common complaints being "it's destroyed my scissors", or "it's not sealing properly because there is nothing on the other side", or "my bag is defective".

In the examples given, the customer mistakenly cut open the top of the bag instead of using the rippa-zippa to open it.

After the top of the bag (the heat seal) has been cut, it is not possible to close the bag securely and seal the opening again.

It's not the customer's fault - historically, almost all zip-type bags needed a part removed, whether you tear it with your hands or use scissors.

The rippa-zippa is different - designed to avoid needing implements like scissors or knives to cut open the bag - you can pull the zipper.

The bag was supposed to have a small instruction like "open here" next to the t-piece on the zippa, but somehow, that tiny but essential bit of helpful artwork missed production; the zippa is not apparent unless you look closely.

It was essential to highlight the feature of this style bag as it's essentially the direction used by the entire industry. Hopefully, all our customers will work it out over time and see the benefits.