June 2015 - Centre Way hitting the flavor target

Date Posted:1 June 2015 

  

Centre Way - hitting the flavor target

For the last 18 months we have written about a different Single Origin as our monthly feature coffee.
There are of course coffee origins still remaining that are yet make it onto our newsletter - some of them are real standout performers like Sumatra, Kenya and the famous offerings of Ethiopia such as Sidamo, Yirgacheffe, Harrar, etc.
We thought it would make an interesting change this month to explore a blend.
Not just any blend, but something quite new and exciting.
Developing a coffee blend is not easy - in fact it's much harder than dealing with single origin coffees and you have the added challenge of keeping the blend within certain parameters of consistency, or design philosophies.
It took the coffee industry a very long time......in fact too long.......to embrace and promote the concept of "seasonal".
Even today, we are faced with certain types of customers who struggle and literally resist the realities of "why coffee changes". The industry has a clear responsibility to educate our customers on the broad variables relating to how raw coffees are farmed, processed, transported, stored and then roasted.
In my daily travels around Melbourne visiting customers, suppliers, etc. I make various pit stops to try the coffee at specialty cafes.
It's a curiosity to see what everyone else is doing with their coffee and more importantly, check out their blends....for balance, flavour, strength, fruit, body, acid, finish.
Over the last couple of years we have observed the trends with specialty coffee blends becoming lighter, cleaner and fruitier. This approach has come at a distinct cost of flavour, body and finish - ironically, all of the attributes the end-customer drinking the brew desires.
It has become quite common these days for a strong flat white to taste rather milky and thin with really "nothing in the cup".
Rather surprising given the average dosing levels have also crept up from 14g - 16g to around 20g - 22g (or even 24g).
12 months ago, I developed a blend for a popular Melbourne CBD specialty cafe - the owner is highly experienced and obsesses about his coffee 24x7. Possibly the most fastidious and demanding barista I have encountered - we push each other hard - right to the limits.
We have spent dozens of weekends in his closed cafe testing and analysing literally hundreds of combinations for origins, roast depths, dosage and extraction methods - trying to find that mythical sweet spot for a milk-based espresso coffee that would appeal to the broad majority.
To say this coffee has busted my balls would be an understatement - but it's worth it when you can offer a high quality product that stands up against the best in the market for the purpose it was designed or intended.
After drinking so many milky, weak, unsatisfying coffees from specialty cafes, we thought it was time to put some charisma back into the cup.
We named this new coffee blend Centre Way.
I liken Centre Way to owning a Porsche and taking it out on an early Sunday morning for a blast through empty country roads with tight, winding hills - giving your pride and joy a full-on tilt at the extreme and pushing it to limits.
Centre Way reflects my personal philosophies on how a milk-based espresso coffee should be - devoid of compromises and full of juicy, clean, sweet, complexity with body and finish.
It's all about hitting those peaks but within with some degree of balance.
Anyone can do rich, smooth and creamy - it's so one-dimensional and quite frankly oh so utterly boring drinking it week after week.
Centre Way is about bringing back that sizzle in the cup.
To read more about Centre Way click here ==> .......CENTRE WAY.

                

Postage Costs explained

Almost every day we receive calls and emails asking us to confirm postage costs for various items. Or it's a request for us to drop postage charges in return for a larger order.
Over the last 8 years we have key insights into the general disposition of consumers in relation to paying for postage.
It's no secret the majority of consumers consider postage charges as a "tax" - with many doing their best to avoid or minimize and in some cases a customer will shop from another supplier if they offer free postage or spend more than $50 and get a bonus - despite the items costing more or being of inferior quality or value.
Freight services in Australia are sub-standard in comparison to other countries - expensive, slow and uncompetitive.
We can sort of understand some of the reasons this situation has evolved due to congested roads and vast territories to cover, but we also know that the monopoly stranglehold by AusPost is limiting the benefits from true market competition. We deliver to cafes here in Melbourne and it's not unusual to have our own vans on the road for 5 hours a day for just a couple of deliveries.
There is also a counterproductive political game being played by AusPost Executives in their quest to privatise AusPost for reasons we can only deduce as personal - so their salaries can be uncapped, hidden from scrutiny.
Freight in Australia is calculated according to a number of variables - the distance between postcodes and the greater value of the cubic volume (dimensions) or weight.
Freight companies charge a base price for the first kilo of freight.
This is quite a high number and it varies from $7 to say $9.50 depending upon the distance.
For commercial freight it may be as high as $14+ for the consignment.
For every kilo thereafter, the cost of freight is incremented by a value for each kilo.
Again, this is variable depending upon the distance - so it can be as low as $0.40 per extra kilo to as much as $3.00 for every extra kilo.
Just to confuse matters, metro areas in Melbourne are a flat rate of $7.70 for up to 16kg.
It's important to note that weight is rounded up - that means if you have an order of 1.5kg it is treated as 2kg.
Coffee and tea is bulky. In fact a kilo of coffee is treated as 2kg and a kilo of tea is about 3-4kg depending upon the type. All parcels are xray dimension and weigh checked by freight companies.
We don't use satchels as you can't fit much in a satchel and the beans get crushed or bags are busted - so everything has to be packed into a brand new carton.
A little known fact is that mycuppa charges the customer for just 1kg, however, we pay AusPost for 2kg as the parcel volume and weight exceeds 1kg - so we are in effect partially subsidizing the freight cost on most parcels.
We also include track and trace as a feature on all our consignments, which is another $2.95 saving per parcel.
In the last 3 years, the cost of freight has risen by around 5% every 6 months and we have absorbed these rises.
The shopping cart on mycuppa calculates shipping charges automatically - because there are something like 2,000 possible combinations of postcode and cubic/weight it is not a simple task to quote freight pricing over the phone or via email.
It is possible to vary the shopping cart item quantities on mycuppa and have the system calculate your postage charge before you checkout. This can be a useful way to optimize your postage costs if you can add more items the cost of freight per item reduces.
Our average size customer order is around 3kg and that in itself demonstrates our customers are thinking about the best value proposition when purchasing from mycuppa.
The important thing to remember is that mycuppa runs on razor thin margins for a price per kilo basis. We don't charge $35 - $45 a kilo for our coffee, nor do we have fat margins that allow volume purchase discounting or free freight. It's the same price whether you buy 1kg or 1 ton - makes no difference at all to our business commercially.
Our freight charging allows us to supply very fresh, high quality coffee to our customers at a price which we believe is fair, reasonable and competitive.