Coffee samples

Please understand that we Do NOT provide samples — free or otherwise. Regardless of how many kilos you promise to purchase.

The following paragraphs provide an explanation and we respectfully ask that you accept our policy regarding samples. If you ant to try different coffee origins or blends, then you could try our secret label each month.

We receive numerous requests for free samples (up to 3-4 requests every day, 7 days a week) and can fully appreciate that coffee provides so many flavour possibilities (and variations) and you want to ensure any particular coffee meets your palate acceptance, especially when buying in bulk.

The basic facts are that in order to provide samples, we would need to add another $2 per kilo onto the price of all coffee sold and in the realm of online shopping where the primary comparison tool is price, this will ultimately render our coffee beans offer uncompetitive.

If you consider that most of our competitors charge $40+ a kilo for coffee, you soon realize we are operating on very thin margins, meaning we cannot sustain the luxury of handing out samples.

The other harsh reality is every person’s own individual perception or idea of what is nice coffee is vastly different.

How coffee is prepared — the equipment used, the grinder adjustment, the dosing, tamping and extraction/brewing all affect the end result to such a high degree that it can be easy to take quality premium coffee and ruin the experience during extraction or brewing.

We can’t guarantee you will immediately love our coffee, or a particular style or origin of coffee may taste different to how it has been described.

However, we perform exhaustive cupping (our master roaster cups over 60 coffees per week) and the testing we undertake on control batch samples is nothing short of amazing.

We do this to ensure continuous improvement in our quest for perfect coffee, but also to manage overall quality so the coffee we send out to you meets or exceeds standards for specialty coffee available in Australia.

Another reason we don’t provide samples or small lots is due to the simple economics.

A 100g coffee bag is about the same price as a 200g bag, which is not much cheaper than a 500g bag.

In other words, small packaging is insanely expensive.

Then you need to consider the high labour effort to pack small items, labels, sealing, handling, etc.

Very soon you realize a small pack costs disproportionately more expensive than larger packs.

And finally, another factor impacting small and sample lots is the way freight companies price the delivery charges in Australia.

Freight charges have a relatively high base cost per item, then a low rate per kilo.

In many cases, this means a small 200g package can cost almost the same as 1kg to send around Australia - so it can cost us up to $15 to send out samples, which is not cost effective or realistic.