Inside Secret Label: How We Create a New Coffee Blend Every Month

The art, science and occasional frustration behind myCuppa's monthly Secret Label coffee program.

Since launching in July 2018, our Secret Label coffee program has become one of the most popular and important parts of myCuppa.

What started as an opportunity to experiment with unusual coffees and different flavour combinations has evolved into a monthly tradition for thousands of coffee lovers.

Every month, we create an entirely new blend.

Different origins. Different ingredients. Different flavour characteristics.

And once that month's coffee is finished, it's generally gone.

Sounds simple enough.

Except creating a new coffee blend every month that is both distinctive and enjoyable is anything but simple.

After years of developing Secret Label, we've learned that the most challenging part isn't finding exceptional coffees.

It's understanding how those coffees will work together, and whether customers will actually enjoy the result.

This is an insight into the decisions, experiments and compromises that go into creating each monthly Secret Label release.

Why We Started the Secret Label Coffee Program

Secret Label was introduced in July 2018 to give us greater creative freedom.

Traditional coffee blends are designed around consistency. Customers expect familiar flavours, dependable performance and minimal variation between purchases.

Secret Label deliberately takes a different approach.

Each month offers an opportunity to explore new origins, different processing methods, unusual microlots and flavour combinations that wouldn't necessarily belong in our established blends.

The coffee changes, but the philosophy remains consistent.

We want to create something distinctive, memorable and rewarding to drink.

Not simply expensive.

Not unusual for the sake of being unusual.

And certainly not something that looks spectacular on a cupping sheet but disappoints when customers prepare it at home.

The Biggest Challenge: Making Coffee Distinctive Without Making It Divisive

One of the lessons we've learned is that the more aggressively you push a coffee towards a particular flavour characteristic, the more you risk narrowing its appeal.

Consider some of the highly prized naturally processed coffees available from African and other producing origins.

These coffees can display extraordinary flavour characteristics, including tropical fruit, berries, citrus, florals and pronounced acidity.

To an experienced specialty coffee enthusiast, these attributes can be fascinating.

But to someone accustomed to smooth, rich espresso with chocolate and caramel flavours, they can be confronting.

A coffee bursting with pineapple, grapefruit or jasmine might be a remarkable sensory experience.

That doesn't necessarily mean someone wants to drink it every morning.

This distinction is fundamental to the Secret Label program.

Our objective isn't to create the most extreme coffee imaginable. It's to create something different that customers genuinely want to drink.

The Secret Label Flavour Philosophy: Chocolate, Caramel and Sweetness

Over the years, we've developed a guiding principle for Secret Label.

Almost every monthly release should retain some degree of familiar sweetness and richness.

That generally means one or more of the following characteristics:

• Chocolate or cocoa.

• Caramel or toffee.

• Sweet nuts or praline.

• A smooth, rounded body.

• A lingering, satisfying finish.

These flavours provide an anchor.

They establish familiarity and balance, even when other components introduce more adventurous characteristics.

From that foundation, we can explore different directions.

One month might feature brighter berry acidity.

Another might introduce tropical fruit, citrus or a more pronounced floral character.

A different combination might produce an exceptionally creamy body, rich chocolate finish or unusual sweetness.

The challenge is deciding how far to push those characteristics without losing the overall balance.

It's a judgement that requires experience, tasting and a willingness to abandon ideas that don't work.

Why Fruit-Forward Coffee Isn't Always the Best Choice

Specialty coffee often places considerable emphasis on fruit flavours, lively acidity and unusual sensory characteristics.

These can be desirable indicators of distinctive coffee quality.

But quality and personal preference aren't the same thing.

A highly rated natural Ethiopian coffee might be outstanding when served black, allowing its delicate fruit and floral characteristics to shine.

The same coffee may produce a very different experience when combined with milk.

For many Australian coffee drinkers, milk-based espresso remains their preferred preparation.

That creates an important consideration when developing Secret Label.

We need to think beyond how a coffee performs during cupping.

How will it taste as an espresso? What happens when milk is added? Will its sweetness remain noticeable? Does the acidity complement the drink or become distracting?

These questions matter because a coffee that excels in one preparation method won't necessarily be equally successful in another.

Our aim is to create monthly blends that offer distinctive flavour while remaining enjoyable across the ways customers actually drink coffee.

Why Secret Label Evolved From Single Origins to Blends

During the early years of Secret Label, we experimented with releasing individual single-origin coffees.

Some were exceptional.

They offered unique regional characteristics, unusual processing methods and fascinating flavour complexity.

However, we discovered that single-origin releases could also be polarising.

When a single coffee has a dominant characteristic, there's limited opportunity to modify its overall flavour without changing the roasting or brewing approach.

Blending provides greater flexibility.

By combining coffees with complementary characteristics, we can explore combinations that aren't naturally present in one origin.

A coffee with exceptional chocolate depth might work with another offering pronounced sweetness.

A fruit-forward component might provide lift and brightness to an otherwise heavy, rounded blend.

A coffee with substantial body might help create a more satisfying texture.

Over time, blending became the preferred approach for Secret Label.

It gives us more creative options, although it also introduces considerably more complexity.

Why Coffee Blending Is Harder Than It Sounds

Coffee blending is frequently presented as a simple exercise in combining the best characteristics of several coffees.

Take the chocolate from one origin, the sweetness from another and the fruit from a third.

Mix them together.

Perfect coffee.

If only it worked that way.

Coffee blending isn't a straightforward exercise in addition.

Each coffee contributes hundreds of aroma and flavour-active compounds, together with acids, sugars, bitter compounds and other components affecting the final sensory experience.

When coffees are combined, their characteristics interact in ways that aren't always predictable.

A beautifully balanced individual coffee may lose some of its identity when mixed with another.

An intensely fruity component can overwhelm the softer sweetness of the remaining ingredients.

Two coffees with desirable acidity might produce a blend that tastes unbalanced rather than more vibrant.

Conversely, two relatively ordinary components can sometimes work together exceptionally well.

That's why we don't assume a blend will taste exactly as imagined simply because its ingredients are individually outstanding.

The final combination has to prove itself in the cup.

The Difference Between a Good Idea and a Good Blend

Sometimes we begin with a clear concept.

Perhaps we want a coffee with pronounced dark chocolate, a buttery body and a long berry finish.

We select candidate origins that appear capable of contributing those characteristics.

On paper, the combination looks promising.

Then we taste it.

And something isn't quite right.

The acidity might dominate.

The body might feel lighter than expected.

The finish might disappear too quickly.

Or a component that tasted exceptional by itself might contribute very little to the finished blend.

This is where experience becomes important.

We need to decide whether to adjust the proportions, change a component or abandon the concept altogether.

Sometimes a small change transforms the coffee.

Sometimes no amount of adjustment produces the result we're chasing.

And occasionally, a combination surprises us by becoming considerably better than expected.

Those are the moments that make blending worthwhile.

Selecting Coffees Months Before Customers Taste Them

Another challenge is the timing of green coffee procurement.

Coffee availability changes constantly.

Harvest schedules, shipping times, seasonal demand, importer inventory and international market conditions all influence which coffees are available.

We often need to consider potential Secret Label ingredients months before the final blend is released.

That requires maintaining an awareness of upcoming coffee shipments, interesting microlots and the quality of available inventory.

Not every coffee we evaluate will become part of Secret Label.

Some perform beautifully on their own but contribute little to a blend.

Others may be too dominant or difficult to balance.

Occasionally, a coffee that initially appears unremarkable becomes extremely valuable because of how it complements another origin.

We're constantly assessing coffees against possible future combinations.

The challenge is identifying opportunities without committing to ingredients that may ultimately prove unsuitable.

Designing Secret Label With Limited Customer Feedback

One of the more surprising realities of the program is how little direct feedback we receive compared with the amount of coffee sold.

Customers purchase Secret Label every month, often returning repeatedly.

Yet only a small proportion tell us specifically what they loved or disliked about a particular release.

That creates a difficult analytical problem.

Strong sales don't necessarily mean every customer loved the flavour profile.

Someone might purchase Secret Label because they enjoyed the previous month, because they trust the program or simply because they need more coffee.

Equally, a month with fewer purchases doesn't automatically indicate that the coffee was less successful.

Timing, individual purchasing cycles and numerous other factors influence demand.

As a result, we can't rely entirely on sales figures or occasional comments to determine which flavour combinations are most successful.

We need to make judgements based on our own sensory evaluation, accumulated customer knowledge and years of practical roasting experience.

When we receive detailed feedback, it's extremely valuable.

But the reality is that much of Secret Label's development rests on informed judgement rather than comprehensive consumer research.

Why Every Secret Label Is Different

Unlike our established blends, Secret Label isn't designed to reproduce the same flavour month after month.

Variation is the whole point.

A particular month might combine coffees from South America and the Pacific.

Another might explore the different sensory characteristics of East African origins.

Sometimes we use multiple microlots from the same producing country, each contributing something different.

Recent releases have demonstrated that flexibility, with combinations involving Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi and Tanzania.

But even when the ingredients change dramatically, we're still trying to achieve the same fundamental outcome.

A coffee with character, sweetness, balance and enough familiarity to remain enjoyable.

We want customers to recognise the quality and philosophy behind Secret Label, even though the actual flavour changes each month.

Consistency of quality doesn't require consistency of flavour.

That distinction is central to the entire program.

Why We Keep the Ingredients Secret

There is another deliberate feature of Secret Label.

We generally don't reveal the exact blend composition or ingredient proportions on the product label.

Part of that decision is commercial. Developing original blends requires time, experimentation and considerable purchasing expertise.

But there's also a sensory reason.

Coffee drinkers develop expectations around particular origins.

Some customers believe Ethiopian coffee must be fruity, Colombian coffee must be smooth, or Sumatran coffee must be heavy and earthy.

Those generalisations don't always reflect the individual coffees available.

When people know the ingredients in advance, they may approach a blend with preconceived expectations.

Secret Label encourages a different experience.

Taste the coffee first.

Decide what you enjoy.

Let the flavour speak for itself rather than judging the coffee entirely by its country of origin or the reputation of its ingredients.

Is Secret Label Suitable for Milk Coffee?

Absolutely.

In fact, milk compatibility is one of our important considerations.

We know that many customers enjoy their coffee as a latte, cappuccino or flat white.

A successful Secret Label needs enough flavour, body and sweetness to remain satisfying when milk is added.

At the same time, we don't want to sacrifice the experience for those who prefer a straight espresso or long black.

Finding that balance can be challenging, particularly when using coffees with pronounced fruit or acidity.

Some monthly blends will naturally favour one preparation style over another.

But our objective is to create coffees with enough balance and versatility to appeal to a broad range of customers.

What Eight Years of Secret Label Has Taught Us

The program has reinforced several important lessons.

Expensive ingredients don't automatically create exceptional blends.

A highly rated coffee isn't necessarily the ideal choice for every customer.

A blend that sounds brilliant on paper can disappoint when tasted.

And familiarity isn't the enemy of creativity.

In fact, familiar flavour characteristics can provide the foundation that makes experimentation possible.

We've also learned that there is no reliable shortcut to designing a good blend.

Experience helps us identify promising combinations, but it doesn't eliminate uncertainty.

Every new blend still needs to be evaluated on its own merits.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that exceptional coffee doesn't need to be extreme to be memorable.

Sometimes the most rewarding cup is simply one where sweetness, acidity, body and flavour all come together beautifully.

When that happens, the individual components become less important than the overall result.

That's the outcome we're chasing every month.

Frequently Asked Questions About myCuppa Secret Label

What is myCuppa Secret Label coffee?

Secret Label is myCuppa's monthly specialty coffee program, launched in July 2018. Each month features a newly developed blend using selected coffee origins and seasonal microlots, offering customers a different flavour experience.

Does Secret Label change every month?

Yes. Each monthly release is created using a different combination of coffees. The origins, proportions and flavour profile may change, but our emphasis on quality, sweetness, body and balance remains consistent.

Why doesn't myCuppa reveal the Secret Label blend ingredients?

We generally keep the exact recipe confidential to protect the development work behind each blend and encourage customers to judge the coffee by its flavour rather than preconceived ideas about particular origins.

Is Secret Label a single-origin coffee or a blend?

Secret Label is currently a monthly blend. Earlier releases included single-origin coffees, but we found blending offered greater flexibility to create distinctive yet balanced flavour combinations.

Can I buy a previous month's Secret Label?

Generally, no. Monthly releases are created using specific green coffee ingredients, often sourced in limited quantities. Once a blend has sold out, it usually isn't reproduced.

Does Secret Label taste good with milk?

Yes. Milk compatibility is an important part of our blending philosophy. We aim to create coffees with enough body, sweetness and flavour to remain satisfying as espresso, flat white, cappuccino or latte.

Is Secret Label always a chocolate-flavoured coffee?

Not exactly. We generally use familiar chocolate, caramel, toffee or sweet nut characteristics as a foundation, but individual months may introduce brighter fruit, citrus, floral or other distinctive notes.

The balance changes with each release.

Is Secret Label stronger than regular coffee?

Secret Label is designed around pronounced flavour, body and complexity rather than a guaranteed higher caffeine content. Its perceived intensity varies according to the monthly blend and brewing method.

Is Secret Label made from specialty-grade Arabica coffee?

Yes. Secret Label uses selected specialty-grade Arabica coffees, with different origins and microlots chosen according to the flavour characteristics we want to achieve.

How can I find out what the current Secret Label tastes like?

Visit the Secret Label product page for the current monthly description, tasting notes and purchasing options. The flavour profile changes as new releases become available.

Discover This Month's Secret Label

After more than eight years of experimentation, Secret Label remains one of the most enjoyable and demanding projects at myCuppa.

Every month brings new ingredients, fresh challenges and another opportunity to discover a remarkable combination.

Some ideas work beautifully.

Others never make it beyond the tasting table.

But the objective never changes.

Create a coffee that's distinctive enough to be memorable and balanced enough to enjoy every day.

Explore This Month's myCuppa Secret Label Coffee

A new blend. Every month. Since July 2018.