A small part of the coffee industry moans quite a lot about coffee grinders, especially espresso grinders. I confess I am one of those people, and I thought I’d post a little bit about what makes us so grumpy but also look at why nothing has happened.
Archive for December, 2009
The problem with grinders
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009Predictions for 2009 – Analysis
Sunday, December 27th, 2009Well. I really didn’t do well this time! Having done ok on my 2008 predictions I must say that I can’t quite claim the same level of success for 2009.
My predicitons were:
1. Coffee Packaging takes a step forward
Nothing here to report. I don’t know if anyone has done anything interesting in 2009 with roasted coffee packaging but I certainly haven’t seen it, and I don’t think it has had an impact. A poor prediction.
2. Improved Green Coffee Packaging
This is a tricky one. I am sure that this year people have received record quantities of vac-packed, or grainpro packed coffee. I know that a substantial amount of coffee that we’ve bought this year has come this way. I also know that it leaves me conflicted over the amount of waste this packaging generates. An OK, passable, but not great effort at prediction.
3. Someone invents a grinder worth getting excited about.
Nope. Nothing here. I know why, from an R&D cost Vs sales perspective, this hasn’t happened. For some reason I guess I thought it just would. A complete failure of a prediction.
4. Decent Coffee Press in the UK.
I am going to claim this one. You could argue that the quality of writing hasn’t been where it could be but I think this year we’ve seen unprecedented levels of coverage for speciality coffee – mostly in response to Gwilym’s win – but also covering the blossoming of London’s coffee culture. I hope it continues. A pretty successful prediction.
5. Producing countries in the WBC Top 6.
Another utterly failed prediction. Raul was just outside the top 6, and I think there was some surprise at who made the top 6 and who didn’t. Nonetheless I can’t even vaguely claim this one as successful.
So… Barely 1.5 out of 5 I reckon. Not good work. I shall have to try harder for my prediction for 2010, or just give up entirely! I hope next time I don’t confuse speculation and prediction with wishful thinking!
The one interesting thing, in terms of me trying to salvage my credibility, are the two main predictions that I got wrong in 2008 – the rise of pressure profiling and increase in green coffee pricing – have somewhat come true in 2009.
There can be no argument on the pressure profiling front. From the Slayer to Strada, but also to Cimbali’s rather impressive pressure profiling machine – the technology is now here and seems to have perhaps captured the interest of manufacturers more than baristas but I think it will continue to be incorporated into new machines.
As for green coffee – it may not yet have reached the peak of March 3rd but after a steep drop it is definitely back on the rise:
(couresy of Wolfram Alpha – the rather splendid search engine for this sort of thing.)
I’ll post my predictions for 2010 around New Year.
Recommended Coffee Reading List – Part 1
Saturday, December 26th, 2009
Back in 2006 I published a recommended reading list. Since that time my collection of books has (worryingly) increased so I thought I should probably update it. I could easily write a list of coffee books that one should avoid (having learned the hard way) but I suspect that would get me into rather a lot of trouble, so I shall leave that for now. I’ve broken it down into two parts and then down into sections, and have indicated which are nice to have, and which I would consider are essential on that subject.
I will try and keep this one updated – if you think I’ve missed something obvious then let me know. I haven’t recommended books I don’t own, so this means some books may be missing that you would expect to see here.
Gwilym’s disloyalty card
Thursday, December 17th, 2009Let me start by saying that this has to be one of the best ideas I’ve seen in ages. I’m very pleased and very excited by this.
Gwilym Davies – you know, the current World Barista Champion – has come up with a rather splendid card: the disloyalty card.
The idea is simple: If you go and drink coffee at 8 interesting, quality focused cafes around (mostly) East London then he will say thank you by making you a coffee for free.
(click to embiggen)
I just think this is brilliant. There is no catch, it isn’t some cunning ruse to sell more coffee. It might work if one roaster supplied all the places on the card – but there is a complete mix from Burgil to Union, from Square Mile to Nude’s in house espresso. Gwilym just wants people to go and try coffee in different places.
This man is a great ambassador for coffee.
So swing by Prufrock Coffee in Present at 140 Shoreditch High Street, grab a card and then have a little tour of some great cafes around Central and East London. There is one of the best baristas in the world at the end of it, waiting to give you a delicious drink to say thank you. Superb.
7 tips for dialling in an espresso blend
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
These tips probably apply more to a commercial environment than a domestic one, but hopefully there are some useful reminders for anyone in here.
We’ve all ended up chasing an espresso, somehow a delicious espresso remaining elusive. These may seem obvious but all get overlooked from time to time. (more…)
Branded chains and the flat white
Friday, December 4th, 2009Rumours are currently circulating about some of the UK branded chains starting to serve flats whites. The baristas at Flat White in Soho fielded calls from broadsheet journalists asking for comment about an apparent decision by Starbucks UK to start selling the drink.
Twitter1, on the other hand, suggested that it was Costa Coffee who were going to put an 11oz flat White on the menu in the new year.
This won’t be a surprise to some people who’ve been predicting this for the last couple of months.2
If this is indeed true I look forward to the many and varied reactions to this. I hope that most independents, especially those in London, greet the decision with relief.
Recent reading3 has really reminded me that in any competitive environment, be it selling coffee or evolutionary biology, any competitive advantage gained (through mutation or innovation) is temporary. Everyone caught up, either because they copied or because the pool of competitors shrank to only those with an old advantage.
Innovating just the once is fine in the short term, but it needs to continue to be a successful long term strategy.
The flat white4 is not a magic bullet that can help recover declining coffee sales. The brands are increasingly aware of a new breed of independents and are looking to react. By picking on the flat white they will have made the classic mistake of confusion correlation with causation. Lots of the best shops in the UK offer a flat white (correlation) but they are not successful because they serve flat whites (causation). This is an apparently easy to mistake to make, going by the last broadsheet article about the flat white. Independents know that it is a myriad of things that make them better than the chains, and should be relieved that despite the scrutiny the chains are likely to miss the key factors that give them an advantage.
That said – it should remind independents that while they still have the advantage it won’t last for long and that they have the attention and the interest of the largest coffee operators in the UK. For the coffee-quality focused amongst us to be truly successful we have to constantly keep pushing forwards, and never give them the chance to catch up.
Hopefully there will be some official comment from either Starbucks or Costa that I can link to in the next couple of days. Thoughts on this from all of you would be very welcome.
UPDATE: So it has been confirmed that Costa are putting them on the menu. I haven’t found any mention of Starbucks anywhere. (I did twitter at the UK MD but haven’t had a response yet.)
UPDATE: Starbucks have now also confirmed that they will be serving the flat white in London as of next week, and across the UK from January.
UPDATE: The broadsheet article mentioned above can now be found here. Eric (who I am not sure really claims to be the first man serving flat whites in London) made me chuckle with his comment. It is nice to see some explanation from Starbucks on why they are doing it. I am more curious about the apparent customer demand for it – I would imagine the kind of people who would want a flat white wouldn’t head to Starbucks to try and get them to make something off menu. Will Costa be grumpy they got beaten to the punch?
Footnotes:
by Matt Ridley [