Roast #42: Coffee Club V8
The one with all the shipping issues
Last coffee club of 2024.
Before we continue, the winner from filling out the V7 feedback form is:
I'll contact you regarding your free V8 box. Thank you to everyone who filled out the feedback form!
The Schedule:
The 3rd coffee is stuck in Customs. I spent this past Friday on the phone with the FDA and Fedex to try and resolve this issue. Unfortunately the issue is still ongoing, but all parties (including the farmer) are working to move it forward.
This delay is not fun. I'm stressed that we may need to do another round of form filing, and if this coffee doesn't move soon, it's possible it either gets shipped back to origin or to abandonment in Memphis.
We good.
What an experience. We’ll share more in our reflection post, but what a stressful 3-4 days it’s been.
We are going to delay fulfillment by one week. We technically can make it happen
The schedule will be:
Run the test roast on 10/26/2024 (then list test roast boxes)
Run the production roast on 11/02/2024
Pack on 11/03/2024
Fulfill shipping orders week of 11/04
Open in-person pickup starting 11/09
Test boxes will go up soon, so check back on the shop for them. I'll post on IG once they are available.
Changes with V8:
Pricing Updates:
In our V7 reflection post, we mentioned that we would make some pricing adjustments to reflect our costs better. We updated our costs and ran them through our pricing formula, and the output was $42 for the 120g box and $72 for the 240g box.
That seemed a bit high, so I applied some discounts to bring the price down ($37 and $62).
I'm realizing pricing may not be as rigid as I had hoped it to be. Moving forward, for coffee clubs that land within our target range ($35 to $40) with our pricing formula (2x costs), I won't make any adjustments. But for coffee clubs that exceed our target, we'll likely apply discounts to try and bring it down (like this one).
If you purchased at a higher price and I missed refunding you, DM me!
Smaller 40g Option:
The question of how to drive more sales has been on my mind a lot lately. One idea that I've been toying around with is the option for a smaller trial option. The thesis for this is that I think I have some followers who want to test my coffee before committing to a coffee club box, and don’t want to immediately jump in and take on 3 bags of coffee.
I'm going to test this idea with V8/V9. The experience for this smaller 40g option will be rough-ish (basic packaging) and it will be priced a bit higher. I price it higher to deter people from relying on this option. The intended flow is someone who is hesitant buys this 40g option, then they move onto the 120g option in the future.
Specifics about this offering:
40g of each of the three V8 coffee club coffees
Priced a bit higher on a bean-to-dollar ratio
Let's see how this goes.
Themed Coffee Clubs:
V8 is our first time trying to implement a theme for a coffee club box. We received this idea from our past feedback forms, but we were never really able to implement it due to insufficient inventory. But now, with a more stable stream of orders (from subscriptions), we can be more aggressive in buying supply, which gives us more to work with in curation.
For V8, the theme is red berry terroir-based coffees. None of these coffees have super fancy processing (co-ferment, yeast inoculation, etc.). The fanciest of the three might be the Papayo, with its 120-hour anaerobic fermentation (not super funky, though!).
If people enjoy having coffee clubs come in themes, we'll try to curate future boxes focusing on themes. The possible downside of this is that the range of profiles for the box might be smaller as the coffees in each coffee club will be more similar.
This feedback will be something I watch out for in the V8 feedback form.
Brew Guides:
We will move our brew guide onto the actual single-bag product listing pages. We'll now only have one QR code on our labels, and that QR code will take you to the listing page, which will have our brew guide there. This way, I can reduce substack (blog) noise and the number of posts I have to write per coffee club release.
The coffees:
Finca El Ocaso Anaerobic Natural Papayo
Origin: Colombia
Region: Palestina, Salento, Quindio
Farm: Finca El Ocaso
Farmer: Santiago Patiño
Varietal: Papayo
Processing: Anaerobic Natural
Elevation: 1850 masl
Profile: Cherry, bright red notes, juicy
Price per lb (shipping + greens): $13.95
Funk level: 6/10
Read more details on Santiago Patiño’s Anaerobic Natural Papayo
Roaster's notes:
This one has delicate complexity with a light body. It has light acidity and some faint hints of cherry and pomegranate.
La Esmeralda Semiwashed Pink Bourbon
Origin: Colombia
Region: Acevedo, Huila
Farm: La Esmeralda
Farmer: Norbey Quimbayo
Varietal: Pink Bourbon
Processing: Semiwashed
Elevation: 1750 masl
Profile: Lemonade acidity
Price per lb (shipping + greens): $8.79
Funk level: 5/10
Read more details on Norbey Quimbayo’s Semiwashed Pink Bourbon
Roaster's notes:
What won me over was how pleasant the acidity was with this bean. It’s interesting to note that on the sampling table, I noted that it wasn’t super clean. But after buying and running a larger roast (300g vs 100g sampling), the profile cleaned up a bit.
This one has the complexities of a low-funk natural, but you don't get strong umami notes. I'm a big fan of this one.
Finca Betel Natural Gyrola Sudan Rume
Origin: Colombia
Region: Valle del Cauca, Colombia
Farm: Finca Bet-El
Farmer: César Andrés Ledesma Bermudez
Varietal: Sudan Rume
Processing: Anaerobic Natural
Elevation: 1600-1800 masl
Profile: Bright, tropical, with a jammy body
Price per lb (shipping + greens): $22.81
Funk level: 6/10
Read more on César Andrés Ledesma Bermudez’s Anaerobic Natural Sudan Rume
Roaster's notes:
On the cupping table, we found this Sudan Rume very tropical with a subtle creaminess and pleasant jam-like body. This is a juicy boi.
Final thoughts:
Within the last 3 months, we've purchased close to 500lbs of coffee, locking in a good chunk of my own personal funds in this project. I bought up this much because any well-functioning business should have adequate supply at hand. I want us to start operating like a tiny small business.
So if you see me trying out things that seem a bit out of my normal realm (ie marketing, content creation, doing tik-tok dances etc), know that I’m doing so with the intent to hopefully grow this so we can realize our end goal of opening a little cafe.
Thanks all. See you all soon for V8.