--------------------------------------------------------------- The Hill and Valley Gourmet Coffee Newsletter --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2 Issue 1, January 2001 This month -:News from the world of coffee :First Year Completed :Hill & Valley Coffee to move :New in the Online Store :Power of, and confidence in, the Web :Espresso Street News --------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the Hill & Valley Gourmet Coffee newsletter in 2001. This isn't really hot news, but I feel it needs some sort of statement. As the new year starts, the world coffee market has been thrown into turmoil by the massive glut of supply coming from Vietnam's dramatic increases in production. When I first traded Vietnam "green" shortly after the collapse of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989, they were producing around 700,000 bags of robusta coffee. Some feel that the 2000-2001 harvest may reach an almost unbelievable 11 million bags, again virtually all robusta coffee. If you consider that a coffee tree takes three years to produce and five to reach optimum production, the statistics are staggering. Apart from the blips caused by the odd frost, flood, volcano and eathquake, coffee has never been in shortage throughout the nineties, but nevertheless Vietnam's miniscule costs of production compared to some of their more "enlightened" competitors has underwritten the advent of this massive over-supply situation. On the farm coffee is the product of manual labour, each cherry being picked from the tree by hand. A kilo of cherries turns into about 400 grams of coffee, meaning that the coffee currently being harvested by hand in Vietnam is worth less at the point of harvest than grain harvested by the most automated farming methods on the plains of North America! How can this make sense?? Vietnam has recently tried to "defend" an export price of 500 usd per ton FOB - East Africa and Latin America would be wiped from the coffee producing map if their coffees had to sell at the relative historical levels to this price. On several occasions earlier in the century Brazil burnt coffee rather than exporting at low prices - maybe it would be better to uproot trees and develop Vietnam's agrarian economy in other ways - but with the spectre of a mass switch to narcotics producing cash crops, there will be little international support or pressure to do this in Vietnam. Where does / will all this coffee go and will it bring down the price of my coffee, do I hear you thinking? Well ALL the major coffee roasting multi-national companies use Vietnam coffee, extensively. So logically your Nescafe, Maxwell House, Carte Noire, Douwe Egberts, Lavazza, Folgers and all supermarket "blends" should come down in price, dramatically. Do you think it will? You probably know this - but we don't use Vietnam coffee and will not in 2001 or the next or even the next year. Our robusta usage amounted to about 2 bags last year and we prefer the more noble, less pungent Indian coffees. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the producer) the realities at the other end of the quality scale are somewhat different. With "average" prices falling, the producers of the superb speciality coffees that we and others like us buy, are finding it difficult to justify the extra attention unless we are prepared to pay "way out of line" prices. Hopefully there'll be enough of us around to ensure the continued production of the "best" rather than the "most". Of more direct significance to us are the droughts that have afflicted East Africa - we are really worried that supplies of new Main Crop Kenya will be lower in quality, as well as higher in price, even at our miniscule level of usage, and the better Tanzanian and Ethiopian Coffees will also be in hot demand. We'll do our best to ensure that standards are maintained, but will not hesitate to avoid stocking lower quality East African coffees. What's the point of a Kenya without that Kenya flavour? --------------------------------------------------------------- First Year Completed --------------------------------------------------------------- What is it they say? The first two years are the hardest? Well I wonder if it will be "a game of two halves", and we can coast out the last part with a 5-0 lead - somehow I don't think so....more like a prolonged penalty shoot-out with the bank manager in goal! To commemorate "surviving" our first year, we are producing a new blend, which aims to be a "strong after dinner" coffee, but is made up of three of the finest arabicas in our range. The blend will be called INSPIRATION, which more or less best summed up our first year. It will be added to the main catalogue by mid-January and we hope you will give it a try. 2001 promises to be a year full of hard work, excitement and variety again (more on this below) and we hope those of you who enjoyed our coffee in 2000, or met us at some muddy field smelling of horse dung (the field, not you), will stick around in 2001. Meeting customers from the web "in the flesh" at the occasional awayday is both strange and somehow inspiring! Thanks to everyone who gave us their custom and for the many kind comments made during the year which were the source of massive encouragement for us. We hope we can continue to deliver "real good, real fresh" for years to come. Particular thanks for the year one experience go to: AWJ P & SN IS & PB MET JN & PZ PP SB BA JS and SS You surely know who you are! Highs of the year were: - Stefan's Kenya AA - The Great Taste Awards - VW Action 2000 - Van Morrison at Guildford - Munsons Einstein Bagel - Arley Hall & Menai Oysters - Most Horse Trials - Luxters Dark Roast - Every shot of e.caffe Lows of the Year were: - Everytime I looked at my bank statements. - Ponies UK - BBC Good Food Show - Motorhead at Guildford - Railway Companies -not for the same reason as you, I bet.. - Steam Engine Rallies - Yet another soul-less cappuccino chain - Everyone else's coffee (Anita Leroy excluded) Oh and let's just hope next years commemorative blend isn't called LIQUIDATION!! --------------------------------------------------------------- Hill & Valley Coffee to Move --------------------------------------------------------------- The plunge is about to be taken. I've wandered the streets of most of the towns in the Thames Valley and Chiltern area in the past 6 months, looking for the ideal spot for our coffee themed cafe / retail store / in-view roastery. We nearly moved into Chesham (a big mistake) and thought about Oxford every Wednesday, and thought that Marlow would be ideal (The Stephen Redgrave Memorial Cafe??). Why not Henley, Abingdon, Witney, Bicester, Woodstock. Of course the obvious place is your home town, whatever it's failings, short-comings and perceived lack of "chic". So we've taken an option on a retail store in the centre of Aylesbury, between the shopping and business districts and in a mere 500 sq feet you will find : - instore roastery behind a glass wall, with "Don't feed the Roaster" behavioural explanation. - all the coffee related paraphenalia, trivia and literature we can find to clutter the place up. - the freshest coffee beans on sale every day except Sundays. - the first "coffee as an event" venue in the country, and a haven that local groups can use for evening meetings. - comfy chairs, booths, uncomfortable (Debbie said so) stools and a pavement cafe area. - cakes and pastries hand made by "Barista Bruce" (really glad you're coming back, Steve). - sandwiches designed, created and apetented by the same culinary guru. - a selection of gourmet foods that you cannot buy in any supermarket. - internet connection for you to buy through the site if you've moved beyond the human interface. - music that you don't hear everyday, but have known most of your life. - and all day the best, freshest cup of coffee you can find anywhere, made in a dazzling array of methods, and giving the cappuccino chains a run for their money on price (really - 1.75 for a cappuccino - what's in it??) Our move will be phased, and although we hope to open the cafe and shop in February, the roasting will not move until plans are approved. It's all a bit of a scary concept for Environmental Health and Planning at Aylesbury Vale District Council, but so far they are almost as enthusiastic as us. However these things take time. More on the definite plans and hopefully an opening date in the next newsletter. --------------------------------------------------------------- New in the Online Store --------------------------------------------------------------- We are currently debating how to expand the range of products offered in our online store. It's hard to imagine a huge increase in the range of coffees, although I'm still searching for 4 more "wonders". Kenya supplies are hopefully now secured through to March or even April, but Ethiopia is already causing concern. We will temporarily run out of Guatemala Antigua in about a week, but will get some more as it has been fantastically successful. The Jamaica Blue Mountain event will probably now coincide with the opening of the roasting part of the store. In the next month or so we do anticipate adding a ground coffee option to all coffees as we upgrade our grinding equipment for the store opening, although we will also be stocking 2 coffee grinders to encourage our customers to get the full advantage of our freshness policy. We certainly will be adding further machines and accessories to the online store, timed to coincide with offerings in the Aylesbury store - more details in the next newsletter. --------------------------------------------------------------- Power of, and confidence in, the Web --------------------------------------------------------------- In the christmas season, we shipped coffee to a customer in Vladivostok, Russia - ordered on the web, and we delivered a gift to a family in Haddenham, the village where we live, ordered by a customer in New Mexico, USA. Small world, isn't it? There seemed to be less scare stories in the papers about "e-commerce fulfillment" this last christmas, much to the regret of the Daily Mail, and it appears at last that the great British Public are voting with their mouse buttons. Even Anne Robinson couldn't quite accuse the e-commerce retailers of being the weakest link on the Watchdog programme! We are not by any means a "dotcom", but at Hill & Valley we appreciate that the key is confidence. Many existing customers have no hesitation at picking up the phone or e-mailing to check their orders are "under fulfillment" and we hope our harassed voice put no-one off in the run-up to christmas, but instead re-assured them that it is an extremely human interface our end! To extend the confidence offered to customers we applied to acquire the "Which? Webtrader" seal of approval on our site and after making certain modifications to part of the site we received the endorsement just before christmas and the button is now displayed on our home page. We would encourage all customers to e-mail us if they find the interface of the store slightly impersonal or if they have a special request. --------------------------------------------------------------- Espresso Street News --------------------------------------------------------------- With the opening of our retail store, we have decided to focus our mobile coffee bar operations in the areas where we met the most success and were most appreciated last year. We will therefore be unashamedly "horsey" in 2001 and have 40 days booked at Horse Trials and shows within 50 miles of Aylesbury between March and September. Other events will only be taken on after a considerable "vetting" process, but we will announce them on the site in the usual way. --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2 Issue 1 January 2001. Copyright (c) 2001 Hill and Valley Coffee Ltd. Information freely distributable, but must include this copyright messages. Formatted and delivered by m.e.thornton internet "Let us show you how your business can succeed on-line" http://www.methornton.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------- T h e G o u r m e t C o f f e e N e w s l e t t e r From Hill and Valley Coffee Ltd. --------------------------------------------------------------- Web: http://www.hillandvalley.co.uk E-mail: roaster@hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk Fax: +44 1296 339425 Tel: +44 1296 482708 Mobile: +44 468 028021 Address: Hill and Valley Coffee Limited 7 Bessemer Crescent, Rabans Lane Industrial Area, Aylesbury, Bucks. HP19 8TF. Privacy: http://www.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk/privacy.html