--------------------------------------------------------------- The Hill and Valley Gourmet Coffee Newsletter --------------------------------------------------------------- Issue 4 July 2001 This month - :Coffees In and Out :The Coffee Tree's Coffee Tree :Alpenrost and Accessories :Espresso Street News :Crisis in the Coffee Market --------------------------------------------------------------- Sorry folks, but it's that time of the year again when we try to juggle stocks between the crops. We apologise if any of you are currently missing your favourites - normal service will soon be resumed This has meant that the following coffees have disappeared from our range, some for a while, some temporarily : - Tanzania Mondul Estate AA - Kenya AA Main Crop - Guatemala Genuine Antigua Capetillo - Celebes Toraja Kalosi Grade 1 - Java Blawan Estate. The good news is that new 2001 crop coffees are on their way to us across the North Sea, and within a week or so we'll be getting new crop coffees as follows: - Tanzania Fancy AA - Kilimanjaro - Guatemala Fancy SHB "Palencias Peak" - Costa Rica Fancy SHB "Riserva Presidente" The Java Blawan, Kenya AA and Celebes Kalosi have also been re-stocked from current crop lots which have been superb to us. We will be adding current crop Sumatra Lintong Double Picked and India Monsooned Malabar AA at the same time - and both these coffees are already available to our commercial customers. We hope that by the end of the month we will then have re-stocked the catalogue and it will be at it's fullest for some months. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Coffee Tree's Coffee Tree --------------------------------------------------------------- Our shop / cafe in Aylesbury is now into it's third month and we are gradually forcing our independent spirit into the consciousness of our home town. Some of our friends and neighbours already seem to spend a significant proportion of their lives with us and we enjoy watching careers ebb and flow, babies grow teeth and meetings turn into over-caffeinated brainstorming sessions. We also think we are almost ready to accept the mantle as the home hostelry to Aylesbury's Old Town Petanque League when the call comes (I kid you not!). It's life in the fast lane here you know! Of all the significant events in our first 10 weeks or so (the flood, the radio interviews, the first Chocolate Polenta Cake) the most significant by far has been the arrival of our coffee tree. (Having started instore roasting today we can actually claim to be a "tree to cup venue" now ! ) We have to thank Kate, Louise, Matt and Tim at the Oxford University Botanical Gardens for their willingness to send one of their "children" into foster care here in Aylesbury and we will try our hardest to get some flowers and a bean or two - if we actually get a summer here in the UK which allows us to fool Coffea Arabica into thinking he's in the foothills of the Andes and not the Chilterns. If we get a flowering, you'll be the first to know. --------------------------------------------------------------- Alpenrost and Accessories --------------------------------------------------------------- When I say we've started instore roasting the first steps are modest. We've just taken delivery of an Alpenrost drum home roaster at the shop and we intend to become re-sellers of this machine both in the shop and through the web-site as soon as we have done enough testing to be satisfied we can give worthwhile advice on it's operation. We looked at all the other options to supply home-roasting equipment and thought this machine to be most in keeping with a serious approach to roasting as a hobby, just as we feel that Sylvia / Rocky / Oscar are a serious approach to espresso making as a hobby. Now I'm no expert - but the first three roasts have turned out exactly as planned. I'm drinking the Tanzania I roasted this morning and it's just everything it should be. The machines are considerably more expensive than the smaller home roasting machines, but it has the benefits of (a) being a drum roaster (I'm a traditionalist!) it looks and sounds like a 'real' roasting oven (b) being Swiss it seems to be a solid piece of machinery and yet is light in weight and is really table-top (c) it roasts half a pound of green beans in 16-18 minutes. That is a decent quantity for home use and distribution to friends. We are trying to keep the retail price at around 300 pounds including VAT and delivery, with a sample pack of green beans thrown in. If you're at all interested please e-mail us In the meantime, we will be offering our shop customers the chance to have a half pound of coffee roasted for them while they sip their cappuccino and eat a piece of cake. How cool is that?? We will also be adding some economically priced (less then 40 pounds) Emide (German) burr grinders onto the site at the next major update, and we already stock them at The Coffee Tree. We have received many comments that, although the Rocky is a great machine, it is way out of some people's budget especially those that wish to grind without mess at home, without using a nasty blade grinder for use in filter or cafetiere. We hope these little beauts fit the bill. Again any interest and you can mail us ahead of them appearing on the site. --------------------------------------------------------------- Espresso Street News --------------------------------------------------------------- Well we are mobile again! Every weekend this summer we will be in the Oxford University Botanical gardens, except when we have another pre-booked event. It's a haven of calm and beauty just under the Magdalene Bridge in Oxford. We serve cakes and cappuccino with the peace only interrupted by the crash of punt against punt on the Cherwell behind us. And yes they do fall in - quite often actually. Nice place, fun people - great coffee. Horsey events are re-emerging from the chaos in the countryside as well with the Blue Cross Charity show at Burford, Oxon on July 1st the first significant event in our Calendar. Let's hope the mud doesn't come. --------------------------------------------------------------- Crisis in the Coffee Market --------------------------------------------------------------- - a very personal, but for once serious, view It's a bit of a cliche in the newspapers at the moment, but trade in the bean that we all love in one way or another is in a bit of a crisis. Sitting here this evening, the feeling is that the whole coffee world is praying for a devastating crop disaster to get the market out of the fix that it is in. The first "frost scare" has just come and gone in Brazil and the world price represented by the New York futures exchange has gone on the slide again. Today it is possible to accumulate futures contracts representing decent quality Central American coffees at a converted rate of below one pound per kilo for delivery in the autumn. It is impossible to continue to produce high grown arabica coffees to match even the highest historical differentials to these prices, which ironically are determined by a massive over abundance of lower grade Brazilian Arabica and Asian Robusta Coffees. The market has no confidence in the ability of Coffee Producers to impose meaningful export restrictions on themselves to reverse the slide in prices. They have never been able to hold ranks in the past, so why should they now when the over-production is focussed in a maverick exporter such as Vietnam? As for the major importers - these are the Nestles, Philip Morrises, Proctor & Gambles and Sara Lees of the world, major global corporations who have absolutely no incentive to trim the windfall profits that the fall in world coffee prices are throwing their way. Simply put, unless the market finds a way to "marginalise the mediocre" and push these low grade coffees out of production we run a severe risk of many of the world's best tasting and rarest coffees disappearing because their costs of production are the highest and small companies such as ourselves are not able to buy enough of them at "eyes-closed" prices to ensure that their production is sustainable. This would be the ultimate coffee tragedy, throwing into perspective the current brouhaha about Frankenstein coffee, slave trade coffee and true cost of cappuccino. We sincerely hope that, increasingly, being an ethical consumer in coffee should mean being a quality addict, but today virtually all of the ethical coffee products on the market are mediocre at best and divert the consumer's attention away from the big picture. The fact that the share of these products in the market is growing gives me personally no comfort. Until consumers can differentiate by taste in significant enough numbers, there will be no disincentive to produce in abundance at the lower end of the quality scale, where costs of production are the cheapest. (As the bulk of this coffee is grown on low altitude relatively fertile soils, it is also where switching to other crops is probably most viable.) Only in this way can traditional coffee farmers throughout the developing world recover their dignity in striving to produce a fine product that will surely command a high price and give them an ethically fair income. Physical geography alone prevents production of these high grade coffees matching demand, without significant price increases at the farm gate if consumers were to begin to switch. There are rays of hope in isolation - the fall in production in East Africa this year has meant that the highest quality coffees have risen in price totally against the trend in world prices. Discerning consumers in Scandinavia and Germany make it inconceivable to remove Kenyan coffee entirely from blends - this even goes for the global brands operating in those markets. Our desired quality of coffee from Kenya is currently only obtainable at four times the cost of the central American coffees indicated at the top of this section and we are more than happy to pay that price if essential to keep production of it sustainable. If only this situation could become a microcosm of the markets as a whole. But I feel it is but a pipe dream. In the meantime, keep doing your bit - buy premium single origin high grown coffees even at your supermarket if you want to - throw away the soluble jar and the branded blend. Tell your friends - markets have a habit of getting the message..... --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2 Issue 4 July 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.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk E-mail: roaster@hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk Fax: +44 1296 482717 Tel: +44 1296 482708 Mobile: +44 468 028021 Address: Hill & Valley Coffee Ltd The Coffee Tree 11 George Street Aylesbury Bucks HP20 2HU Privacy: http://www.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk/privacy.html