--------------------------------------------------------------- The Hill and Valley Gourmet Coffee Newsletter --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2 Issue 6, October/November 2001 This month -:Supply Problems :Re-stocking Old Favourites :State of the Market :Hill & Valley's Brand in 2002 :The Coffee Ritual :Cake That :Christmas --------------------------------------------------------------- Again longer than we had hoped between newsletters, but as we re-organise a bit next year hopefully I'll be able to make them a bit more regular. --------------------------------------------------------------- Supply Problems --------------------------------------------------------------- Getting hold of really fine quality coffee is getting harder and harder. One of our two green coffee suppliers had to give up this month as the low market prices and difficulties with supply simply make the role of the speciality importer to the UK unviable. Unfortunately our monthly order got missed as the plug got pulled and at the time of writing we are sending out apologies everywhere to explain why we have a temporary lack of coffee. We honestly thought it better to maintain quality rather than re-cover needs from stocks of lower quality beans held in the UK. In view of what is already on it's way to us, we took the decison not to withdraw coffees from the catalogue, which with hindsight may have been a little unwise. We sincerely hope anyone affected by this amongst you will be patient with us. All orders will be caught up with and shipped as soon as supplies arrive. It will be fresh! --------------------------------------------------------------- Re-stocking Old Favourites --------------------------------------------------------------- We brought forward our autumn order from Stefan in Hamburg so that we will have the great coffees in stock that have been missing for a month or two, notably the superb Central American and Indonesian Coffees that we have been able to source through our German friends. So the following are coming back in: - Costa Rica Riserva Presidente 2001 - Guatamala Palencias Peak 2001 - Java Blawan Estate - Celebes Kalosi "Toraja" - our 2000 Great Taste awards winner. - Sumatra Mandheling Double Picked. We have again run out of Kenya, but have some coffee ready for shipping to us before the end of the year, and do not want to buy from the coming fly crop. Hopefully the 2002 main crop will be more generous in quantity and we can stretch out until then without having to offer something lower in quality. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Market in 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------- With Brazil expecting a massive crop next year and no signs of any reversal in the massive over-production of robusta coffees in Asia, the world market as denoted by futures prices in London and New York has taken another turn for the worse. Today a kilo of green robusta coffee in a European Warehouse will cost you no more than the shot of syrup in your Irish Cream Latte. The multinational soluble coffee producers in the UK can now bring a great bulk of their green coffee in at prices below 30 pence a kilo!! A two- tier market is fast developing where mainstream coffee and fine coffee increasing bear no relation to each other in source pricing and this means that those of us wishing to defend excellence in the cup have to take steps to ensure the sustainability of high grown coffees which cost a great deal to produce compared to average world prices. The degree of misinformation in the market is sometimes staggering and consumers in the UK still see Nescafe and Carte Noir as "premium" brands. The move into mediocre fairly traded and organic coffees does nothing to educate consumers about what they are missing tastewise, but I had better not bang that drum too loudly here. We would be very surprised not to see price wars in coffee again in your supermarkets in 2002, and I have already seen imported Italian roast and ground coffee for sale in Aylesbury at 98 pence per 250 grams. Skillful blenders of robustas and Brazils into "strong" coffees (such as Lavazza) will have very high cards dealt to them by the market in the months to come. Watch those shelves. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hill & Valley's "Brand" in 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------- Of course we would hope that you will keep your own hands away from those shelves and log on to get your flavour-fix. To help you find your way we will probably be heading in the opposite direction from the mainstream market. In Marketing-speak we have no message to convey to consumers who view coffee as a commodity, a basket item. Like in many other farm produced products closer to home we can see where this is all leading in coffee. Just compare your small coffee farmer in the Sumatra Highlands or the small Finca owner in Guatemala to the dairy farmer in the welsh hills. This means we will continue to pay little attention to the prices we pay for our excellent "micro region coffees" and we will not be adding any low-priced blends or reducing prices. Any opportunity profits that we get from, say, buying cheaper Colombia Excelso will be ploughed into buying crazy-priced coffees from the dwindling supply of truly excellent beans. By this time next year our range will certainly feature at least three single estate coffees where we have bought the coffee directly, know the growers, can tell and verify "the story". We will be much more discriminate in terms of quality than the Fairtrade brands but we equally intend to know that the prices we pay make production fully sustainable. The first of these will be an African coffee which we have already committed ourselves to, hopefully before the end of this year, and we are currently hunting for a Latin American and an Asian coffee that fit our criteria. It should be an interesting journey which we hope you will follow with us. The re-affirming of where we are as a brand (God, I hate this stuff) in a changing market has given us a few other decisions to take which we hope will improve the relative value given to our direct customers. We have decided that we really like giving people a nice cup of coffee ourselves so another Coffee Tree will probably be pushing through the soil early in the new year. (Chain we will never be, but 3 or 4 would be nice.) We may be on the verge of creating the first "speciality coffee outlet" in a leafy English Village! Our mobile coffee operation will continue and probably expand slightly next year - cappuccino in a field is good! We are also going to take greater pains to make sure our internet customers understand us better and that we don't leave them short of their fix due to the occasional vagaries of supply. The loser in all this will probably be our wholesale business, especially the hotel and restaurant trade. We've looked very hard, spoken to a few chefs (even Michelin starred ones) and still have yet to uncover any culture of excellence in the so-called hospitality sector. Even for the very best intentioned, coffee remains an item that must be highly convenient to serve and generate a lot of extra profit. Providing a great cup of coffee to end a great meal seems to me to be far, far away from the priority we feel it should be. But we would say that wouldn't we? So we have decided simply "not to play the game". Trying to pass on our expertise in making coffee to front of house staff who see the necessary steps as a chore at best is not something we want to waste much more time over. This means you are unlikely to find a surprisingly mediocre cup of Hill & Valley Coffee at the end of your meal any time soon. Hey do what I do - say no to coffee, make it when you get home / back to the office and tell them why you do that! Our independant coffee bar customers (around half a dozen of them) will still get our fullest support however. We believe in what they are doing and they try their best to make our coffee taste good. It is also good for business when you are trying to draw people away from the Chino-Chains. You will be more likely to see the gold bags in a deli or independent fine food retailer in 2002, however, and we would love to hear from any of you who have already seen them and where. These business owners are usually passionate about food and are our best way to connect to coffee drinkers who do not use the web. We won't be forcing the pace and the range will never be as large as on the web, but provided our freshness criteria are followed, it's a nice business to be in. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Coffee Ritual --------------------------------------------------------------- The more we talk to people, the more we serve coffee in our shop, the more we are amazed at how ritualistic serious coffee drinking is. Indeed most of us probably get as much positive feelings out of the ritual as we do out of the taste of what we are drinking. The biggest complaint we hear about cappuccinos served elsewhere is that they are unsuitable for "the foam in the bottom of the cup" ritual. (This is often because they are too big, too hot and contain too liitle coffee and too much water.) My own rituals are now "interfered with" by the fact that roasting and preparing coffee is my profession as well, but I have recently realised that I have just replaced old ones with new ones. The morning cafetiere at my desk has been replaced by the first good shot out of the Rancilio in The Coffee Tree each morning. (And that is the main reason why our machines get such a good clean each night!) The after dinner cup has been replaced by the three or four beans I munch from every single roast I do as soon as they are out of the drum. Here at Hill & Valley Coffee we would really like to collect an anthology of these coffee rituals, preferably, but not essentially related to our own coffees and please e-mail your own, preferably colourful, account of your own rituals to us on rituals@hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk We will sift through them and send the best ones out as a special edition of this newsletter. Random appropriate prizes will be awarded! --------------------------------------------------------------- Cake That! --------------------------------------------------------------- In the last edition we congratulated The Bakers (who are bakers) on their handful of gongs at the Great Taste Awards, and Steve and Pip continue to supply us with the most amazing cakes, brownies and biscuits for showing off in The Coffee Tree. Next year we will be adapting some of their products for sending out by mail order with our coffee, but until then you will just have to take our word for it or come into the Coffee Tree. There may something available for christmas mail order but no promises on that one at the moment. However should your christmas shopping budget extend to a visit to that major royally appointed luxury retailer in Piccadilly, I can recommend a slice of cake or cheesecake in their cafe these days. Drink tea with it though, as I can't vouch for the coffee. Quite a coup for a business less than 8 months old I think you'll agree. While they still are willing to talk to us, we're happy to share our roasting premises with a business that's helping us make "coffee and cake" a truly excellent gourmet experience! --------------------------------------------------------------- Christmas --------------------------------------------------------------- We hope to get another newsletter out specifically dealing with our christmas gifts range for 2001 and we hope that this will be out in the early days of November. Once again we will be shipping in one go around 7 working days before the holidays, but we will be closing completely for 2 weeks from Christmas Eve as well so the latter part of the holiday period will be Hill & Valley free zone unless you order in time. The christmas gifts will again include Rumsey's chocolates as an option, but we are likely to feature a slightly smaller range than last year, given the experience of what proved popular then. Of course we do have the Rancilio Silvia and Rocky and the NS Oscar available for those of you who already own a Ferrari and a Cartier watch. Thanks for sticking with this to the end - looking forward to hearing about your rituals. Best Regards Debbie & Charlie Massey --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2 Issue 6 October/November 2001. Copyright (c) 2000 Hill and Valley Coffee Ltd. Information freely distributable, but must include this copyright messages. 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