--------------------------------------------------------------- The Hill and Valley Gourmet Coffee Newsletter --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 3 Issue 1, February 2002 This month -:Happy New Year :Single Origin Range :The Coffee World :Feedback --------------------------------------------------------------- Firstly Happy New Year to everyone. Hopefully no-one has been foolish enough to list "cut down on my coffee intake" as a new years resolution. A better one would be: "only fresh coffee will do in 2002". --------------------------------------------------------------- Single Origin Range --------------------------------------------------------------- Hoping you've all gone for the latter, we've stocked up with coffees to make our range larger and more diverse than ever, without compromising anything on quality. Here is a brief resume of what is now available in single origin coffees. - East Africa Kenya AA-main crop. Probably our last of this coffee until late summer. Make the most of it. Tanzania AA-Kilimanjaro. Much better than just a "Kenya substitute". Ethiopia Yirgacheffe. The most popular coffee of the week at The Coffee Tree last month. Ethiopia Sidamo. A slightly lighter, less complex cousin of our favourite Yirgacheffe. - Latin America. Colombia Medellin Excelso Especial. Simply the best Colombian you'll find this side of the North Sea. Costa Rica Riserva Presidente. We know how much you like it by the reaction when it goes out of stock. Guatemala Antigua Capetillo. Volcanoes are in the news right now. Why not taste what they bring to your cup. Guatemala SHB Superior. Currently "Dos Fuegos" Brazil Santos. A reliable blending coffee, but not particularly exciting by itself. - Asia Sumatra Mandheling. A real dark roast classic. Celebes Kalosi Toraja. "The coffee that made Aylesbury famous." Java Pancur. Bye - It'll be tough to find good Java this year so it's a case of taking the best we can find between the estates. Papua New Guinea Sigri Peaberry. The newest, freshest coffee we have. Unique and not to be missed. We still hope to be adding single estate coffees throughout the year - more in an upcoming newsletter. --------------------------------------------------------------- The Coffee World --------------------------------------------------------------- Another new year dawns which promises little relief for the beleagured producers of fine coffee. Just last week those brutal indicators of world coffee price trends, the futures exchanges, took indicative values down to levels not seen since the early 1970's. Whilst abundant sources of "cheap to produce" robusta coffee exist throughout the globe, the more marginal production of the finest arabica loses its attraction year on year. We continue to gladly pay the escalating premiums demanded for such coffees in the hope that producers can ride out the storm and that unwanted over-production of robusta will eventually diminish. As we predicted in a previous newsletter, the price wars have already begun in soluble coffee and generic roast and ground on the supermarket shelves. You'll certainly be able to buy mediocre coffee very cheaply in 2002. Hopefully we will also see an increase in well-informed media coverage which was a notable feature in 2001, and more consumers will think harder about their coffee choices. The press coverage culminated in a 2 page Economist article in mid-December which is by far the best informed article on coffee in general, and espresso in particular, that I have ever read in a UK national publication. Get your hands on it if you can. --------------------------------------------------------------- Feedback --------------------------------------------------------------- We'd like to extend our thanks to all of you, customers or otherwise, who continue to send us valuable feedback on what we are trying to do. As we had expected when we launched Hill & Valley Coffee as a mail order business, most of the contentious issues with customers stem from logistical / delivery problems, either because our roasting schedule misses your hoped for date of receipt or because a courier or Royal Mail fail to hit guaranteed delivery times. Another issue is the "he called and you were out" problem - some of our customers give us details of an alternative delivery instruction in the comments section (eg. leave in next door neighbours Rottweilers Kennel if out) - we write these instructions on the packing and we have reason to assume that this works on the vast majority of cases and avoids the chasing up problem. Please do feel free to pass on your own alternative delivery idea in this way if you feel you may be out at the postman's knock. We hope to be able to adapt our software to send out an e-mail to you on the day your coffee is shipped to help you reduce uncertainty, and we will be working on this in the coming weeks. Please do keep the coffee related questions coming - I try hard to answer as many of them as I can, or refer to other sources of information where I can't. Those of you who have been into The Coffee Tree in Aylesbury in the past 10 months will know that I am ready and willing to discuss coffee for as long as Debbie allows me to! Hopefully we'll see more of you here in 2002. Keep taking the Caffeine! Best Regards Debbie & Charlie Massey --------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 3 Issue 1 February 2002. Copyright (c) 2002 Hill and Valley Coffee Ltd. Information freely distributable, but must include this copyright messages. Formatted and delivered by Trainor Thornton Limited "Let us show you how your business can succeed on-line" http://www.trainorthornton.co.uk?source=hvnews022002 --------------------------------------------------------------- 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: beans@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 ---------------------------------------------------------------