--------------------------------------------------------------- The Hill and Valley Gourmet Coffee Newsletter --------------------------------------------------------------- This issue -:Range Update :Great Taste Awards :Roasting Method :Factory Outlet News :Tip of the Month :Restaurant Diner Promotion --------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Coffee lover, Welcome to the Hill & Valley Gourmet Coffee newsletter. It's our intention to send out this newsletter monthly at least and hopefully we can stimulate your interest in brewing and drinking the best coffee you can find. Best Regards Charles Massey Hill & Valley Coffee Ltd roaster@hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk Phone: +44 1296 482708 Fax : +44 1296 339425 Mobile: +44 468 028021 --------------------------------------------------------------- Range Update --------------------------------------------------------------- As promised we have now extended our range with some fine new crop coffees. Our policy will be to diversify as business increases, but we do not intend to desert the tried and trusted favourites. We are also in the process of re-categorising our coffee catalogue into: o Our House Blends - our blend ideas for all occasions o Speciality Single Origin Coffees o Blenders - additional competitively priced coffees for blending and "stretching", including robustas. o Seven Wonders - we will gradually acquire coffees to create a range of seven truly exceptional or unusual coffees that pass our taste test. These coffees will not be marketing gimmicks like some you may find on your supermarket shelves, but we will atempt to bring you rareties of taste and origin. It will take time and we may lose some along the way, but there will never be more than seven. They will of course be premium-priced as some of them cost a fortune as Green. The site will be updated shortly but the four main additions not currently on the site are: ---- First Wonder - Celebes "Old Brown Kalosi" ---- We thought it was difficult to improve on our favourite Toraja by giving it the "custom house" treatment. We were wrong. Aging coffees in green bean form by up to three years has been a tradition in Indonesia since the Dutch colonial days. The UK market has been familiar with Old Brown Java and the Dutch with Sumatra "Old Brown" for ages. As the Green Bean fades it turns a teak brown, rather than yellowing like a washed arabica. If the process is handled correctly (and it often is not), the coffee deepens in flavour and gains only a slight mustiness as it ages. With the current situation in Indonesia, these properly aged coffees are all but disappearing, but we have managed to acquire one for our Seven Wonders range, and it is easily the most impressive dark roast coffee we have tasted this year. (Dark City Roast) ---- Kenya AA - Main Crop Café Primeur 2000 ---- Our latest Kenya arrival possesses all the hoped-for features of a Grand Cru. The cleanest flavour backed by a rich tone and winey acidity - it matches the standards set by discerning Scandinavian and German buyers who monopolise the auctions for the rarest lots in Nairobi. (Medium Roast) ---- Tanzania AA Mondul Estate ---- Rarely have we tasted a Tanzanian Coffee with such flavour and character. All the aroma and body of the finest Kenya, but without the acidity which some find displeasing. For any occasion. (Medium Roast) ---- Java Pancur Estate ---- An alternative word for new age coffee in the USA and a web programming language - but our estate selection keeps to tradition. Clean and fresh, and with a caramelly depth and low acidity that keeps you refilling the cup. Another excellent blender with more acidic delicate coffees. (Medium to Medium Dark Roast) Home roasters in particular may wish to send e-mail requests in for any of these coffees for early shipment. --------------------------------------------------------------- Great Taste Awards --------------------------------------------------------------- We had some quite staggering but extremely gratifying news last week. We entered our Celebes Toraja Dark Roast into a gourmet food competition, in blissful ignorance of it's importance and without even knowing who we were competing against. Here is a copy of the press release we had to make a week later. Needless to say most of you know this stuff already! View the release at: http://www.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk/great_taste_awards.html -- New Speciality Coffee Roaster scoops Gourmet Food 'Oscar' -- Aylesbury based Hill & Valley Coffee has walked off with the gold medal at the Great Taste Awards 2000 sponsored by the Guild of Fine Food Retailers. Hill & Valley Coffee's Celebes Toraja Single Origin Dark Roast beat off competition from major national brands such as Taylors of Harrogate, Nairobi Tea & Coffee and The Coffeehouse to take the coveted gold award at the week-end. This award comes exactly six months to the day after Hill & Valley Coffee launched their business on Dec 23rd 1999. Basing their business on many small speciality coffee roasters in the USA, Hill & Valley Coffee is a locally focused business owned and managed by Charlie and Debbie Massey who live in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire. Charlie brings over 20 years experience to the business as an international coffee trader and green coffee buyer. Hill & Valley Coffee has been conceived and created to fill a gap in the market that Charlie identified during his time in the coffee trade. Charlie says - "I began to realise that even premium shop bought coffees did not compare in flavour to the samples we had roasted each day for the cupping room. Most people do not realise that coffee has to be regarded as a fresh food even in roasted bean form. That is why when we created Hill & Valley Coffee we decided to only roast to order and not to hold any stocks of finished product. In that way buyers can get the full range of subtle flavours from our personal selection of the world finest coffees." "Micro-roasting in small batches and serving a very local market is the key to us achieving the shortest possible time from roasting oven to cup thus preserving flavour. I am convinced that this method was the key factor that set us ahead of the field in The Great Taste 2000 competition. We also print the roasting date on every packet, which, I believe, makes us unique." Believing in a direct relationship with its customers Hill & Valley Coffee retail operations are conducted through the Internet via the website (www.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk). The site features an online store but also much information about the company as well as an opportunity to subscribe to the bi-monthly gourmet coffee newsletter. Local customers are encouraged to phone the roastery with orders to be collected or they can buy a selection of the full range from Jordans of Thame, Oxfordshire or visit the 'Factory Outlet' stall on Wednesdays at Oxford Gloucester Green market. The gourmet food section of Waddesdon Manor Gift Shop will be offering four coffees from the Hill & Valley range from next month. Debbie says:- "The internet allows small speciality food businesses such as ourselves to contact customers directly at a manageable cost. We have also approached a selective group of local independent Fine Food retailers who treat our product sympathetically and benefit from our low minimum orders and regular deliveries." "The restaurant side is something we now want to move ahead with. We are interested to talk to any coffee conscious restaurant owners in our region. We offer an extremely personal service to independent restaurants including guidance through the minefield of coffee machine selection. We can give a restaurateur the means to send customers away delighted with the last thing they tasted from the menu. So often the coffee is a disappointing anti-climax to a good meal. Hill & Valley Coffee provides a great taste and a good story to end the meal with." --------------------------------------------------------------- Roasting Method --------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to a trawl of the web, I have discovered a "new" roasting method, that suits my machinery here better, involves six different stages and obliges me to take around 30 minutes per batch. We believe that the improvement in flavour retention, particularly in dark roasts is dramatic and will be posting the full method on the website soon. Certain features of the method make it impossible for a large commercial roaster to imitate and it makes me wonder how they have got away with the marketing spin that "big is better" and "branding is best" for so long. --------------------------------------------------------------- Factory Outlet News --------------------------------------------------------------- We continue to run an increasingly successful factory outlet stall at Oxford Gloucester Green Market on wednesdays. It is a mutual learning process and I can honestly say my coffee knowledge broadens a little each week. Some more insights and anecdotes. - Almost every American Visitor over the age of 30 who passes the stall is speciality coffee aware, knows what they like, buys on the net and hates Starbucks. They nearly all buy as well. The lastest was Heidi, from Alaska, who buys Peets Coffee at home on their 3 month programme - must check that out. - I have learned all I ever need to know about the traditions attached to coffee in Jamaica and the Blue mountain. Having never visited the Caribbean I was surprised to learn that Jamaicans brew their Blue Mountain Coffee, Jug style, by leaving it to steep overnight, pouring off the coffee and warming it the next morning!!! - The Decaf question. It's always 2 questions. Do you have any decaf? Is it the clean method? - Markets are full of senior citizens. Most of them know far more about the virtues of fresh food than the supermarket generations. They expect to inspect what they buy and talk about it with someone who understands it. They resent paying premiums for goods sold "loose" as gourmet products in glossy up-market premises. They love "fresh roasted" and "taste before you buy". Didn't we lose something somewhere in the so-called age of choice?? Maybe the Web will become more like a street market and less like an online supermarket - let's hope so. - "Will you promise to be here every week" and "don't leave" are pretty good for the ears when you're building a new small business in a niche! - "What type of coffee is this?" always get's the answer "Actually that's raw green coffee, let me explain". How can we have accepted for so long to have been kept in the dark about the realities of production of a food that the majority of us consume every day, nearly half of which is processed by one company in this country? - "I didn't know Indonesia grew coffee", but you will not forget in a hurry, he thinks handing over a sampler cup of Kalosi......... - "What type of coffee do you like?", "Oh, I'm not sure but not bitter........ --------------------------------------------------------------- Tip of the Month - Avoiding "Bitter" --------------------------------------------------------------- What is bitter though - aha? My impression is that this ubiquitous insult to our coffee brings shame on the coffee roasting and serving communities. The grower can produce many defects in the bean, but "Bitter" isn't one of them. And you don't get it in the spoon from the golden jar, do you? Talking to customers in the last 8 weeks has shown me what it can be....all avoidable easily. o Badly prepared espresso mixed with or without scalded milk. o Poor roasting technique with dark roast blends. o Re-heated coffee - everywhere. o Bad (too hard) water. o Old Ground Coffee o Confused with acidity - sour? Vote with your wallet - never accept bitter. --------------------------------------------------------------- Restaurant Diner Promotion --------------------------------------------------------------- Buying on the net is great, but it would be better without the credit card part, wouldn't it? I don't mean pay a different way, I mean don't pay at all. Here's how - we at Hill & Valley are looking for sympathetic restaurant and coffee bar customers who would like to feature great speciality coffee on their menu. Preferably they should be within an hour and a half of Aylesbury (that includes most of London and the South East and the Midlands), but we'll look at others. What's the coffee like in the restaurant or bar you use? Do you know the owner well enough to make a referral? We will increase coffee sales in any restaurant or coffee bar we go into and we have not yet lost a customer, but acquiring restaurant customers cold is very time consuming, and we are currently only following up warm leads who are open to a change. If you think you know someone like that and are willing to be an initial contact point send us an e-mail to: mailto:gastro@hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk The benefits for you are as follows: - A free pack of coffee immediately following my appointment with the restaurant / bar. - Should the restaurant / bar become a client, you get a free pack of coffee every time they order 6 kgs of beans (that's the standard case size). - The restaurant will get plugged by us everywhere and soon on our website. You will get to drink great coffee there everytime you go there! A restaurant that really cares about their coffee is likely to care about everything else as well! Like most win / win / win situations, it can be difficult to set up but could be extremely interesting for you, I think. So let's just demonstrate the win / win / win. For anyone living west side of London, our latest customer is a small, but excellent coffee house in Ealing (called Munsons at 71A St Mary's Road, not far from South Ealing Tube and Thames Valley University). Pan, the owner, pulls espressos like it should be done, David Schomer style, and technically they are some of the best you will taste in London. His homemade cake and ciabatta panini are excellent and he has the largest range of chilli sauces I ever saw. His brewed coffee (dog-roasts) comes from us and he'll probably soon be making his own espresso blend with us. Give them a try - you will not be disappointed, otherwise I will pick up the tab. They are open 7 to 7 weekdays and 8 till 5 (I think) saturdays. You win - best cup of coffee that day. Pan wins - your money in his till. I win - I sent him a customer and made you happy!! For more info on our approach in the commercial sector, please look at Gastro section on the website: http://www.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk/gastro.html --------------------------------------------------------------- Espresso.street news --------------------------------------------------------------- June was our busiest months so far with a total of 13 days events. Several days we excelled ourselves and managed to fit two events into one day... MarkYate Horse Trials took place in beautiful surroundings and was definitely a record event for serving espressos. Over the two days we got through 4Kg of espresso beans and top espresso customer of the weekend was Course Designer Jonathan Warr whose caffeine intake must have doubled on the Saturday alone. Event riders are a dedicated bunch of folk competing in all weather, they love our coffee and have our total respect and admiration! Thame 2000 festival ran between June 17th through to June 25th and espresso.street attended two mid week evening events aimed mainly at teenagers. The fashion show was well attended and despite it being a warm evening many youngsters tested out our range of coffees and we had to stifle a laugh when a young lad asked for just 'an extra double shot' without actually having the espresso drink to put the 'extra double shot' in!! We were also available at the last minute to attend their Picnic and Fireworks Concert, which was a cross between 'Last Night at the Proms' and November 5th. This was most enjoyable and is exactly the sort of event that espresso.street is made for! At Purston Manor Horse Trials we teamed up with the caterer Food for Thought and met up with all our espresso-loving friends again and many large lattés and cappuccinos were sunk towards the end of the day as the awards ceremony took place. July will see espresso.street at the following events: July 16th Aylesbury High School 40th Anniversay Garden Party at Lord Carringtons home, Bledlow Manor July 18th-19th Great Missenden Horse Trials July 21st-23rd Netley Marsh Steam & Craft Show, Southampton July 27th-30th Guildford Festival Hope to see you at one of the events? --------------------------------------------------------------- +++ Subscriber information - site copy +++ --------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading the Hill and Valley Gourmet Coffee newsletter. You can receive this newsletter regularly by e-mail by subscribing at http://www.hillandvalleycoffee.co.uk/ Issue 4 July 2000. Copyright (c) 2000 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