How I order coffee by mail and feel good doing it
I have issues with ordering coffee by mail. Freshness, cost and environmental impact are all factors that effect my decision making process while buying beans locally. These same issues become magnified when they are attached to the decision of what I should buy and whom I should buy from, when I am purchasing a bag of beans that is going to be delivered.
Firstly, the issue of freshness. Freshly roasted coffee is always the best coffee and that freshness has a short life-span. If you care about flavor, ten days is the upper limit. Drinking 11 day old coffee isn’t a threat to anyone’s life, to be sure, but, just as there is no wine conneisseur that is going to drink a glass of wine from a bottle that has sat open for even a single day, I am not going to pay premium prices for premium coffee to drink a cup bereft of all the nuance of flavor for which it was bought. Chances are, if the beans on the counter are approaching that ten day limit, everything that made them special in the first place is perilously close to being past its prime.
Another issue I have is the cost of shipping. If freshness is an issue, then time is of the essence. Faster shipping is costlier shipping, and I often find myself wondering weather it is worth the premium — especially when it is being added to the premium I am already paying for the beans themselves — to get such and such coffee from such and such geographically remote roaster, in a timely enough fashion to stave off the withering effects of age.
One of the reasons I feel good about spending the money I do on good coffee, is that, by doing so, I feel I am buying a product from a company that is authenticly contributing to sustainable agricultural and economic practices in parts of the world where the development of such practices is sorely needed. Shipped or not, the coffee I strive to purchase comes from people who are interested in practices that further the economic development of the people from whom they buy their beans and who are also contributing to practices that promote environmental sustainability of those places from which they source their green beans. So that’s that but my concern is also on the other end of the transactional continuum and, so, centers around how, my asking someone to fetch me one little bag of coffee from the other side of the country and place it on my doorstep, compliments or does not complement those same environmental and economic efforts.
Despite these misgivings, I believe there are ways to satisfy my curiosity and fascination for good coffee in all of its variety and still come out of the experience with my ideals intact.
Freshness counts
If you care about the myriad different nuances of flavor you can find in meticulously sourced and skillfully roasted coffee, you should care about freshness. With few exceptions, I have found that the unique flavors that I am paying premium prices to savor, perceptibly wither as each passing day goes by. That amazingly delicate acidity, pronounced ethereal aroma or full mouthfeel can turn wrenchingly sour, vague and nondescript in a very short amount of time.
The importance of coffee freshness has been drilled into me over the years. It was Peet’s — where ten days is the limit beyond which roasted coffee is deemed unworthy for sale — that initially introduced me to the idea that freshness had any association with coffee. To my understanding the ten day rule was a standard set down by Alfred Peet himself, back in the day, during his crusade to change how people thought about coffee — both as a drink and as a perishable food; after all, his eponymous business began in the same melieu as Alice Water’s now, legendary restaurant — Chez Panisse — in the East Bay’s “Gourmet Ghetto”, where the focus was on freshness and respect for ingredients was paramount. Peet’s follows the same rule today, just as it did over forty years ago. In fact, it is the one standard of quality you can still count on when you walk into any one of the, otherwise, ersatz modern examples of Alfred’s original vision.
This idea, that the freshness of one’s coffee was of paramount importance, became emphasized even further when I discovered Blue Bottle Coffee. Here I was thinking that ten days was a touchstone for quality in the industry and Blue Bottle came along and upped the ante. At Blue Bottle, three days past the roast date means curtains for a bag of coffee. “Three days?!”, I thought to myself. “Insane”. A bit eccentric, at best, impractical, at worst, I remember myself thinking. I also remember thinking that it was impossible that a successful business could live by such an extreme standard; to survive for very long without some sort of compromise. Three thriving farmer’s market carts and an equal number of successful cafés has proven my initial skepticism to have been groundless, though.
The high cost of freshness
Living in the San Francisco Bay Area as a coffee snob, it is easy to become spoiled. We have easy access to some high quality coffee roasters. Within a ten mile radius of where I live, in Oakland — those miles being easily and efficiently traversed by way of public transit — are three incredibly high quality roasters: Ritual Roasters, Blue Bottle Coffee and Four Barrel Coffee. These are “the holy trinity”, that I have traditionally relied on, to satisfy my obsession with coffee. Both Blue Bottle and Ritual have multiple locations in this same area that offer beans for sale. I could take a trip to buy beans, leave and be back within an hour and a half, if I was so inclined. On my way home from school, on an errand or day trip to San Francisco, even on a whim, good beans from roasters I respect are easy to come by with little effort or expense. Like I said: spoiled. I am paying a premium for good beans. I am not paying a premium to get those beans to me.
Shipping is a killer. It can be the bulk of the cost one incurs when ordering many things that need to be delivered to you. It is not difficult, with shipping, to spend, at least, twice as much money as you would normally, for a single bag of coffee beans just for the luxury of it being placed on your doorstep for you. With coffee at least, it ends up adding another layer of risk to your purchase, especially, when you have never before bought beans from a particular purveyor. Are these beans going to be worth the inflated cost? Is this hesitant feeling I am experiencing as my mouse pointer hovers over the “finalize order” button an omen? Am I going to regret this? Impossible to know, really, until the rim of the cup finally hits the lips.
One measly bag
And what about the societal and environmental concerns? When I buy beans from a local purveyor it is usually as a part of my regular, daily activity. It’s on my way back from school, say, or in the middle of a trip somewhere or as a part of a planned excursion to sample what a particular café has to offer. Often, I am taking public transportation when I pick the beans up. Where I live, I don’t need to go too far out of my way to find, what I think, are some of the finest beans to be had in the country. These beans have already made an incredible voyage from their place of origin to the shelves of this or that roaster. How large a carbon footprint am I leaving when I place an order for a measly twelve to sixteen ounce bag that has to travel hundreds, maybe thousands of miles to get to my door? I’m buying from people I trust are acquiring the raw ingredients of their trade in a reputable fashion; that the farmers are being paid well, that land is being farmed in a sustainable way, that the people who are deserving of credit are getting their due. Is all of this effort, on the part of the various links in this long production chain, being undone by my ordering a little bag of beans and having it delivered, just for me, half way across the country?
The spice of life
Half way across the country, some roaster I may never visit, has managed to get ahold of a crop of beans that I cannot get here in my, admittedly blessed, neck of the woods. It’s a special crop, exclusive to this roaster by way of a singular relationship between the grower and the roasting company’s coffee buyer. It is a unique product brought into fruition by an inimitable relationship. What coffee is this? I don’t know. I have a problem with mail ordering coffee.
Even in the coffee wonderland that is the San Francisco Bay Area, we don’t — we can’t — get everything. We aren’t the only oasis, in a country with a burgeoning coffee culture, that is hungering for the unique and the special. Think Portland and Stumptown or Chicago and Intelligentsia. Think New York and Gimme! Coffee. Think about not being able to taste all of those wonderful flavors. I’d rather not.
There’s a problem with my problem. There are only so many coffee buyers that can get ahold of that single micro-lot of coffee from that one family in that tiny district of some far off country that lies along the circumference of our planet — that ideal coffee growing region bounded by the Tropic of Cancer and that of Capricorn. It doesn’t matter how tenacious any one buyer is. There may be many special coffee crops out there but, often, there is not much of any one special coffee crop, such that everyone can get their hands on even a little bit of it.
And, so, I have to rationalize my purchases made with roasters half way or, even, all the way on the other side of the country if I am going to be able to enjoy the variety of coffee available to me. I need to take all of these factors into account if I am to satisfy my desire to experience flavors unavailable to me in my own backyard. How, then, do I, indeed, justify a purchase of beans from a distant source?
