This question usually comes to me in the form of an email from a confused customer who has gone to our website looking for a specific coffee they remember loving and then found it missing. Why don’t we have it anymore, and when will we have more?
The very short answer is that we bought some of that coffee, roasted and sold what we had and then the next time we bought coffee, we bought something different. Our typical mix of coffees will usually include those from Guatemala, Brazil, Sumatra and Ethiopia (since those are your favorites), but the specific coffees from these countries are likely to change each time I buy coffee, and sometimes (as was the case recently with Sumatra), we simply can’t get a good coffee at a good price from that origin at all.
As an example, take our wonderful Guatemalan from a year ago, with the not so easy to remember name of Huehuetenango Highland Coffee Presidium Slow Food Project. In this description, Huehuetenango is the growing region within Guatemala (famous for a beautiful citrusy flavor profile), Highland Coffee Presidium is a form of cooperative (the group of farmers who grew the coffee and their processing facility) and Slow Food is a 225-chapter global non-profit dedicated to sustainable farming.
We had that coffee. We loved it and you loved it. When it was gone, I went to get more and there wasn’t any available. Then, knowing you really enjoy Guatemalan coffee, I selected another one, then another different one after that. And now, a year or so later, one of our importers now has a new coffee from the Highland Presidium – but I may or not buy it, because though it is from the same source, it is not necessarily the same coffee.
Lets go deeper.
All coffee growing countries have crop cycles, regular times of year when coffee is growing, maturing, picked and shipped, and here is a link to a simple table showing these cycles for the primary coffee origins. Following picking and processing, coffee is rested for several months at origin, and then shipments begin. When the coffee is in transit to the US, it will show up on offering sheets from the importers. This is where roasters see the specific coffees available, how much of it is available, where it is warehoused and a timetable for its arrival in the US. Here are links to the current offer sheets from importers Café Imports, Zephyr Coffee and Royal Coffee New York so you can get a sense of our starting point for buying coffee.
Once the coffee is in the US and in its destination warehouse (importers store coffee in different parts of the country, most often in cities with large ports), the available quantity is drawn down by purchases from roasters until ultimately that lot of coffee is gone.
But what if other coffee comes along from the same source?
There may be more coffee from that specific source that year, but as the “crop year” (the one year window following picking) progresses, the coffee will slowly lose its flavor. So coffee from the same source but not purchased at the same time will be different.
The coffee could be from the same source from the same crop year, but it could be of a different grade (meaning picked earlier or later in the cycle, fewer or greater defects, before or after weather events, etc.) or from a different part of the farm.
There are also other coffees from that growing area, but all coffees are not alike, though those from a large region (such as Central America) will have somewhat similar character – and this will get more nuanced with coffees from specific subregions within a country.
And for everyone involved, these shipments involve business terms. There has to be enough coffee available at the right time and at the right price for a deal to work for a buyer. For us, a small roaster, quantity is not as much of an issue, but time can be (I need it when I need) and price is always a factor. I won’t even sample very low priced coffee (often from a previous crop year or a very low grade), and at the other end of the spectrum, coffee that costs too much (though extraordinary) could mean that I’d have to sell it to you for $20/pound, and I’d rather not do this (nor, I suspect, would you buy much of it).
In writing this article, I thought about why there is the expectation (or hope) that we will always have the same coffees. I think there are very few products in our world like coffee - that are agricultural, seasonal in nature, scarce or plentiful and that can change substantially from year to year. Wine comes to mind, but I can’t think of any others. We are used to consistency in the products we buy, and we expect those we enjoy to be available the next time we go looking for them.
In coffee, the blends that now comprise the majority of coffee available are often available all the time, but recognize that though the label may say “Sunrise Blend” or something like this, the coffees in these bags are changing all the time. Blends are the good friend of those who are in coffee to make money; the names stay the same, the consumer thinks the product is the same, and in the bag the filler coffees that comprise commercial blends will change like the wind (as their roasters seek lower prices and bland, consistent fillers). So don’t be fooled.
So yes, we may not have your favorite from last time – but please know that each time we buy coffee, we are very selective. If you don’t see the one you loved, please try the next one and chances are good that you’ll like that one too. And if you want to try before you buy, drop me a line. I can send you a sample, or better still, get together with you for a cup.
Enjoy the summer.
