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So stupid. 250 pounds of beans were harvested. That is less than 2 (150lb) bags of coffee. This is pure novelty. Just because someone can get a coffee plant to
by reillyse 9y ago
So stupid. 250 pounds of beans were harvested. That is less than 2 (150lb) bags of coffee. This is pure novelty.
Just because someone can get a coffee plant to grow coffee in California does not mean the coffee will be any good. Coffee grows in a lot of places, really good coffee takes particular terroir to grow really well. E.g. low grown coffee generally doesn't taste very good and altitude alone isn't the answer. The combination between altitude, soil, climate(cold at night, hot in the day) makes the bean develop slowly and generates more flavour. This is not speculation, this is information that coffee agronomists understand.
So, it's totally ok for somebody to sell expensive coffee as a novelty. What is disappointing about this article is it extrapolates from a sale of 250 lbs of beans to a "Gold Mine", implying that other beans grown in California might be sold at a similar price. They won't be, because they will likely be very poor quality. With the extremely high costs of production of the coffee, it likely won't be profitable except as a novelty.
- ACow_Adonis 9y agoI admit, I didn't read the article, but that's primarily because upon seeing it my first thought was exactly along the lines of yours: "wait, how can that be true, California doesn't have the climate/conditions to grow good arabica coffee. Is this going to be some robusta nightmare?". And it's not even just water, but temperature, soil, the whole works. Glad to see my intuition seems to be on target...
- adadad3442 9y agoYou didn't read the article carefully enough- the 250 lbs refers to the output of one specific harvester, not the output from all 30k coffee trees in CA.
- Retric 9y agoI great conditions a coffee tree produces an annual yield of 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of roasted coffee. So we are only talking about ~250 bags of coffee. Which is still nothing.
- reillyse 9y agoNope. “Last year, the 24-member coffee cooperative harvested 250 pounds of beans.“ So 24 farmers harvested 250 lbs, all of it bought by the one roaster at $60 /lb. Coffee plants take 18 months before they start producing harvestable amounts of cherry.
- dmix 9y agoSo $15,000 (250x$60) is a gold mine? I have a feeling this won't scale...
- lostlogin 9y agoThat’s some crazy expensive coffee. If I buy the most expensive coffee the importer brings in here is (copy paste) GUATEMALA FINCA EL SOCORRO YELLOW BOURBON $20.70NZ (which is $15.28 US). In that sort of price range are some fantastic coffees - I struggle to see how something 4x more expensive could be that much better. My go to is Ethiopian Yirgacheffe which is a few dollars cheaper at NZ $17.50.
- reillyse 9y agoI shipped that coffee last year, tasted awesome:)
- a012 9y agoHN is awesome, even you get in touch with people who deliver your coffee.
- a012 9y agoTry Panama geisha from Ninety plus, it's much more expensive and better taste as well (depends fully on roaster). I've tried Hawaii Kona exclusively from UCC farm, and Blue Mountain genuinely from Jamaica, both are better than the rest but still not satisfied with the price. Edit: I didn't mean to compare Guatemala vs. Panama coffees, just noting the price range.