multiple companies or stick to one???

[luvncoffee]

What is your opinion on coffee roasters?? Do you carry one company or multiple. I've heard pros and cons either way. I have found also that some roasters frown on a shop carring more than one company. one point I heard is ..You wouldn't go to a wine shop that only carried 1 type of wine, why would you go to a coffee shop that only carried one brand of coffee?? Feed back appreciated. Im openinga coffee shop and I'm trying to figure out what is best. I have my own opinion. :roll:

 

[morrisn]

Roasters

We only deal with one roaster, a local micro roaster. We researched all the different roasters and choose the one with the best product. We order in the morning, the coffee is roasted that day and on our doorstep the next morning. I feel you have to be loyal to one roaster to receive their loyalty in return. If we have a special event that promotes the product they supply us free product to help.

 

[Coffee Guy]

Hey luvncoffee:

In my humble opinion, I feel you should only feature one coffee. There are no advantages for you to carry multiple coffees unless you are a supermarket that has coffee displays and bins. After all they make additional money from these coffee companies for shelf space, etc. Supermarkets don't have to concern themselves with customer loyality only sales. You however must fine tune your market and serve and educate your customer on a coffee that you are proud to feature. Besides you don't want to start off on the wrong foot, i.e., differences in quality, roasting, taste, price differences, and the level of support to name a few. Truthfully, it is a two way street; if your roaster is good, they will take care of you properly, but you on the other hand must do the same for them especially if they have invested the time in assisting you with getting started and supporting you when things are tough. It's really kind of a slap in the face if one roaster does all of the work, and the other one just comes in and gets the business.

So take some of these thoughts in consideration when you finally select the roaster of your choice. :grin:

 

[Panini Guy]

We deal with one roaster. We selected ours because they had the national rep we were looking for regarding espresso and had access to estate-grown Latin American beans as well as great beans from Indonesia and Africa.

As it is we use three grinders just for that one roaster (a Swift with regular/decaf and a Super Jolly for a second blend or "guest blend". To feature additional roasters would require more grinders in order to have everything dialed in perfectly. You can't just change out hoppers.

Our roaster also provided us with significant training and also got us great deals on our equipment, so there's more to it than just coffee. We're part of the "extended family". It would take a lot to lose us as customers.

That said, we have used and will continue to feature a "guest blend" very selectively - maybe only a half dozen times a year. We use it when we're "gifted" with something we want to share (i.e. we had a very rare Counter Culture Kenya AA Tegu Lot 182 recently) or when we just can't get what we want - an example is next week, we had to go elsewhere for a Chiapas-grown Mexican organic for Cinco de Mayo because our roaster was out of Mexican.

The "guest blend" also works for us by elevating our rep for featuring the best coffees from everywhere, even if we only do it once in a blue moon - it shows we know more than the average bear and our coffee geek customers enjoy it.

 

[ElPugDiablo]

Kenya AA Tegu Lot 182

That stuff was unbelievable.