Hi all. I guess I haven’t done a blog entry in a long time. I’ve been thinking about blogging more in the last few months. I think Instagram doesn’t like my posts and I’d love to engage in a more meaningful way than… well.. whatever it is that I do there. If I’m being honest, while I love the utility of it, like being able to say “I’m open today” or “this week’s special is…”, my business doesn’t really need to do that aaaaaaaand maybe there’s something gross happening on that thing all the time? Like whatever I used to find fun about it isn’t there and there’s maybe less space to engage meaningfully there, or at least that isn’t compressed into the rules of what is expected with a tik-tok video or something? And I’m not really good at that stuff anyway… Or I don’t want to work at getting good at it because there’s a lot of work to do in a day and then I have to walk my crazy dogs and make dinner and go to sleep. And be present for my wife, who is fantastic and talented and worth engaging with in real time.
So, I’ve been thinking maybe the new thing is long format blogs, lol… he says into the vacuum of the internet. Anyway, I guess this is a start, albeit it’s like my least favorite topic.
Long time supporters of btc might have noticed that I increased prices … today, January 1st 2025. While the thought has always been there- that maybe it was time to charge a little more for bags- I’ve mostly been able to manage on without doing so. You don’t know this, because you’re not a wholesale customer of mine, but I historically (and even now) charge less than what I would if I had a proper brick and mortar, because it’s mail order, and shipping anything is really expensive. And in a world of greater or bigger roasters than yours truly (yes, I will admit that from the jump and even now, I dabble with imposter syndrome), I’ve often discounted things a bit where I could to “be competitive.” Plus, btc started as a reaction against former enterprises I worked for on the West Coast that exclusively catered to folks with significant wealth. I don’t think coffee should be a classist thing because you don’t need a trust fund to enjoy a good or great coffee. And it’s totally weird to take something from a farmer who is at best maybe just scraping by and then hand it off to someone that is on the opposite side of the spectrum, exclusively. I’m not into it. I like mixing it up with joe (and jane) schmo. I insist, the party is more fun with everyone.
But, for those who haven’t been keeping track of the “C Market" (which moooooost importers and coffee professionals base the cost of coffee off of), the price at which coffee is being traded has been on an upward trajectory and has rocketed the price of coffee for roasters way, way up. I’ve worked in the US’s Specialty Coffee sector since 2009 and I’ve never seen prices this high. I’ve also never seen them increase at this clip. There’s a lot to it and I feel a little out of my area of expertise; there are better folks out there to really break this situation down. But a lot of it has to do with speculation on the price going up. And it’s hard to know where/when it stops. So, I like a lot of smaller roasters, have to raise my prices. There’s no getting around it.
The last 6 years specifically have been a wild journey. Supply shocks, inflation, covid… running a business has been nuts. There are all these buzz words like transparency, supply chain, and sustainability that I’ve used but never really considered the fullest implications of until now. But they’re important concepts. I yearn to operate a business that creates sustainability throughout the supply chain and transparently in a meaningful way. Can a small roaster (I’m the only one here (and sheesh sometimes I really feel it when I talk to myself or engage with the podcast I’m listening to, hahaha)) ever actually do this? It feels like you need to scale up to make these things happen and that’s not really on my radar. Frankly, I’m hoping to just maintain (and record songs no one could like but me). It’s on my mind.
Lastly, the coffee party and making sure everyone’s invited. The answer isn’t cheaper coffee. That was naive of me. And ya know, naive happens. Sometimes its fun. Ah, the salad days. Cheaper coffee isn’t sustainable for the folks growing coffee. Cheaper coffee is a literal pain in the ass to roast and make taste good. You likely have no idea how much work goes into sifting out quakers* by hand after a roast (and that’s not considering what it takes to sift them out at origin… by hand too…) to ensure a coffee tastes good. Ask any roaster; it’s the fucking worst and it will drive you nuts. I know that some of it is inevitable, the gig is the gig. I’ve been doing that for soooooo looooong just to keep costs down. But, I’ve been lying to myself about the affordability of my product. My pricing has always been out of reach for some folks. Sure, I have volume-based discounts (by the way, check out those volume-based discounts!). But a $90 5lbs bag, while a good value in my opinion for what it is, is not necessarily affordable to those who are in precarious financial zones.
To me, the only way to getting folks into the ethical food party (the larger party that the coffee party falls under) involves divesting from things like Amazon, spending money on local business that feed back into a micro economy, demanding that government do more to lower the cost of housing, supporting unions and fair labor practices, and making sure that wages reflect what cost of living in an area, not just scraping by. The idea, by the way, that the US’s minimum wage is still $7.50 is nuts. I’d be really surprised if you could live anywhere on that. That’s completely out of whack with my very rural community in Penobscot County, Maine, where the cost of housing and etc is for sure lower than a lot of the country. Ya know, not to go all Bernie on us, but it doesn’t need to be this way and the US has no shortage of wealth. I’d love to see that disseminated more equitably, so we can all freely enjoy the coffee party, the ethical food party, and our lives in our communities.
So, anyway, the prices on blends went up… ugh.
And in closing, thank you all for the support. I mean it. I love sorta e-meeting you via yer purchases and hearing about what you’re up to, learning about your coffee journeys, or your family’s coffee journey. I really do. Point blank, btc exists because of your support. It could easily not exist. I’m wishing you and yours the best in this new year. There’s so much to do! I hope coffee helps. I’ll do my best to hold up my end of the bargain.
<3
cb/btc
*Not the “friends” but a type of coffee seed that didn’t develop correctly. Quakers don’t roast correctly per say, they can’t caramelize, look pale, and taste like wood or cardboard... they happen. they’re annoying, that’s about it, though.
