Vacuum packaging does not make coffee last forever, in fact there have been some coffees that we've pulled from shrub because of them showing a little wear on the cupping table. Tremendous efforts have been put into better understanding the various elements that contribute to the production of a truly remarkable coffee. It's now commonplace to see not only the roast date and geographic specifics on a bag of roasted coffee, but also statistical information that reveals cultivation and processing specific details.
We offer two types of packaging for Coffee Shrub: vacuum packed bricks and bulk shipping in a GrainPro-lined burlap bag. Due to the different levels of time and care spent in these two methods, and the volume they respectively allow, we can offer two levels of pricing.
It can be pretty hard during this time of year to find really nice Central American coffees, but we currently have 5 different CA's including a DCF and a new Guatemala offering, Guatemala Finca Florencia Caturra.
I uploaded a video to youtube about green coffee freshness and seasonality, basically a spontaneous monolgue of random thoughts, while I was roasting a bunch of super-fresh Guatemala samples. It's a "talking head" video, not very exciting, but I hope there are a couple ideas of use there... -Tom
Happily, there were quite a lot of Shrub orders before the holiday and all throughout. Thanks! On the flip side, we are working on limited hours and with a bit less staff. The main man who has been fulfilling your orders, Josh, is out, and with the rest of the crew so busy with Sweet Maria's shipping, I (Tom) stepped in to do all the packaging. And it was a lot of packaging at that! (My sample roaster is being retooled anyway, so there was a cupping room hiatus).
Hey Shrub friends, we are curious about how the vac-packs are holding up in shipment. We are especially wondering about large orders and cross country orders. Any feedback would be much appreciated. If there are problems, we want to be sure that we address them straight away. Cheerio - Chris
Thanks to those who placed orders - they are on the way, and I am sorry to say you are going to be our guinea pigs as well, polled about when the box arrives and how it is packed. We have put a lot of work into choosing the vacuum pack material and the size of the packs. It's easy to ship a couple pounds in a vac bag, but much more difficult to do 15 lb. packs. And UPS is brutal on heavy boxes. We'll be moving to a metalized nylon bag this week - we liked clear nylon so you can see the coffee, but we want the strongest seal possible.
