Can large chains offer you a good quality coffee? Or are the family run businesses better in terms of coffee quality?
Let’s see… we have these supermarket chains or big coffee shops that offer like 20 brands and 100 varieties of coffee. And on the other side are some small family run businesses that can bring you one of the finest coffee beans of all the world. What’s my choice? I think that every one visiting my blog regularly knows the answer.
In drinking a Geisha coffee from Peru. The beans were produced in the Santa Teresa farm on the altitude of 1688m. The process of the coffee is natural and the roast level is light. Beans have been roasted on 3rd October 2022. That’s the information that I gain from the label.
And what is the information that you can receive from a big chain coffee distributors? Maybe best before date? But when were the beans roasted? It’s some vital information! How were the beans processed? Where they really come from? Maybe it says “Beans from South America. That’s all.
Interesting fact: Do you know that smaller coffee beans need less time to roast, so they are darker compared to the bigger ones?
I trust my Dabov brand because I know that the owner meets with the farmers and chooses the best beans that will suit his quality standards at a reasonable price.
What about the famous coffee brands, like Lavazza, Kimbo, Starbucks? They need a lot of coffee to meet the huge demand worldwide and they need to buy thousands of tons of coffee beans. But the finest coffee beans usually come into batches of no more than hundreds of kilograms or 1-2 tons max. That’s because the beans are specially selected and usually the finest first grade beans become the so-called specialty coffee and the 2nd and 3rd grade coffee is extracted to the big coffee producers. When they offer these beans, they are usually dark roasted so this quality difference doesn’t count at all.
Once someone gave a bag of Costa coffee beans to us. I was excited and even ground them on my hand grinder. I decided to go for a V60 then and after the first sip, I decided it was better to throw the coffee in the sink. The beans were terribly dark roasted and were very bitter. Not good, not good. Maybe they were gonna be OK-ish on the espresso machine, but V60 was a “nah” for them.
Eventually we decided to give the beans as a present to my wife’s father. He was okay with them.
So yes, specialty coffee is pricier than the mainstream brands, but my calculations show that the price difference will be no more than $20-25 per month. This is with the assumption that we consume about 1kg of beans per month. I’m willing to pay this difference and I love my coffee experience.
See you soon and have a nice day!
I think the large chains can and do sometimes, but I way prefer finding quality small businesses and coffee shops and giving them my trade instead. There is a little coffee van close to my house and another family run coffee shop and country kitchen the next town over - that is where I mostly get my coffee fix.
I think that bigger companies need a good profit margins so if they offer specialty beans, they will either do it at a very high price, or they will have to sell it with some losses.
Hey there!
When looking at the purchasing and sourcing side of the coffee business, I think you are absolutely right. Especially when you take into account the sell-by date vs the grounding date.
For a coffee connoisseur, it's no surprise that a small family-run business would be more appealing to you:)
I think when if we mean coffee shop or Cafe like, I also prefer the smaller family shops. As for the farming, majority of the countries produce coffee in family farms. There are also some bigger producers, for instance Brazil, but even the bigger farms there are some specialty selected beans and batches. So the answer is… I prefer always the family businesses when it comes to coffee!
same for me, for many different reasons:)
Hi there, @mdosev. 😃 Your post is detailed and enlightening about coffee production in both big and small coffee shops. I always thought the big shops go for the specially made coffee but now I understand. The advantage of the small shops and producers is that special care is taken to release the best into the market.
Thanks for sharing. 😊😊
Yeah, small retailers can show you the real link directly to the farmer and the exact type your coffee is! I think that in a huge shop selling world famous brands you can never track your coffee to it origins.
You’re welcome, thanks for the nice comment!
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Small shops definitely have the advantage of being able to sell more specialty beans. Another reason that the large chains can't do that is because of consistency as well. Large chains need to maintain a consistent flavor so they can't buy small batches that have unique origin flavors and seasonal condition notes. If they do buy small batches from many different places with differt tastes then they have to roast the crap out of the beans to remove all of the origin flavors and create a more generic roast taste. But since they roast the crap out of the bean and remove all of their unique qualities, it doesn't make sense to pay more for the beans. They can get away with buying cheaper, lesser quality coffee beans that way.
On another note. I was thinking about the grinder and how your can grind light roasted beans. Is it able to grind them even on a fine setting like what you would use to make espresso? Our grinder will grind light beans if we grind them course (like 28 or higher grinder setting) for drip coffee or V60, just not for fine grinds (14-18 setting) for espresso.
Can yours grind them fine as well like in the 14-18 setting?
Totally get the point for the economics of large coffee producers. With the family ones you expect different coffee anyway, and even from roasting to roasting the flavor may vary a bit.
My grinder settings may be a bit different. The sizes 1-10 are marked to be espresso and I grind all the beans all the way to 0 without any problem at all. Breville/Sage have to messed something very bad with the Smart grinder Pro… the mess with the light roasted beans is quite bad!
I see. Okay thanks for the info. Yeah, I think you're right that they messed something up with the Smart Grinder Pro. Lol
You always learn something new. I didn't know that the smaller or more tender beans were roasted faster. The truth is that when we drink that delicious coffee we often ignore all the extensive process behind it, where there are so many hours of work and dedication.
I learn a lot of facts about coffee constantly. The coffee “ocean” is very deep and you never learn everything about it.