It's been awhile since I blogged coffee...today's roast is organic fair trade from Papua New Guinea..."syrupy body, very balanced" are the notes. It's decent but not my favorite from Blue Max Coffee. I tend to go for the lighter, more floral quality in the beans and this has a distinct sugary, thicker, heavier flavor that I don't mind. A decent roast from 10/31 though I'd probably return to one of my old standbys. It's less delicate and lacks a bit in the full spectrum that, say, their Guatemala or Kenya has.
But the bigger issue for me this week was that the Blue Max raised their Tuesday special price from $10 to $11. They're still doing their Buy 10, Get 1 Free punch card program. As a coffee snob, however, I'm reaching a tipping point perhaps. They're a great place and I like supporting a small local business. The basic fact is that if you want truly great specialty coffee, you're going to have to spend more and go elsewhere. Blue Max is a perfectly good stepping stone between your basic blend for people who don't know the difference and the single-origin estate stuff when the coffee industry can be more like wine.
The economics of middle path coffee are difficult for consumers though. Do you drink a REALLY good low-end brand and splurge a few times a month on a bag of the luxury stuff? Do you spend your time hunting down the reasonably-priced that "cups" high? That's a lot of work. Do you mail order? Do you join a cooperative buying program? Do you give up and throw your trust behind someplace like Intelligentsia?
This coffee aficionado needs to rethink his strategy.
I'll be honest, I would have far less of a problem continuing to stay with a decent cup of Blue Max rather than aim higher if it weren't for the fact that they've lost sight lately that they are, first and foremost, a coffee house. They've honored customer requests for more nutritional flour in their baked goods, tried table service on weekends, and offer an amazingly large/excellent menu for a hole-in-the-wall place. But there are a few basics that--pardon the pun--grind on me. They have odd weekend hours, they close at 3pm, have packets of sugar and wooden stir-sticks which is entirely not earth-friendly. It can be hard to find a place to sit if you stay.
At what point do you decide to vote with your money elsewhere? Oh, and did I mention they took away the homemade caramel sauce from my favorite pancakes with bananas and pecans?!
It's such a tough formula to figure out...take Bleeding Heart Bakery which we also enjoy. Far superior baked goods but their coffee sucks. And sometimes we leave shaking our head about the way the place is run. As a customer, what keeps you coming back?
When it comes to coffee, I suppose this is one reason people go to Starbucks. Burned, mediocre cup of coffee. But you get that same burned, bad cup of coffee EVERY time you visit!
My guess is this coffee drinker is headed toward a variety of alternatives with online buying seeming to be the most reliable/cheap method of getting good single-origin.
Anybody out there know of a good coffee club for buying into high-rated lots?