Re: DD v *$ in NYM

My understanding on this, just to amplify what you said, is that DD uses
carefully cupped green for the price that they pay, but that they are
working on a strict budget so that they can't afford (or aren't willing) to
pay specialty prices for their green and this limits the origins and quality
that they can use. As you say, there are bargains out there, certainly in
Colombian, Mexican, parts of Central America, etc. so you can shop on a "C"
contract budget and still come up with a decent blend but if you are
talking about pricier coffees that have a following in Europe (Tarrazu,
Yemen, Ethiopia) or are highly prepped, etc. so that they go at a
significant premium to the "C", you ain't gonna find them in DD's blend.
So it's fair to praise them but not to mistake them for true specialty
quality. They are selling an honest mainstream cup at an appropriate price.

If you look at what Starbucks offers, it does include many of the
fancy-shmancy single origins but as you say they have roasted them all to a
level where you can't tell one from the other anyway. This was done as a
conscious decision to create a distinctive Starbucks "signature" - the
coffee is Starbucks first and Ethiopia or Kenya or whatever second. Anytime
you are selling what is basically a commodity you have to create some way to
distinguish your product especially if you are hoping to fetch a premium
price for it. Starbucks has succeeded wildly at this. Their dark roast,
which rightfully gets criticized by coffee people, is, from a business
point of view a stroke of genius. You could argue that they could have
picked something else more suitable coffee-wise to be their "signature" but
I don't know what. Light roast was already taken as it was the classic
American (especially Northeastern) style for 100 years and so seemed same
old same old. And they sold dark roast as being "Italian" and therefore
exotic and worthy of a premium price.

"fortune elkins" <frelkins@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:24084-438A7541-785@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> here's the only thing i will say on this subject: the greenie we all
> know who sells dd a lot of their coffee is a passionate cupper who
> believes in quality. he has always sold them the idea that they will
> distinguish themselves on carefully choosing coffees based on quality,
> and you see that this strategy is working gangbusters for them.
>
> by aggressive cupping and strong relationships in the industry it's
> possible to find good coffee at alas cheap prices, due to the continuing
> crisis!
>
> dd roasts their coffee a little light so that the good qualities of the
> coffee shine through and they also have strict store policies on how the
> coffee is made and handled.
>
> now theoretically, the mermaid coffee should be of a higher grade; it
> should be of more quality! an interesting fact is that we all here
> happen to know the (different) greenie who sells starbucks a lot of
> green. starbucks cups its coffee at the roast level it intends to serve
> it, i'm told. isn't this interesting?
>
> we might argue that the better qualities the mermaid is paying for may
> well be lost in their roast level! and we all know that they don't have
> such good control of beverage quality in the store!
>
> so there's a reason people perceive one drink to be better than another.
> .. ok, it might be that the dd hot milkshakes do in fact have even
> more whipped cream than the mermaid's, but i can't prove that! <wink>
>


.

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