Too Much Coffee

Hi,
I recently knew that I was running out of my own roasted beans and would not be able to find the time to do a couple of batches, so I did what we all do from time to time and bought some online. A couple of people had recommended this certain place to me, so I gace it a go.
Visited their website. Had a look though and bought a kilo of one house blend and 3 x 500 gms of other beans. Now, their weebsite, as you would expect pushed the fact tat their beans always are 'fresh'.
I ordered on the saturday and they turned up on the wednesday. The packaging was plain with no one way valves. The labelling had only two things on it. The name of the coffee and a date, in this case the monday after my order and 2 days before it arrived.
Once I received it, presuming rhe date on the bag referred to the date of roasting, I packed the coffee up as I do (not all agree with vaccuum sealing) and thought I would let the beans vent for a couple of days before trying them. After 3 days, no gas had been released at all so I dived in and tried the most popular house blend. After playing around with grinder settings, tamp etc I can only describe the shots as being bloody horrible. thin and watery with no crema and on tasting, as stale as stale can be.
Over the next few dyas I worked my way through the rest and found them all to be lifeless and stale.
I contacted the vendor by email, and made a few comments and even did suggest politely that I thought the beans were older than the date stamp on the packet.
I got a very critical email back telling me I obviously did not have a machine capable of making espresso (I have an Expobar Leva!) and doubtless my tamping was wrong as well. The did tell me that the date stamp was not the date of roasting but the day the beans were actually packaged! They then told me that all their beans were very fresh due to the tur over of their coffee shop and that the beans were never more than 12 days old! They store them once roasted, in open, stainless steel silos!
Ok, this rumbled on and on and is ongoing. Back to my question. What constituted thre word fresh?
Trading Standards do not know!
Point being, the beans they set to me could be in their own words up to 12 days old, and stored exposed to the elements. They do not know because they have no batch stock control system. They seem uncomncerned as to breaking Weights & measures rules as well by incorrect labelling. They seem not in the slightest bit concerned that someone with a reasonable knowledge of coffee should not be bowled over by the rubbish they have charged for and sent out with their name on. So much or them growing their business by recommendation then!
Ok, am I being too sensitive here in expecting 2.5 kg of roasted coffee at a cost of under £30 to turn up and be drinkable.
Up muntil the time 2 weeks ago that TS lifted the unused (most of!) beans, they were still stored under vaccuum and still had not vented anything at all.
Does anyone have any thoughts?

Their response alone would be reason enough for me to never do business with them again. Fresh in regard to coffee beans means that you can make a cup of coffee (espresso or otherwise) that tastes fresh. Twelve days stored in open containers is no longer fresh in my opinion. I'd chuck 'em and chalk it up to a lesson learned. There are excellent sources of truly fresh-roasted beans in the UK!

Ok, am I being too sensitive here in expecting 2.5 kg of roasted coffee at a cost of under £30 to turn up and be drinkable.

No, I can think of several roasters that I buy from that sell decent beans for (just a bit more than) that price - typically roasted to order and delivered next day! What's more I can't imagine any of these roasters giving such a dreadful customer-is-wrong response if i did have a problem.

However, the issue is not price but description. Obviously one might expect a correlation between price and quality for the various beans offered by a good roaster, but they should all be "fresh" if so described! But the difficulty though is with the meaning of the word fresh in this context. Most people can tell whether bread is stale or fresh. Far fewer could tell you the same for coffee. (I suspect most people would be able to tell the difference between a fresh and a very stale coffee side by side, but would not be able to attribute it to freshness, rather than just one cup being nicer than the other.) Many of us on this forum probably have a broadly common set of criteria for what we mean by fresh in espresso beans (and 12 days exposed isn't there.) but it is still a rather qualitative descriptor and nowhere near as widely understood and recognised as freshness in bread. Unless there is a well defined, testable definition used by trading standards then it is open to abuse.

Much more useful are quantitative and easily verifiable measures such as roast dates, statements of process, etc. There are some fantastic roasters in the UK and none of the ones I can think of rely just on vague statements of freshness.

It is indeed disappointing if they will not even consider your disatisfaction. The fact of their insistance nothing could be wrong speaks volumes. If a customer is clearly not a novice in the field in question and the firm makes no representation that they feel the person is being unreasonable, I think that reasonable onlookers would all draw the same conclusions.

In legal terms, I think it would be hard to pursue a claim for lack of freshness, though I doubt this sort of scenario would do anything to enhance the reputation of the company concerned as disgruntled customers nearly always tell their friends and word soon spreads.

As Bruce said, it may be a bitter pill on this occasion, but at least there are other options for your future orders.

Fresh, will of course mean different things to different people. But with the response that you got from this supplier, I would make a note never to buy from them again.

We date stamp our packs, with a "purchase date" mostly so that we have some idea when a customer returns 6 months later (yes it does happen) and says, these don't taste so good.

But we also know that the roast date on our coffees is normally the Monday before the date stamp. On a postal order that would be a certainty.

For a coffee lover, we would gladly put a roast date on the pack and pack according to the customers wishes. Any decent roaster/retailer should do the same. IMHO

Thanks for your thoughts. I have certainly tried many of the UK's considered experts in roasting and am usually fairly well pleased wiith the results. It gives you somthing to aim fo after all!
The reason I brought this topic up, was to highlight the woeful shortages that we in the UK have in legislation. There is no accurate definition of the word fresh in relation to roasted coffee beans. Not as far as any of the Trading Standars bodies are concerned anyway. This in turn means that you cannot pursue a claim for goods being suppled either not fit for the purpose as covered by the Sale of Goods Act.
I was very dissapointed to be treated like a leper for daring to ask about their roasting and storage methods and therefore felt quite at liberty after having tried to appeal to their better nature, to take my case to Trading Standards and Weights & Measures. I have been interviewed, the coffee lifted and they are currently trying to decide the best way forward.
I will not have a leg to stand on with regards to freshness, even thoiugh I have their own testimony thgat they do not know the exact age of the beans sent out, but, because the packing broke every rule in that particular handbook, then I am sure they will receive some form of warning and have to tighten up in that deparrtment.
I did ask for a refund on the basis that stale beans were stale beans. I did inform them of my intention to go to Ts and they laughed in my face telling me that I obviously had not bothered to talk to TS on the phone and had just simply filled in an online form. If I had bothered to talk to them I would have realised that they had done nothing wrong. I of course, did seak at length with TS first.
Well, the old red rag to the bull syndrome took over and, well, once the outcome arrives I will gladly name and shame and tell you what happens.
I have been in business for many years and I think you have to accept that sometimes you get complaints. We all make mistakes but the impertan thing is how you rectify it. I would have been quite happy with a sorry to hear you did not enjoy our product. How can we revert that for you. Instead, I suspect bacause most of their custom is probably latte, skinny latte, double cappas with syrup etc etc, that they get away with serving first class SH*** to an undiscerning public who probably dont know ay better. Many shots when mixed with milk are acceptable, but would fail to stand up on their own!
Thanks for your comments.

It doesn't sound like you're being unreasonable at all, Davey. A pretty appalling way to treat a customer; this just strengthens my resolve to stick with good suppliers, or to home-roast!

This thread reminds me of our now ancient grinder saga. A forum search on 'Tranquilo' should yield information. At the end of the day poor quality does come back to haunt. I hope it all turns out in the end Davey.

We have a cafe close to our office which sells 'fresh' beans. They explained this meant that none of it was more than 3 months old...

Maurice,
I can better that! We have a small deli a mile from me that sells Taylors of Harrogate beans. They are in a storage jars which are topped up if needs be once a year around Xmas time when they tend to sell the most!

daveyb wrote:I was very dissapointed to be treated like a leper for daring to ask

I just want to make a couple of comments about this rant.. 12 days out of roast is actually on average, quite fresh. How much coffee do you think is sold in the world that is within 12 days of roasting - 5% ... that much, really?

You could make a comment on their customer service, but for me it is a little difficult to relate to you experience when it sounds like perhaps you are exaggerating a little. Did they really 'treat you like a leper for daring to ask' etc.?

Perhaps take the time to correct your numerous spelling errors, or call the roasting company back to explain why you think you should have received better service, before you "name and shame".

Jasonscheltus,
as you are not privy to the whole circumstances, I wonder why you feel the need to question my motives? The question of freshness is one for each of us to ponder over as we will all have different ideas.
This was not supermarket coffee but coffee bought from a retailer who claims the highest of standards and freshness, in order to tempt people like you and I to buy from them.
The goods arrived breaking every labelling and Weights & Measures rule going, which is why eventually I passed the whole affair onto both Trading Standards and Weights & Measures.
When a buisness receives a complaint, it can decide how best to handle that. The policy maybe to try and keep the customer happy whether justified or not, or to stand ground and argue. they chose the latter. What came out in the next several emails was that as Retailers, they had very little understanding of the law, and of how to produce a quality cup of coffee.
I gave them every chance to back down from the moral, high handed ground on which they choose to stand.
I will only name and shame if Trading Standards find in my favour. I would not name and shame if they do not as that would not be fair.
I do not mind standing and looking in the mirror on a regular basis to examine myself. Do you ever do that?

Hi guys,

can't say you've been treated properly and I fully understand the reason behind this rant. One thing I cannot understand is why not "name and shame"? they clearly don't really care about what they advertise and on top of that don't really care about customers. Why the hell should you care if the name of the company appears here? They did something wrong, so in my opinion it's ok to say who did it, simply to protect people from wasting their money. It's not bashing for no apparent reason, it's clearly saying 'This and this company screwed up and here's why...'. I'm sure other people can judge for themselves whether there's anything to back such a negative statement or not.

It's one of the things that strikes me the most in the UK, not 'naming and shaming' even though something is clearly wrong. Political correctness gone wrong?

Regards,
dsc.

The word fresh remains exceptionally ill defined within coffee, and there is little to nothing in terms of legislation. If you look at what is practised - 12 months shelf life on ground coffee, often 18 months on whole beans. This doesn't mean that I agree with these limits, but the speciality end of the industry is so small and niche in its demands that we just don't fit within mainstream expectations.

It may be hard for Trading Standards to come to any other conclusion than the coffee could be considered freshly roasted.

Poor customer service is a whole other matter, and I believe in making coffee available as fresh as possible - so please don't put me on the defending side for this business. However a lot of the industry, speciality included, finds incredibly fresh coffee unpleasant, compared to slightly aged coffee (6 to 12 days) and would be hesitant to get to a point where anything older than a week is considered stale (not that this is what you are suggesting either).

I'd venture to suggest if it was that cruddy, it was probably more than 12 days old... Places that get that defensive in their response to customers usually seem to have something to hide.

In my limited experience as a home roaster (30 different coffees??), most coffees seem to be at their best after 2 days. But there are exceptions like Monsoon Malabar that take a week to settle down from the trauma of being roasted and still taste good after 3 weeks. So the TS "not fresh" argument will be quite hard to settle a definition.