How not to respond to a review of bad coffee (or any review)
It is always wise not to request a review. Or if you do, do not throw a childish tantrum when you do not like what is written.
I am often asked what do I think of a coffee. Why ask? Is it to seek praise? Do not ask if then going to get upset when you have given me a bad coffee.
Last week I was given a V60. It was not good. There were so many mistakes that it was no surprise it was not good.
I was asked to review.
I did, I said it was not good, listed the mistakes, then expanded on what was wrong.
- poor quality coffee
- poor roast profile
- not freshly ground
- not weighed or timed
- lack of skill in use of V60
Although I did not take note one way or the other, probably failed to cleanse the filter.
For V60, the coffee has to be high quality single origin, traced to the farm or microlot.
I was offered medium or dark roast. This is to go back to the Dark Ages. No one discusses coffee in these terms. It will be a light roast, and the roast profile chosen to bring out the best the coffee has to offer, but it then has to have a skilled barista brewing the coffee.
Yes, there are dark roasts. A dark roast is to hide the defects of cheap low quality commodity coffee. It then requires no skill of the barista.
I asked of the Q grade of the coffee. Not known. OK a ball park, above or below 80? My question fell on deaf ears. Not good for a coffee roaster, Q grade of the coffee not known.
The coffee has to be freshly ground, precisely weighed, and that includes the water.
No one serious about coffee would make a V60 with coffee scooped out of a jar ground only God knows when.
Maybe they would learn and improve.
Some hope, I got a rant and abuse.
Sorry you and I weren't able to chat on saturday, I was busy but did notice you were able to get a cup of coffee from our stall, for free!
Thank you for your opinion based blog about us on wordpress, i'm of the view that all advertising is good advertising, strangely your negative views seem to be a solo voice amongst a very large and appreciative audience. It saddens me that you had such a bad experience with us. However, you have given us plenty of areas in which we hope to improve.
You missed out in your review weather or not you actually liked to drink inside the cup, we got everything else wrong but you did take it away with you and I assume you at least tried it. How was it? The other thing you failed to mention was that we were raising money for our charity and that we were out there doing something good in our community.... FOR FREE!!! You see we are not so narrow minded that life is all about a good cup of coffee(though it does help the day start well), we care more about a far bigger picture and I am saddened that you missed that point too.
Do let me know what you thought of the coffee we served you, i read your blog and i was intrigued to find out if you like the actual liquid in the cup.
Review was not negative, it detailed what was wrong and why, and said the coffee was not good. It also said coffee was free, a donation. No one mentioned where the money was going, thus not possible to mention that which is not known.
I assumed the donation to cover the cost of the coffee. Though it could have been a promotion, try our coffee and hopefully will then buy a bag of coffee.
I was probably one of the few to have given a donation, loose change in my pocket, as there did not appear to be much money in the jar.
If they were collecting donations for a charity did they have the relevant permit to request donations in a public space?
If the intention was to sell coffee, then from my persepctive an absymal failure.
I often buy high quality coffee to give to people as a gift or to try. Were I to do so with this coffee it would have been to insult people or at the very least they would think I had lost my sense of taste.
A further rant followed, far worse than the first, now descending into personal abuse and ludicrous accusations.
From everything you have said, both here to me and on your blog, it's clear, Keith, that you have no idea about us. Your opinions are are toxic and you seem to seek to find ill in almost everything you write about. You bad mouth small businesses and charities with no research or effort to understand them or their business, offering nothing by way off assisting a positive outcome, except that you also seem to celebrate the demise of businesses that you deem to be unfit or to be poor coffee outlets. I would urge you to use your opinions for good, to change your approach and to seek out what good is also happening around you, and when you do find a truly poor coffee out there, seek to discover more than what you think you should be experiencing. If you want to offer advice to people do it in a way that people will appreciate, because currently you have a reputation. People do not appreciate you or your opinion or you, your not making friends by doing this you are isolating yourself from good hard working people, who could enrich your life.
The truth is, you have nothing to qualify your abusive stance towards anyone that doesn't use horsham coffee, including us. You are, seemingly, a man with nothing better to do with his life than to offer opinions about things you clearly know nothing about and because you probably have a very small audience, you go unchallenged. You will also go unchallenged because you are a pest and an unqualified one too, so most just can't be arsed wit you.
This all gets me very wound up, I really thought I was better than this but the truth is my life is about standing up against injustice and I find you to be completely unjustified, which is why I am wasting a shit tone of time writing this. Did you know that with our, awful, coffee we have raised enough money to put 40 children through school for a whole year, that's just from what we have made on coffee sales from Jan - May, if we keep going at this rate that will be over 100 children educated in impoverish countries for a whole year. FROM BAD COFFEE!!! amazing - isn't that something to celebrate or write about? You see we know we are better than starbucks, but that's not hard to beat, a 6 year old could do better than them. However, it's not all about an amazing drink for us, it's about changing lives that have no chance without our help. You are not helping this, what you have done so far only seeks to hurt our efforts, and to me that stinks, because you don't care enough to do your homework, or ask a few questions before making up your mind, you just care about you and what you get out of this.
So now you know that Karuna Coffee is not what you think it is, once you are down from your self built ivory tower, should you wish to discover more about us, we will welcome you and hopefully show you more than you think you already know about us, trust me we know that you know very little about us. Perhaps in the process you might make a friend rather than another adversary.
Wow, one very embittered person full of hate.
Where have I attacked anyone who does not use Horsham Coffee, an excellent coffee roastery engaging in direct trade, I have not?
I mentioned that later that day I had a much better cold brew. It happened to be roasted by Horsham Coffee. A week or so before, excellent Japanese ice filter with single origin from Cup 10, V60 Square Mile, Alchemy, Outpost Coffee. Since an excellent cold brew with coffee from Fire Chimney. In other words, many excellent filter coffees and cold brew. To which I could add cappuccino, again excellent.
The one exception, the V60 Karuna Coffee.
How many kids sent to schools, the relevance, none at all.
I could go to Oxfam, give a donation, buy a book, and I am sure they would tell me how many kids schooled, pigs and hens it could buy.
But it is totally to miss the point.
The irony is, many coffee roasteries engage in direct trade, where they pay a premium for quality coffee, not the fair trade scam where farmers are paid a tiny premium above commodity price determined by speculators in New York and London, where no account is taken of quality, no incentive to improve, thus farmers maintained in poverty. With direct trade the roasteries will invest in the farms to enable the farmers to retain added value. Union paid for a cupping lab, drying nets, Hasbean added a premium to a bag of coffee that paid for on- farm processing.
This is the difference between charity and dignity, helping the farmers to improve in order that they can afford to send their children to school, buy pigs and hens. And it will send far more children to school than selling a few bags of bad coffee.
Single origin, direct trade, the bags of coffee state where the coffee comes from, the farm or cooperative.
Direct trade is not only about increasing the money going to the growers, it is also about transparency and traceability, forming long term relationships.
Phil Adams, Coffee austerity in Uganda:
You are a coffee farmer in Uganda. You till the soil on your patch of mountain with your spouse. You have three children and a dependent grandparent to support. You have a roof over your head and, to all intents and purposes, you are self-sufficient for food. You are poor but you are not malnourished. How much money do you need to live off the land in this way? What is the price of minimum viable coffee farming in Uganda?
According to Great Lakes Coffee, a Ugandan coffee trading company that works with and buys from thousands of smallholder farmers, it is $758.
That is $758 per annum to provide a family with the basics of life, cooking oil, fuel for heating, salt, sugar and secondary education for your children. In Uganda, primary education is provided free by the state, secondary education costs $150 per child each year.
NGOs step in, launch projects, outsiders, with no local knowledge, no long term commitment.
As Phil Adams reports, they have a name for these projects in Uganda.
Project has become a dirty word. In Ugandan coffee farming circles it means “fuck things up and take pretty pictures”.
If I know nothing about coffee, why ask an opinion, why seek a review?
If no one reads what is written, a small audience, why throw an infantile tantrum?
If no access to site statistics why even make the statement? Only a fool would make such a statement.
Similar nonsense was claimed about a post on a food festival, know nothing about food, no one reads. The article was read by several thousands within a few days of posting.
One photo of one coffee shop, over 90,000 hits within months of posting, and that figure was a few months ago.
But what are facts when they can get in the way of a good rant?
Metrics though are only one part of the equation, even more important is who reads.
Followed by key players in coffee, people I have a great deal of respect for, from who I have learnt a lot about coffee, over what else, an excellent cup of coffee.
In the elite world of coffee, everyone knows everyone, they respect ech other, support each other.
Followed not only be those in coffee, also in human rights, social justice, senior politicians, leading writers.
Fighting injustice. So keen to fight injustice, last year Karuna Coffee bought two new coffee roasters from the Pariah State of Israel that is engaged in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Karuna Coffee have made themselves a laughing stock, have caused themselves irreparable damage.
They claim to be a charity, though no charity registration number on their literature.
If they are a charity, the trustees need to ask themselves do they wish to retain the services of the person sending out abusive messages as he or she is not doing them any favours. They lack the courtesy or integrity to put a name to their abusive messages.
We are very lucky, we are spoilt for choice, there is no excuse for drinking poor quality coffee let alone bad coffee, when we have many suppliers of high quality coffee, many towns with indie coffee shops serving speciality coffee, often with a varied range of guest coffees, in many ways acting as coffee curators, little shops like Grocer and Grain with a wide selection of coffee to choose from. I can arrive at Brighton Station, FCB and Small Batch, leave the station, Grocer and Grain, walk into North Laine, many indie coffee shops.
And we can drink with a clear conscience when we know through direct trade not the fair trade scam the price the growers are being paid for quality they can afford to send their kids to school not have to rely upon charity.
