Seven Districts
I happened upon Seven Districts, a stall in the grounds of Lincoln Castle on the first day of the Lincoln Christmas Market. A rare example of a quality stall on a very tacky Christmas market. I stopped by and had a chat.
Seven Districts, a coffee roastery based in Lincolnshire, one of the few local traders on the Lincoln Christmas Market.
The coffee is in eye catching bags, but, and it is a very big but.
A classic example of capture by a marketing company and falling hook, line and sinker for their bullshit.
We’re proud to be from Lincolnshire, where we sipped our first coffee, burnt our first bean and celebrated our first roast, perfecting our craft as we grew; naturally we wanted our own coffee to be inspired by our home.
Many-a-great tale have been shared over a cup of the ‘dark brew’ and doubtless many more will still be told; to carry the heart of our homeland to the world, we want you to enjoy yourself a cup inspired by the folk-lores woven throughout these Seven Districts of Lincolnshire.
Lincolnshire has seven districts, filled with ancient history, beautiful heritage and age-old folklores. We wanted to take some of these to the world and share their passion through the stories woven throughout our seven districts.
We’ve named each of our single origins after a folklore of the seven districts. We’ve then taken the uniqueness of each district and matched it with the profiles of the coffee roasts we produce.
For example Tiddy Mun is a fairy king who used to inhabit the marshland around Boston until Charles I engaged Dutch civil engineers to drain the marshes. Which begs the question what has this to do with high altitude coffee grown in Rwanda? The simple answer is absolutely nothing.
On the other hand for their Ethiopian coffee instead of a tale about King Canute could be one of the many tales associated with coffee in Ethiopia.
Gullible American tourists in a touristy shop on Steep Hill may fall for this bullshit but it is not doing the coffee any favours. Good coffee speaks for itself.
Ethically sourced meaningless. Fair Trade long past sell-by date, marketing ploy to make Middle Class feel good. Fair Trade pays a tiny premium above commodity price, coffee is coffee, maintains farmers in poverty as no incentive to improve. Direct trade, coffee roasteries form long term partnerships with growers, help to improve quality, willing to pay a premium for quality. With Direct Trade everyone benefits, the farmers, the roastery, the coffee shop, the coffee drinker.
The bags Roman numerals, I to VII, seven districts of Lincolnshire. Each bag also has a name, and a little bit of local history. At least I thought each bag had a different Roman numeral, logical, but no, all VII, only the name is different.
Yes, well designed packaging, but if to be taken seriously the coffee has to have details of the coffee, not local history no matter how interesting that may be.
Coffee is seasonal. It does not help, different single origin packaged under the same name.
Every coffee bean has a story to tell, if telling a story, tell the story of the farm the coffee beans come from. This means a lot to the farmer.
Within the coffee industry have often discussed how much information to put on a bag, too much and turns people off, too little and not sufficient.
But as a bare minimum, where sourced from, altitude, processing of beans, tasting notes and roast date. Maybe a little summary of where sourced from.
More information may be provided via a qr code.
I can think of several coffee shops that regularly have in stock and serve guest coffee. Would they stock this coffee? No. The reason why, there is not the information on the bags their discerning customers expect to find.
A coffee shop where Seven Districts tried to peddle their wares was singularly unimpressed by their lack of knowledge of coffee.
The bare minimum of what is on the bags is not even correct. Africa is not a region, it is a continent. What is listed as the variety is not, it is the district where grown. Roast date barely legible.
Seven Districts need to have a drastic rethink of what they are doing, where they are going, ditch all the marketing crap, as currently they are making themselves a laughing stock.
Where do the expect to sell their coffee? Greasy spoon cafe looking for the cheapest supplier of catering supply coffee. No, too expensive and not interested in quality. Speciality coffee shop only interested in the best. No, for the reasons outlined above.
Excellent advice in Businesses for Punks, do not waste money on marketing, do not engage marketing consultants, invest the money in your product.
Seven Districts have ably demonstrated why that advice is so valuable. They have poured money down the drain.
Anthropologist David Graeber refers to marketing as bullshit jobs, jobs that contribute nothing to society and if did not exist would be no great loss.
An artistically designed booklet. Try reading in anything other than strong daylight.
Marketing bullshit to one side, what of the beans, the roasting?
A Q grade in excess of 85. The roaster no previous experience in coffee roasting.
On the stall it was possible in not ideal conditions to try a not very well poured V60. It was ok, not great, nothing to get excited about. I do not know which of the seven coffees on display I was served.
I took away two bags of coffee, an Ethiopian and a Rwandan.
I await an expert brewing.
As I write a beautiful aroma from the Ethiopian, nothing from the Rwandan.
