Blue Bottle sent out a blast today to their customers. They have a lot of great news to share. Here’s an online version.
Highlights Include:
- More Funding (equals more retail, quality control, expansion)
- Two new coffee bars (Oakland & Brooklyn aka two very huge hipster spots)
- New Orleans Coffee in milk cartons? I haven’t heard of these but apparently they’re at Whole Foods in Nor-Cal
- Expansion to Tokyo
- They bought Handsome Coffee Roasters in LA
- They bought online coffee subscription joint, Tonx
Then they close with this:
What does all this stuff mean for you? Well, despite such a rapid growth spurt, we’re still committed to the same things that motivated us back on those rainy Saturdays in Berkeley. We will continue to bring you the most delicious coffee available, through the most hospitable (and, in collaboration with our brandy-new web team, the most high tech) channels possible. We will still treat all of our guests – both in stores and online – with the utmost respect and care. And finally, we’ll continue to place a large emphasis on sustainability: sourcing responsibly, looking for opportunities to limit our environmental footprint, and creating growth opportunities for our staff.
I don’t hate Blue Bottle. In fact, I love their coffee and drink it almost every day. It’s the one roaster that has consistently provided beans that, when brewed properly, deliver the best flavor. Their prices are quite high but not as high as SightGlass or FourBarrel and I find their beans not as picky to brew either. intelligentsia beans are very picky for example. I live in New Hampshire and drink Blue Bottle coffee economic impact of air-shipping coffee across the country be damned!
The email makes me think that there must be some sort of back-lash or maybe Blue Bottle knows deep down in their anti-establishment hipster roots of being the underdog that they are embarking on a shift that will have people perceiving that they’ve changed and jumping to small roasters.
The thing is, most of those die-hard hipsters have already switched to other places. In SF, SightGlass is where it’s at. I can’t speak for other places.
I think Blue Bottle should take a step back and enjoy their current place in the world. No story is identical to Starbucks but, in ten years the Blue Bottle team will look back and see just how much this growth cost them, not financially but in the world of coffee. I’ll keep drinking their coffee as long as the price stays lower than others and the roast remains really well done.