Hey coffee drinkers, my name is John Newaz, author and operator of www.ThisCoffeeKid.com, a blog about anything and everything coffee. I'm proud to say that as of lately This Coffee Kid.com has become a blogging partner of Rocketfuelcoffee.com. As a result of this partnership, you may see more of me popping in and out of the Rocketfuelcoffee.com Blog. I'll be sharing my thoughts, comments, and ideas about coffee, whether that be Rocketfuelcoffee.com's offerings or coffee in general.
Now I'll take a moment to talk about what it is exactly that attracts me to Rocketfuel. Well actually, I'll take more than a moment, since this is going to be the subject of today's post. Rocketfuelcoffee.com is a prime example of one of my most admired institutions, the microroaster.
If you don't know what that is, it's a person, or company of persons, that source and roast coffees in small high-quality batches, usually to sell to a mail-order crowd. Mail order coffee!? Why would anyone do that when coffee can be found at every grocery store and Starbucks in between. Well, people pay extra for these small batches of coffee for the same reasons I admire Rocketfuelcoffee.com. It's all about the quality.
Imagine you're a home baker. You wake up each morning and work in your small kitchen, today's task is cookies. You weigh out the flour (getting most of it on yourself), inspect the eggs, pour out the milk (the same milk you put in your coffee, so you know its fresh), and do all the little things that bakers do. After your hard work is done, you personally pull out the fresh baked cookies and send them out to a grateful planet. Beautiful isn't it? In the coffee world, this is the microroaster.
Time to get ugly.
In this next scenario your name is Joe, but your friends call you Average. You wake up at 4 in the morning and stumble into your car. After arriving at a factory somewhere out in an Industrial wasteland, you toil for 8 hours shoveling small sad lumps of flour, high fructose corn syrup, and imitation chocolate chips into huge ovens (probably designed by someone with horns) and finally into foil bags and cardboard boxes. Your coworker, whom you've never spoken to before, quickly seals the contraption shut and places it on a conveyor belt shipping out to God-Knows-Who in God-Knows-Where. And do you care about this product? No. Of course not. You're not a baker. You’re Joe, Average Joe.
In the coffee world, this is the commercial roaster. If you think that was more of a big institution bash rather than a comparison of coffee quality, hear me out. I realize that other than the mention of high fructose corn syrup, I spoke very little about the difference in quality between the home baker's cookies and the commercial baker's product. But I remain steadfast in saying that the above example is a question of quality. You see, Rocketfuelcoffee.com and the many other microroasters out there... care. Not that commercial coffee companies don't care, sure they do. They care about profits, their shareholders, the threat of unionizing employees, and company growth. But do they care about coffee? No! Okay, well maybe. I mean let's be honest, there really are some great coffee companies out there, all jests aside. But there are some pretty bad ones too *cough* F*lgers *cough*. But rest assured that it’s no gamble when it comes to microroasting companies: they care about one thing. The coffee, the coffee, the coffee.
Rocketfuelcoffee.com doesn't have shareholders, it doesn't need to meet fiscal quarter estimates, nor do they worry any more about workers starting a union than they probably worry the same about their pet dogs. They care about the coffee, and you know that it's the real deal. Because if they didn't care about the coffee, they'd be in a different business wouldn't they? I think a useful maxim to remember is that Quality is not necessarily a sign of Care. But Care is always a sign of Quality. Catchy isn't it? Fortune cookies don't write themselves. But seriously, the questions of individual care, devotion, and passion for coffee is why I admire the small coffee businesses of America. They are truly inspirations for stepping into a market that's full of big corporate bullies.
I'm 100% confident that there will always be a place for small businesses like Rocketfuel. After all, that cute little diner down the street is just as small as Rocketfuel, and Denny's is just as big as Starbucks, but I don't see that diner flinching.. So more power to you Rocketfuelcoffee.com, and keep that coffee coming. It's a thirsty world out there.
Happy Brewing,
John Newaz
www.thiscoffeekid.com
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