During the great depression many of the coffee brands thought they should cut corners and produce a lower quality coffee, since money was tight. One company, Maxwell house, decided to rather produce a higher quality coffee. Dropping low quality coffees from their blends even Santos which had become the nations go to coffee for low quality blending.
And guess what. They became the number one selling coffee brand in the US. Their price did not go down their quality went up.
This to me is a mantra I will always sing. Quality must be a real driver behind coffee, not an advertising promise bit a reality.
Unfortunately in the 60s when profit was king Maxwell house became one of the sheep and produced instant and added Robusta to their blends.
The result was the regeneration of coffee in the states. Peets, Sivets and Diedrich became drivers of the quality product attracting large numbers of followers. From Peets came Other companies that slowly took over the world. The four that started Starbucks had vac jobs at Petes.
So in the end Quality shines through. And even more so today. There will always be those that chase a profit wagon, using money to market their product rather than spend that money on improving quality in their product.
Over the next year Quaffee hope to push the quality bar further. We would like to see Dom pepe in our roaster. Even at R2,500.00 a kg it gives us a sky to aim for. I believe quality is the most important marketing tool in Quaffee’s arsenal.
