The last few weeks have seen major flooding in Hawaii, along Oahu’s North Shore and in parts of Maui. I reached out to a few people I know in Hawaii to check in on them. One of them was Shawn Steiman, who I roasted coffee for at Daylight Mind Coffee on the Big Island back in 2018. We texted back and forth, discussing the difficulties of starting a new business and introducing a plastic free concept to the consumer market.
Shawn ended up writing some kind words about Strange Bird Coffee in a newsletter he writes for his company, Grok Coffee. Enjoy!
--
Of the kind folk who reached out after the rains to check in on me was Stephen Davidson, a fellow who roasted for me at Daylight Mind. He started his own roasting company, Strange Bird Coffee, not too long ago and it wasn’t until our conversation this week that I took a good look at his business. It is small, very small, but he’s doing something radical. He’s packaging in cardboard boxes. Completely plastic free.
Whoa! Talk about tree hugger! What’s not to like about this? Nothing, in my opinion. But I’m just one guy. Habits and old beliefs are hard to break. Stephen is struggling because he’s doing something radical and against the rules; his packaging isn’t air tight.
I’ve talked about air-tightness before with regards to our jars. It is a really lovely idea but it is almost always a fantasy. Unless a company evacuates the ambient air in the bag and flushes it with a stable gas (typically nitrogen), the container being air-tight is fairly meaningless. The evil oxygen is trapped in the bag from the start. Sure, some of it gets pushed out of the one-way valve as the coffee itself evolves enough gas to push against the container walls with a need to escape. But, not all of it and probably never enough to prevent the oxygen from doing its evil deeds. Never mind what happens once the container is opened!
Yet, we focus so much on air tight containers as the way to preserve quality. I think the industry, unconsciously or in ignorance, promulgates this myth because it always has and everyone thinks this type of packaging is important, even necessary. Anyone who tries to do something different, like Stephen, gets a lot of push back. He is struggling because folks are biased against his packaging. Instead of understanding and challenging their beliefs, they assume it is bad.
Honestly, I’m no different. I’ve never read about or performed even an informal test with packaging. I’m assuming an unflushed, air tight package isn’t more important to quality than a non-air tight package. My argument is grounded in sound science, making it feel stronger and smarter, but it is still an assumption.
Sigh. It is this kind of research that could help change the world but there’s no one out there to fund it because it doesn’t seem very important. But, imagine if most companies around the world gave up air tight packaging for their coffee- we’re talking a lot of plastic! (Sure, there are cases where you want it to be water tight, too, but I bet they are fairly rare!) Maybe it is a reasonable use of research funds.
So, what’s my message today? As usual, there really isn’t one. I just want you to think critically about coffee and the world around you. :-)
This blog post was written by Shawn Steiman