Almico wrote:I have been contemplating putting Agtron numbers on my bags for a while. I just can't get my brain around the logistics. To me, using an arbitrary target number is worthless and not much better than saying light, medium-light or dark. Putting the actual number for a particular roast does have value, but I'm not convinced it supersedes the can of worms it opens.

I think it's better than using adjectives for the simple reason that those adjectives are not used in a consistent manner. But it won't help if only a few roasters do it. So why bother when it is far from being common? It doesn't sound like it would benefit your customers. Then again, would it hurt?

As a business one has to think of any labor performed through the lens of return on investment. The question of "would it hurt?" Isn't a case for doing anything. The question has to be, does it provide a return on the amount of labor invested? Onyx thinks so. It goes with their shtick of elevated above the rest so it will be a nice marketing campaign for their instagram, facebook, and website. It'll be a nice wedge issue they can pull out and say they do it and hardly anyone else does. It likely passed muster as part of their ad budget.

Is it worth it for small roasters to buy a $15k Agtron unit, constantly check every batch to update the website, redo their bag labels, and potentially have customers confused by an industrial QC roast color metric? Will that then bring in more customers or enable the business to demand a higher price per bag to reap a return on the additional equipment costs and labor? Very doubtful. What is the upside in those cases where it isn't tied to a large marketing push?

I think a wonderful middle ground is having information relating a roaster's light, medium, dark subjective wording to the Agtron's objective scale. For example, "We define our light around a 80, our medium around a 70, and our dark starts at 64." I tried to get this info from Sweet Maria. I was curious what their City, City+, Full City and such definitions were compared to the Agtron scale so I could calibrate my RV to their descriptions for the Box of Chocolate package. I got crickets back.

I believe Almico uses the Agtron Gourmet scale in its more pure form which he provided the wording relating to the number earlier in this thread. That seems to be a very transparent way to do things and has enough resolution for nearly any coffee buyer. Onyx confuses the wording. They came up with their own subjective scale that ties into the Agtron numbers even though Agtron has already given everyone words to use.

Milligan wrote:... For example, "We define our light around a 80, our medium around a 70, and our dark starts at 64." I tried to get this info from Sweet Maria. I was curious what their City, City+, Full City and such definitions were compared to the Agtron scale so I could calibrate my RV to their descriptions for the Box of Chocolate package. I got crickets back.

They have it on their website, or on a card:
https://www.sweetmarias.com/media/catal ... 4-back.jpg

$3 with an order: https://www.sweetmarias.com/roasted-cof ... -card.html

Y'all are welcome to apply whatever reasoning you like to your purchasing decisions and your business decisions, even if they are unreasonable or irrational, and if you're going to be unreasonable or irrational, fine, but there's not much point continuing the discussion further.

Essentially, there seems to be an attack here on Onyx for having too much of a markup on their green cost, or for not paying enough for green. But there has been zero, zip benchmark comparative information provided, except for what I've provided. Readers are welcome to make of this what they want, and to draw their own conclusions.

You can find arguments for any information being imperfect and hard for retail consumers to understand, and there's a legitimate business decision for roasters to make there about if the information is going to be confusing to customers. But then you still have to evaluate where consumers are in the absence of information. And it comes down to "trust me". Consumers have good cause not to trust roasters. But, ultimately, this is a decision for consumers. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there putting $2.40/lb 80.00 point green into their espresso blends and still charging close to $17/10oz for it. But if you're buying that and you're happy with it, good on you. It's a competitive marketplace, and, for you, higher quality or lower price aren't compelling advantages. Or maybe you just haven't spent more time exporing alternatives. Or maybe you have lucked out and you aren't buying that. But you don't know.

Personally, I think Seven Seeds have a good balance here. They stick the transparency information that they provide into a pdf transparency report on their webpage (example). Their scores are refreshingly realistic, and they aren't shy about disclosing that they pay far more for some coffees than others. But the information is far enough out of the way that consumers who don't care about it won't go to the effort of clicking through, so it's very unlikely to confuse anyone who doesn't care about it.

And, again, I don't want to come off as saying that people have to like a particular style or score of coffee or another. I'm sure that one can make a delightful rich, thick, comfort food espresso blend from low 80s coffees where blending really makes everything greater than the sum of its parts and the cost can be kept down. If that's what you are after, then transparency information will help you to identify coffees where you are paying for high acidity and fruit aroma that you might not care about, or might actively not want.

In terms of my approach, this sort of transparency information is rare enough that I don't require it as a consumer. I probably use it in a few ways. When roasters disclose it, I do compare it roughly in my head with similar data I've seen and the SCTG to try and work out what quality to expect from the coffee. This is more successful for south and central american coffees (except the regional blended lots) than it is for african coffees, where the nature of the beast is that most of the coffee is pooled at processing stations so there feels like there is less room for price flexibility. If a roaster has paid more for a caturra, for example, than they pay for other similar coffees from that country, then it's not a bad bet that it might be unusually good. If roasters provide agtron information, I'd compare it with Tim Wendelboe and probably avoid buying anything darker, or much darker.

One bit of transparency information that I quite like is harvest date. At the moment, we have a glut of late Ethiopian coffee arrivals, some of which are tasting really long in the tooth. New crop will arrive in a few months, hopefully. So we will have a transitional period, where it will be hard to know just going to a new coffee roaster if you are buying the freshest avaialable, or the oldest available.

The other thing I try to do is to work out which importers they are buying from. If they are operating on a scale that allows them to do their own sourcing and incurring all of that expenditure, I tend to be a bit more open to trying them. If they are just buying spot from local importers, particularly if it's only one or two, I tend to avoid them, since everyone has access to that coffee and this tends to be what people do when they are starting out and have the poorest green buying expertise and experience and want to minimise overheads. Some people are better than others at picking the eyes out of the local spot offerings. If roasters have only one or two suppliers, they may be reliant on their recommendations, which isn't likely to be a recipe for success.

Almico wrote:I have been contemplating putting Agtron numbers on my bags for a while. I just can't get my brain around the logistics. To me, using an arbitrary target number is worthless and not much better than saying light, medium-light or dark. Putting the actual number for a particular roast does have value, but I'm not convinced it supersedes the can of worms it opens.

I think a single number is way too much work. It would be stupid to have customers complaining if you're like 1-2 numbers off, and it's a lot of work to update a new label per batch, rather than just having one label you can use for the life of the coffee. What would be good is to work out a range that's within spec and use that. Words instead are probably fine. I reckon something like sticking a table on your webpage eg in the about section or something with what words you use correspond with what agtron ranges is probably a sweet spot between not spending too much effort and providing some useful information to consumers. Agtron numbers are hardly transparency information, anyway - customers are going to see what colour it is when they are get it. So what you are really doing is just providing a courtesy to your customers so that they don't buy something dramatically lighter or darker than they expect.

Almico wrote:For the same reason, do we want to put cupping scores on retail bags of coffee? If so, which cupping score? The one where we sampled the original lot? The one from the initial production roast? Or better yet, do we cup every single roast for the 6 months we offer that coffee and put that score on each individual bag along with the actual Agtron number? Where does it stop?

Same sort of thing as above. I'd argue that providing a score is a bad idea, since even calibrated cuppers usually argue within a range of about a point. Personally, I'd say give a range of 1.5-2 points. If the coffee ages to the point that it has fallen 1.5-2 points, then it's probably not really fair to be selling it to customers at the same price you launched it at, and under the same description.

Almico wrote:I'd rather forgo all the extra labor and marketing and sell a bag of coffee for a price that doesn't require a second mortgage to purchase. If you like it, buy it again. If not, try something else.

This comes up again and again and again in many of your posts. You interject to criticise your competitors and then you put forward your own personal point of view from your business. It would be nice if you communicated a little acceptance that coffee is a massive market and that people can stylistically differ. I'm glad that you have found a formula that works for you, but no business is going to please everyone, and it would be nice if consumers could find what they like. And you know what might make that easier? Giving consumers information.

Almico wrote:As consumers it's easy to say, yeah, give us more information. It costs them nothing. As a business owner it makes no sense unless you are using this information as a marketing ploy. And if that is the case, you really have to wonder how accurate it really is.

Sure, it's a business decision. Like I mean if we call up an electrician to do a job, nobody is asking them what brand of each screw and bit of wire they are using, but there might be a discussion about, say, what light fitting or exhaust fan they are getting.

W/r/t accuracy, it's the seatbelts argument. Seatbelts don't save all lives, so should we stop using them? You don't have to provide any information you don't want to, and I'm sure that the vast majority of customers aren't going to care. Equally, you could be an absolute scumbag and sell only two year past crop commodity coffees in a premium price espresso blend and you'd probably still be able to keep that running. So what consumers will tolerate is not necessarily the right benchmark.

And as for marketing "ploy". Well I guess that depends what you are going to do with the information. If it turns out not to be true and the roaster will refund the customer, I'd argue it's not a "ploy"; it's substantive.

Alan, let me be blunt. You clearly feel that your business has the right balance of everything. Anything more expensive is bad value, and no doubt anything less expensive is poor quality. Anything lighter roasted is underdeveloped and no doubt anything darker is burnt. Good. You should feel this way. You should believe in your products and services. But that doesn't mean that yours is the only reasonable way for people to run their business, or that your coffee is right for everyone. I don't know that you're saying that, but you seem to be implying that. It feels kind of extraordinary to have someone who is a roaster not just trashing their competitors on this forum, but going further to say that their business is better in those aspects.

baldheadracing wrote:They have it on their website, or on a card:
https://www.sweetmarias.com/media/catal ... 4-back.jpg

$3 with an order: https://www.sweetmarias.com/roasted-cof ... -card.html

Ah, that's why the crickets. I'm a dummy

luca wrote: This comes up again and again and again in many of your posts. You interject to criticise your competitors and then you put forward your own personal point of view from your business. It would be nice if you communicated a little acceptance that coffee is a massive market and that people can stylistically differ. I'm glad that you have found a formula that works for you, but no business is going to please everyone, and it would be nice if consumers could find what they like. And you know what might make that easier? Giving consumers information.

I don't believe I have criticized anyone. In an effort to expand my knowledge of best practices for my business, I have questioned a few things. I have great respect for the HB community. But questioning and criticizing are not the same thing. Like I said in my first post on this thread, I am the last person to tell anyone else how to run their business. By me sharing how I run my business does not say anyone else is doing it wrong. If you read it that way, that's on you. My words are here in black and white. I suggest you read the black, not the white.

luca wrote:You don't have to provide any information you don't want to, and I'm sure that the vast majority of customers aren't going to care. Equally, you could be an absolute scumbag and sell only two year past crop commodity coffees in a premium price espresso blend and you'd probably still be able to keep that running. So what consumers will tolerate is not necessarily the right benchmark.

Like I also mentioned before, my business model is local. I do not consider anyone to be my competition that is not within a short driving distance of my shops. I provide a wealth of information about my coffee to my customers, in person...face to face. That is the joy/risk of being a roaster/retailer. I get to experience immediate feedback from my customers when I hand them a cup of coffee that I sourced, roasted and brewed myself. I've said from the outset, when planning my business, that I would rather serve coffee for free and have someone tell me that it's the best cup of coffee they have ever had, than serve dirt I got for free from the backyard for a larger profit margin.

What I need to weigh as a business owner is are my customers ready to pay $40-$60 for a bag of coffee? I have some coffees that retail for $13/12oz and I sprinkle in some more expensive coffees that I sell for $24. Are the $24 coffees twice and good as the $13 coffee? Are $60 coffees 5x better. Nope. Most of my customers are just not ready for very light-roasted Geishas and might never be. Over 50% still put milk and sugar in their brew. Different strokes for different folks. But I suggest to almost every one that they taste the coffee before they dose it. I promised them that black, well-roasted fresh coffee will not kill them.

I am very proud of my conversion rate from milk & sugar dark roast drinkers to black, light roast customers, but I remember Rob Hoos saying at a seminar in Brooklyn: Light roast consumers follow the fads. You might sell them a bag or two, but just as quick they are off chasing the next thing. But if you win over a dark roast customer, you will have them for life and they will pay the rent. So I respectfully disagree, what my customers "prefer" IS necessarily the right benchmark.

luca wrote:Alan, let me be blunt. You clearly feel that your business has the right balance of everything. Anything more expensive is bad value, and no doubt anything less expensive is poor quality. Anything lighter roasted is underdeveloped and no doubt anything darker is burnt. Good. You should feel this way. You should believe in your products and services. But that doesn't mean that yours is the only reasonable way for people to run their business, or that your coffee is right for everyone. I don't know that you're saying that, but you seem to be implying that. It feels kind of extraordinary to have someone who is a roaster not just trashing their competitors on this forum, but going further to say that their business is better in those aspects.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. Your interpretation of what I said speaks more about you than it does of me. Remember, we see the world, not the way it is, but the way we are.

Oh yeah, and I don't wear seat belts.

Circling back to the original point of the post, I bought 3 different roasts from Onyx to compare the published Onyx Agtron values with those obtained using an Espresso Vision. I use the same setting on a Niche when grinding all samples, which is in the range typically used for extracting 15g of a medium dark roast at a BR of 1.5. I take the average of at least 5 readings where the grinds are replaced each time. The results are tabulated and plotted in the image below, which shows that the Espresso Vision readings, over a range of the upper end of Medium Dark to mid Medium Light, are uniformly slightly lighter than those published by Onyx. Granted there are only 3 samples, but this Espresso Vision unit does appear to track the Onyx readings with a small positive offset. This tells me that using the EV the coffee is always slightly darker than I think it is, but this is way better than trying to rely on roast ratings on coffee bags or inferences from published tasting notes. The second image tabulates the conversion from EV readings to Agtron Gourmet and Commercial Scales.

I thought that maybe that was a typo, the value 72.05 Agtron for the Columbia Aponte coffee. But that's really how they list it!

Bizmark wrote:Circling back to the original point of the post, I bought 3 different roasts from Onyx to compare the published Onyx Agtron values with those obtained using an Espresso Vision.

Does Onyx share what they are basing their Agtron numbers on...ground, whole bean or a blend?

Also I found their Find My Roast page. https://onyxcoffeelab.com/pages/find-my-coffee?id=44335

This is pretty cool. They give some of the roast parameters on presumably all their roast batches. The curves are useless without knowing milestones and RoR data, but interesting nonetheless.

Can you share the batch numbers from the roasts you purchased? I'm curious to see how the Agtron numbers correlate with roast information.