price increase

the game has always been to offer some of the very best coffee in the united states, roasted literally within a couple seconds of perfection, on your demand, shipped same day, at 2/3 the cost of anything comparable. and make everyone ask how we do it.

we are still doing that, but demand is so high that we have to keep shutting down the website just to take a nap. after months of 18 hour workdays, several advils, pretending i'm superman, giving it my all, i'm starting to feel defeated. loyal competent employees with hundreds of one-on-one hours training them up, and then they leave and we have to start all over. working so hard and to such exhaustion, it stops even being fun. it was a challenge for a year or so but we just can't keep this up and this summer i feel like we've started losing the game. my last day off was a year and a half ago. i've worked 12+ hours a day 7 days a weeks for 18 months. all while losing my overworked employee/friends who can't take the stress and it is heartbreaking and the complete opposite of my whole big picture.

every single cost is outlandishly high right now. labor, postage, and coffee are the big ones, but it's everything. bags. boxes. paper. ink. rent. electricity. computers. gasoline. freight. smoothies. tape. i've never seen prices surge by so much, so fast, across the board, it's fascinating and scary. i used to buy the team as much gatorade as they could drink, and the last three times i went to buy it, there were empty shelves. no one can keep up with demand right now -- not even the big guys.

if we raise the price of every bag of coffee by a dollar, it will slightly decrease demand (which i hate and feel bad about, it's never been the goal to price our coffee out of what some people can afford.  that dollar won't even fully cover the recent surge of current coffee costs and labor and everything else -- but it will be enough to cover postage and might lower demand enough to keep the site up and running - it will reduce your frustration because we can hopefully power through the orders and keep the business operational and afford the all-star team i've been assembling and use this next year to expand capacity and keep growing. once we move into a bigger facility we will have space for more people to work which will expand our capacity and allow us to serve a bigger market, but our small shop is currently bottlenecking how many orders we can fill each day. there are a lot of exciting plans in the works -- a new location with new equipment, automation, more space, more employees, a tasting and training room, take the mission to the next level. as a company we are doing a tremendous amount of good -- both in our community and worldwide -- and we appreciate your support enabling our mission to keep doing good and to keep letting us come to work each day and play with and drink amazing coffees for a living. and then send our favorite ones to you to share.

but right now we are losing the game - we certainly aren't losing money, but our limited capacity is letting you down. we aren't able to keep up with demand; and that frustrates you and it frustrates us. i hate to admit it, but an extra dollar is probably the difference between swimming to the shore or drowning before we get there. i'm totally open to the economic dynamics changing and being able to lower the prices back down again sometime next year, but if we can't even navigate august and september, we're never gonna survive the holidays. next month in october we're going to have a price increase of $1 a bag in the spirit of keeping the site open 100% of the time and moving forward with growth, passion, customer service, and the best coffee money can buy. i don't want you to think of us of the company that sometimes takes orders and sometimes is reliable. we are the best in the business and we are here for you.

we will still be about 25% cheaper than anyone who comes close to our quality and reliability. and even those companies who try to get close to what we do are probably going to raise prices as well. i bet we'll stay 33% cheaper going into the end of the year. but no matter how you spin it, we're roasting and packing up your coffee with love and passion and appreciation and doing it because we love you and we love coffee and we love coffee farmers and we just want to be a part of the big picture and the coffee we send out the door really is magically good. it's not about the money, but without a price increase, we are letting the ball down.  thank you for your support. we love you and thank you. keep your mug happy.