A Strangers Update

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything for the blog, with coronavirus restrictions lifting and business trying to return to some kind of normality, it has left the Strangers Coffee team super busy.

So there’s a couple of reasons for this post, first off, new seasons coffee are in store now with some crazy new processing techniques and new countries in the offer we haven’t seen before.

I feel like we have some crazy delicious coffees available at the moment and I’m really excited to get people out, tasting all the hard work the farmers have put into this year's crop, especially in the face, of the massive adversity, we’ve all suffered this last 18 months. I'm loving the new Indonesian Avotara lot, which works well for all brewing methods and has flavours of candy floss and strawberries.

We’ve also started to see some great examples of well-processed Ethiopian lots, both natural and washed, and have already launched our new season Ethiopian Rocko Mountain, which in my opinion blows last years crop out the water. Don’t forget if you can’t get to any of our Norwich stores, we supply other shops around the country with our beans and we also have a website where all our coffees are available.

Now the second part of the post is not fun and enjoyable like new coffees landing but the inevitability price increases we will be seeing over the next 12 months and the ongoing problem of getting supplies to our stores.

Over the past 12 months, as a business, we have seen major price increases across all areas. We thought that the increases were a temporary issue while covid was in full force and have tried to swallow these extra costs without passing these on to our customers.

As we move forward it is apparent that produce prices continue to increase beyond that of previous years and we are getting to a point where we have no choice but to pass these increases on. Unfortunately, prices will be going up on pretty much everything we sell as there is not one of our products that have not been impacted by supply chain increases.

We are also seeing massive delays on delivery of certain items we use in-store, this means we may run out of some of the usual products we use, such as takeaway cups and bags etc, and we will have to supplement with available products until our deliveries make it to us. I can only apologise for any problems that this may cause, we really are trying our best to keep things running as normal and adapt as issues arise.

The great news is that most of our coffees are landed in the UK now so we hopefully won’t run out of coffee.

Until next time, happy brewing. Al.