THE CONVERSATION
Ray: Well today on Unpacking Coffee we are unpacking La Colombe, out of Philadelphia. Probably best known for being Todd Carmichael’s brand and he does the show “Dangerous Grounds”. Which we’ve caught a few of. It’s good!
Kandace: A few. It’s been keeping us up pretty late at night.
Ray: Well…I will first say we were of this…of the coffee’s we ordered recently I thought this was the nicest box. And I mean honestly, you don’t probably think about the box that much but they had custom tape done…the printing on the sides…again…thanks for ordering.
Kandace: It was the friendliest box.
Ray: Its friendly. Yeah. I liked it!
Kandace: It said thank you right away.
Ray: So that was nice. It includes all sorts of little extra things. It tells about this workshop brand…workshop barn that they do.
Kandace: Oh! Didn’t know that. Got some gum.
Ray: There’s a sticker…
Ray: What else is in here? Some gum. Yeah, lots of gum.
First, a few things about my thoughts on the branding logo. It’s from a certain time. It’s not on here interestingly. They’ve really embraced the brand cause if you see some of their build-outs, they have ginormous letters in that typeface.
Kandace: Mhm. And they’re really embracing Todd as the face of the brand.
Ray: Yes.
Kandace: I mean they’ve always been doing that, but when you go to the website the first thing you see is his face.
Ray: One thing that’s confusing as you browse their website is you realize they have at least a half dozen types of bags or cans they sell—different lines of coffee. I found it a little confusing, and it took me a while to even figure out which one to order. Ultimately I just, we decided the Esmerelda Geisha sounded like good coffee I know that…
Kandace: That’s funny that you found it confusing because I found their site to be really well laid out in terms of how they categorize coffee.
Ray: Mhm.
Kandace: And I think we’re used to seeing coffee categorized by region, and when you get to the coffees right away it’s…there’s like dark, the medium, the light and then there’s a description of what a darker coffee would taste like or what a medium coffee would taste like. And then the coffees underneath, and, I found that to be super refreshing.
Ray: That they were organized by the roast?
Kandace: Yeah. I guess I didn’t think that was the roast. I thought they were categorizing coffee types.
Ray: Okay.
Kandace:So, a lot of times you’ll see coffee by region, and some of that’s starting to go away in terms of usefulness.
Ray: Another nice thing that they did, on that note, is that when you look at a blend they actually showed the different ingredients. And a lot of coffee roasters kind of pretend like that’s a trade secret. But on theirs it was like, this is our espresso blend it has, you know, these four coffees in it. Which I thought felt very honest and refreshing. Heck they even have little maps of them. You know, so you know what the country looks like I guess…the growing region.
I thought, for them the weakest thing of the site was, the blog didn’t seem to be part of the site.
Kandace: Yeah that thing was just like ratcheted on.
Ray: Yeah that’s what it felt like to me.
Kandace: FUN FACT: Todd Carmichael is known to have walked across the Antarctic without any assistance.
Ray: Easier nowadays due to global warming. By the way.
Kandace: You were impressed with the coffee.
Ray: La Colombe. I give it thumbs up.
Impressed with the coffee…pretty good job on the branding too.
Kandace: I give it a thumbs up too. I think also that the show is great. I would love to see more people talking about coffee and what they do. It’s a fascinating insight into even just a small part of the road.