THE CONVERSATION

Ray: This week ...

Kandace: Coava Coffee from Portland, Oregon. Portland. Woo hoo!

*Ray:** Yeah, yeah, right across the river.

Kandace: Right across.

Ray: You can't see the river ...

Kandace: Yeah.

Ray: ... but it's there.

Kandace: It's right there.

Ray: Coava Coffee was founded in 2008 by Matt Higgins out of his garage like any Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Kandace: He puts the Portland twist on it by ...

Ray: By doing coffee?

Kandace: Well, I think he was like fixing motorcycles ...

Ray: Oh right.

Kandace: ... and listening to Zeppelin.

Ray: This is an Ethiopian, a fantastic Ethiopian.

Kandace: Are these the beans?

Ray: Those are the beans. I put them out for that added realism, just so people know that we're actually tasting coffee and not drinking every episode.

Kandace: Nice.

Ray: One of the things that I first remembered about Coava, and they actually address this on their website, is the fact that they sell their bags in 250 gram.

Kandace: Yeah.

Ray: That was actually ...

Kandace: What's that in the metric system?

Ray: In English, it's about like 8.8 ounces.

Kandace: Yeah.

Ray: It's interesting. This is the first time I've heard someone talk about it directly, but their point is that roasters roast in kilos, like kilograms, so if you have a 6 kilo roaster, which this probably came off of, that means you can produce 28 bags, and you don't have waste. You can kind of say this is how much we're going to produce from this batch, which is interesting. I'd never really considered that and I'm not sure how much is wasted, but that's an interesting reasoning for that.

Kandace: This is new in the last year or two, correct?

Ray: Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kandace: I thought they used to have maybe red bags or they used to have a different bag.

Ray: Yeah, they were different.

Kandace: This is different, yeah.

Ray: This is a redesign.

Kandace: Yeah.

Ray: There's a label here which is very, you can feel it.

Kandace: Crafty.

Ray: Crafty, a crafty label.

Kandace: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ray: A stamp. Apparently the red indicates that it is intended to be drank drip. This is intended to be drank espresso, so they're all single origins, but they ...

Kandace: Oh, really?

Ray: Yeah.

Kandace: They're giving you ...

Ray: A little clue. It actually says, but they, when I spoke with them, they pointed that out.

Kandace: Yeah, that's great. Are we following, are we doing this the right way?

Ray: We're doing it right.

Kandace: Okay.

Ray: We're doing the drip one. We made it drip. It's got a nice amount of detail with the sort of, the element of texture, sort of an embossed feel to it.

Kandace: These bags were designed by Factory North here in Portland.

Ray: The company that printed the bags ...

Kandace: Savor.

Ray: The Savor Brands.

Kandace: Yeah. One thing that I think is really interesting about Savor is that they jump in and are a big part of the design process, and so they'll kind of chat through options with you. Paul, what the hell are you doing?

Ray: Paul?

Kandace: Paul Read.

Ray: We'll talk to Paul.

Paul: My name is Paul Read, and I work with Savor Brands Package and Print House, and we're a company based in Honolulu, Hawaii.

We specialize in printing and converting flexible packaging with an emphasis on specialty coffee.

Kandace: What are the trends that are happening right now in coffee package design or trends that you're noticing?

Paul: Well, a lot of it is this type of bag here, the stand-up zip pouch with the box bottom.

Kandace: Yeah. What is it about the box bottom that you think ...

Paul: Because it stands so nicely in retail.

Kandace: Yeah.

Paul: We've done a few wholesale bags with box bottoms, but it's mostly a retail bag because it requires less maintenance for store owners to keep bags sitting up straight because it doesn't have the seal across the bottom.

Kandace: It's just like a really nice displayable.

Paul: Great display.

Kandace: Yeah.

Paul: People are also finding ways to put different text on the bottom and different information that they want people to see, and it's fun. People pick up the bag, and they ...

Kandace: Well, thanks so much for chatting with us this week. This is fantastic.

Paul: Thank you for ...

Watch the Show

https://vimeo.com/165817531