I love this, for a number of reasons.<p>This is a great example of taking a coasting or downward-trending venture and pivoting into something new, without sacrificing your existing cash flow.<p>It seems like the proof of concept is going well, confirming that the basic model is sound. What comes next is to scale it up.<p>The farmers are also researching existing innovations in the field (i.e. harvesters), with the goal of extending those innovations to meet the field's unique challenges.<p>They are also selling initial product, which although is much more expensive than similar products of this type, is serving to bootstrap continued and expanded production, with the goal of reducing price by increasing supply.<p>(Huh, I think I went off on a tangent and started taking about Tesla.)<p>I don't understand why people would throw shade onto this. Not only is this entrepreneurial spirit, it's _successful_ entrepreneurial spirit.<p>I wish them all the best!<p>EDIT: Spelling
The important question is: is it good? I typically spend around $25 / pound on coffee beans, which is a fairly large amount of money. But: the beans I buy are very freshly roasted right near where I live and make excellent coffee (which I make by the cup, pour-over style), and I only drink a cup or two a day.<p>I'd see my way to paying more if the beans were somehow qualitatively better - I had some $50 / lb coffee once that was totally worth it (I hate to use the word mouthfeel, but this coffee really legit had a velvety rich mouthfeel that I'd never experienced in a cup of coffee before or since, and a great aroma and flavor to go with it), and I've tried other coffees that were high up on the expense level that were totally <i>not</i> worth it. Most probably aren't worth it.<p>So: how does it compare? Is the ridiculous price just because you're from california? No thanks, I'll take my ethiopian amaro gayo, tyvm.
<i>> And they see more and more American consumers willing to spend $8 or $12 for a cup of joe, which would offset their high costs of production.</i><p>A single pound of coffee makes about 50 cups. Who seriously pays this much?
Side note: coffee is also produced in Puerto Rico. Whether or not that should be counted as part of the US is debatable but it's interesting that there was no mention.<p>Edit: NPR article from 2015[1] discussing coffee production in Puerto Rico.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/13/404228117/puerto-rico-wants-to-grow-your-next-cup-of-specialty-coffee" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/13/404228117/pue...</a>
As with the wine industry, University of California at Davis has established a coffee research program, in part funded by Peet's Coffee. I did a double take the first time I heard of this, but it make sense and now I wonder why it didn't happen sooner, given UC Davis' focus on specialty agriculture:<p><a href="https://coffeecenter.ucdavis.edu/" rel="nofollow">https://coffeecenter.ucdavis.edu/</a><p><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article100401787.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article100401787.html</a>
I hope the prices for these coffees come down, though I get why business-wise it makes sense for them to target the ultra-high-end market at their stage. The idea of good coffee from somewhere as close as California is a bit exciting to me.<p>---<p>Sorry if the rest is slightly off-topic. After reading all the comments here about the coffee prices mentioned in the article, and seeing what every considers "normal" prices, I feel compelled to make the following PSA:<p>Save your money and roast your own coffee at home, if you are able to (* more on that below).<p>I've been doing this for about 3 years now. There's a small learning curve, but as Kenneth Davids puts it in his book [1] (paraphrasing): "The difficulty of roasting coffee is somewhere between frying an egg and making a good hollandaise".<p>I buy my favorite coffees from around the world as dried green beans for around $5-7 per pound. Furthermore, coffee greens can last quite a while in your pantry if kept in well ventilated burlap sacks (a couple years, or more). This allows me to stockpile like 50 pounds of coffee to roast throughout the year. Also, there's really nothing that quite compares to coffee a day or two after it's been roasted. I can easily brew way better coffee than most coffee shops here in Austin, TX (though there's a couple exceptional ones here with more time/skill/resources than I).<p>To roast coffee, my low-budget setup is:<p><pre><code> - A heavy pan / popcorn popper (mine: https://www.amazon.com/Zippy-Pop-Stovetop-Capacity-Stainless/dp/B00PFRRA0Q)
- A portable heat source (I use an induction range)
- Colander / wooden spoon / shop fan
- A well-ventilated outdoor space (a balcony does just fine), there's smoke / messy chaff
</code></pre>
(* if you don't have access to outdoor space, it can be a deal breaker)<p>Every week, I spend about 20 minutes total roasting a new batch of coffee (end up with ~12oz roasted). Total equipment investment for me was like $150. I can also enjoy some really great espresso with my budget setup (manual lever machine + Pharos hand grinder), but doing that well is a steeper learning curve.<p>[1] Kenneth Davids. Home Coffee Roasting. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Home-Coffee-Roasting-Revised-Updated/dp/0312312199" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Home-Coffee-Roasting-Revised-Updated/...</a><p><a href="http://www.home-barista.com/home-roasting/" rel="nofollow">http://www.home-barista.com/home-roasting/</a> is also a great resource.
Is there a word for "I was researching an obscure topic and then a couple hours later a major publication writes about it?"<p>I was just researching boutique coffee growing farms in tropical Australia and wondering if in the future people would pay double what they pay now for coffee. And then this shows up on hn.
Read through the whole thing looking to explain how this is even possible. Is the "coffee belt" not as absolute as I thought? Can you just grow arabica anywhere?
<i>"And they see more and more American consumers willing to spend $8 or $12 for a cup of joe, which would offset their high costs of production."</i><p>Good luck!
would this meet Rainforest Alliance standards? With coffee being the worlds second largest commodity, I am particularly bothered by both my addiction and the difficultly in finding Rainforest Alliance certified options. It seems like fair trade is easy to find in Trader Joes for instance, but after 20 minutes of looking/reading, I simply couldn't find beans that weren't possibly deforesting rainforests are that had their CO2 footprints examined/offset. Hoping this could be a great win for labor, rain forests (reusing existing agricultural land), etc.<p>One other point - their trees have been getting older and there is more forign competition is growing BUT, demand has outpaced supply with prices being high, more mainstream consumption in North America and now increasingly in Asia Pacific. I read a lot about the Avacado industry (not really sure why) but from what I have seen from the Avacado's growers groups, their profits have been skyrocketing with demand changes over the last 20 years.
You can buy coffee from one of the farms here for $96 a pound (~$86/lb if you buy 12 oz).<p><a href="https://goodlandorganics.com/store/roasted-coffee" rel="nofollow">https://goodlandorganics.com/store/roasted-coffee</a><p>Not sure if I could stomach paying $6.50/cup for my daily pourover that I make at home, but hey, this is out there.
"There are roughly 800 coffee farms in the Hawaiian Islands producing as much as nine million pounds of unroasted beans a year; California produces only hundreds of pounds."<p>California coffee production would have to increase by <i>five</i> orders of magnitude to compare with Hawaii.
I don't suppose California's farmers are stupid, so I presume it's someone else's stupidity that has made it attractive to grow coffee, the latest in a long line of water-intensive crops, in dry southern California.<p>When are Californians going to realize that it's this sort of thing, not a decent shower, that is the cause of the ill effects of a decade of drought? And why do Californians keep subsidizing farmers' water-usage when that is plainly the root of the problem?
This is relevant, why? "There are roughly 800 coffee farms in the Hawaiian Islands producing as much as nine million pounds of unroasted beans a year; California produces only hundreds of pounds. Globally, 12 billion pounds of coffee are consumed each year