April Fool's, Holidays and an update on global shipping delays

Yesterday was April Fools Day. We missed the pranks, but are looking forward to the rest of the month. April starts with gray, chilly days and ends with flowers and the promise of Spring. This year, April is full of holidays, Easter, Passover and Ramadan. Even if your place of worship is still holding services online, you can still start your mornings with a great cup of coffee.

Our Coffee of the Month for April is Cloudburst Blend. A creamy coffee with citrus topnotes, toffee richness and lingering chocolate finish. Lively enough to brighten the grayest spring morning, smooth enough to enjoy all day. Cloudburst Blend will be available in full and 1/2 roast pouches through the month of April.

Our Exploration Coffee for April is our first decaf Roaster Gold. At a City roast level, Organic Decaf Guatemala is smooth, rich & sweet with a lively burst that melts into lingering vanilla butter richness. Available in both full and 1/2 roast pouches all month.

Recently, there have been news reports implying that an upcoming coffee shortage will lead to coffee hoarding. Many of these reports connect the shortage to the tanker that blocked the Suez canal for nearly a week. These reports don’t fit our understanding of coffee availability, so we did some research to see if we had missed anything.

The answer is no. There is no shortage of specialty grade coffee and no shortage is expected. The tanker did carry a lot of coffee, but it was all the lower grade coffee that’s used to make instant coffee. There have been, and continue to be, challenges shipping coffee, but these are due to a global shortage of shipping containers. Because of the container shortage, the cost of shipping has gone up and many coffees are taking longer than usual to get to this country.

There is no need to buy extra coffee “just in case.” Though our inventory reflects some of the challenges of buying and selling coffee during a pandemic, we are in no danger of running out of coffee. To help bridge the longer shipping times, we’ve added recommendations beneath our coffee products for those who want to try something new or whose favorite coffee is delayed. Check them out, you might just find a new coffee to love.

Speaking of coffee shipments, we just received a skid full of long awaited coffees. These include new crop, Brazil, a microlot called No Contest Carmo, a lovely coffee that would have been a contender if the 2020 Best Cup Carmo competition hadn’t been cancelled due to Covid. We also received new crop Sumatrans, Colombia Gran Galope and a delicious microlot Colombia Cauca that may just be our newest Roaster Gold. We can’t wait to cup these coffees. As soon as we have approved them, we’ll put them up on the website for you to order and enjoy.

Finally, to thank the readers of this blog, we’re offering a FREE 1/2 roast of coffee with your first order of the month. Just write, “April,” in the box for Additional Instructions, and we’ll include a 1/2 roast bag of Cloudburst Blend at no extra charge. Sharing coffee is our favorite way to celebrate the coming of Spring.

What’s your favorite way to celebrate Spring? Please join the conversation and share your thoughts on the Facebook thread or in a comment on this blog. Or, if you'd like to share your opinions with the wider world, leave us a coffee review on Google or on your favorite review site. Not only do we value your opinions, but reviews help more people find us. Help us connect coffee lovers to fresh, quality coffee!

Thanks!

We wish all our customers happy holidays, continued good health and lovely spring weather.

~ Carrie, Paul and all of us at Coffee by the Roast