Despite Covid-19, May is a Great Month for Coffee
Carrie Masek
Flowers are blooming and the weather is getting warmer, but spring mornings are still chilly enough for a good, hot cup of coffee. Though this blog is going out a little later than usual, all of us here at Coffee by the Roast are healthy and being careful to stay that way. We will continue to custom roast coffee and ship it fresh to our customers’ doors as long as our health and the law permits. That includes coffee for Mother's Day brunch and coffee for cold brew on hot afternoons and Memorial Day picnics. Whether your weather is hot or cold, May is a great month for coffee.
Our Coffee of the Month for May is Springtime Twist, a lively, smooth bodied coffee with a subtle floral aroma and a rich, lingering finish. Springtime Twist is perfect for a Mother’s Day brunch or to sip all day long. Available in full and 1/2 roast bags all month.
Our Exploration Coffee this month is Organic Congo Lake Kivu. Roasted to a Vienna roast level for the Exploration Coffee half roasts and our Roaster's Choice level options, Organic Congo Lake Kivu is a smooth coffee with juicy peach topnotes, caramel and sugar cane sweetness and lingering cocoa richness. This is a coffee that’s great either hot, or brewed cold and served over ice. Available in full and 1/2 roast bags all month.
As we announced in an earlier blog, we now offer Mighty Leaf tea in both pouches and bulk iced tea. The pouches are packaged 100 of a single variety to a case, and the iced tea is packaged in a case of 30 - 3 oz packets. Since the tea is packaged for wholesale, we priced it that way. Here are direct links to both our Mighty Leaf iced tea and Mighty Leaf pouch tea.
Though we’re running a little slower than normal, so far all orders we receive before noon (Monday-Friday) have been roasted and mailed that same day. Usually, our customers receive their coffee 2-3 days after we mail it, but the USPS is beginning to slow down as it continues to deliver the mail during this pandemic. Some of our customers have let us know that their coffee took longer than normal to arrive. For one, it took a whole week.
According to our local post office, one reason is a worker at our local regional distribution center came in with a fever and now, about 1/3 of the normal staff at that distribution center are out sick. We’re keeping them in our thoughts and prayers and ask our customers to do the same. Please also order a little earlier to allow a more time for your coffee to arrive. Thanks!
The Illinois stay-at-home order has been extended until May 31, so we are extending our coffee thank you’s to essential workers. Just leave us a note in the box for Additional Instructions or send us an email and let us know the important work you’re doing. "I work for the post office," or “I offer home care to seniors” or "I’m a scientist working on the antibody test," are examples that we received last month. Please let us know what your essential work is and we’ll roast the coffee you ordered, the additional 1/2 roast of free coffee, and mail it all with our most sincere thanks.
If you know an essential worker who loves coffee, we’d love to send a bag* of Thank You Coffee for them. Just tell us about them. “My brother is an EMT,” for instance, or “My neighbor works at a supermarket.” We’ll add the free 1/2 roast of Thank You Coffee to your order. All we ask is you find a socially-distant, safe way to give them the coffee. Sharing good coffee really is our favorite way to say, “Thanks!”
If you’re not an essential worker, there’s still a way to get a little extra coffee. To thank the readers of this blog, we're offering a free 1/2 roast of Springtime Twist with the first order of the month. Just write "May" in the box for Additional Instructions (or drop us a note) and we'll throw in the extra coffee at no extra charge.
How are you holding out during the pandemic? Please join the conversation and let us know. You can share your thoughts on the Facebook thread or in a comment on this blog. Or, if you have thoughts about coffee you’d like to share 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!
We wish all our customers good health and calm in this anxious time.
~ Carrie, Paul and all of us at Coffee by the Roast
*We can only afford to send one free 1/2 roast of coffee per order. If you know more than one essential worker (we do!), please share the coffee love and let them know about us and the coffee we'd like to share with them. Thanks!