What coffee is best for my business?
Are you an aspiring coffee shop owner? A wannabe boutique hotelier? Perhaps you’ve got a dream to open your own garden centre? You’ve no doubt created mood boards a-plenty, saved countless Pinterest images, researched your ideal clientele, and lined up a mouth-watering selection of sweet and savoury treats. Have you, though, considered which coffee or coffees you’ll serve?
Coffee’s coffee, right? Wrong!
Coffee is often the last thing that your customer will taste – can you risk that being a negative experience for them? You risk losing customers if you do. At Iron and Fire we offer over 20 speciality coffees and our SCA qualified team can advise you on which will match the needs of your business most closely. We’ll ask you whether you want a coffee that is easy to work with and which tastes great across all coffee drinks; or if something more specialist is what you need. We can even work with you to help create your own distinct blend. So, ask yourself whether the coffee you chose for your business is a decision you can leave to chance – we’d argue it isn’t.
Benefits of serving speciality coffee for my business
Do you want your customers to enjoy the coffee you serve, so much so that they make it their regular haunt and spread the good word? Serving a great coffee is not as hard, or expensive, as you may think and serving a decent ‘speciality’ coffee has many benefits:
- Serving great coffee puts you ahead of the competition
- A great coffee attracts new customers
- Delicious coffee ensures returning customers
- Serving great coffee will increase your reputation and ultimately your profits
A quality cup of coffee can supply a world of benefits for your business and for your customer’s experience. It can really make your coffee business stand out from the competition and it doesn’t cost as much as you might think. With a huge profit margin on our fresh roasted trade coffee beans, for only pence per cup why wouldn’t you serve better coffee?
Single origin vs a coffee blend – deciding what’s best for your business
Amongst the many questions that an aspiring coffee shop owner needs to consider is whether they’ll serve single origin coffee or a coffee blend – or maybe both!
To make this decision, it is first important to understand what is meant by each term. Simply, single origin coffee is sourced from a single estate, farm or washing station, whereas a blend is exactly that, a ‘blend’ of coffees from several different sources. A single origin coffee is likely to have a more unique flavour profile which can vary year on year depending on harvest conditions that may impact its source location. In comparison, a blend will provide a steadier, more consistent taste.
For many coffee shops, the flavour profiles that sell well are those which offer full-bodied, well- rounded flavours, without being too acidic and for that reason, coffee blends sell well. However, there is something incredibly special about many single origin coffees so you should choose to work with a supplier or roaster who genuinely knows the story behind the coffee.
Offering a single origin coffee alongside your regular coffee blend, perhaps as a ‘monthly special’, is a great way of demonstrating your commitment to introducing new flavours to your customers whilst learning more about their own taste preferences. If you’re curious about the best coffee for your business, then take a look at our most popular choices for coffee shops below and get in touch for some advice!
