Everything is coming together, slowly but surely.
As mentioned in recent posts, my original plan for opening an online store for coffee and tea had fallen through due to restrictive health codes that prevented me from seeing a profit as the store was designed. Originally, I planned to do order fulfillment from my home, stocking a decent supply of coffee and tea in my basement. Not only is this against the local health codes (storing foodstuff for consumption on residential property), but there was also a problem with breaking down larger packages of wholesale tea into retail-sized packages outside of an approved prep kitchen. I shrugged my shoulders and told myself to wait until I could afford more start-up capital to open an actual store.
The news of my vision reached some folks I knew from my barista days who are already selling these items online. Their model was different in the respect that order fulfillment was being performed by the wholesale vendor. What they needed was someone with internet platform experience who could help market their store, someone with coffee and tea knowledge and what I needed was a store. We decided to band together and I am in the process of becoming a full partner in their business.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been redirecting my attention to that effort, which is part of the reason for the lack of activity on this site. Most of my spare time has been filled with research, writing and site development. Hopefully, it meets everyone’s expectations.
The tea aspect is still under negotiation, but I am pushing to include high grade teas to complement the equally fantastic coffee our wholesale vendor offers. I hope to have the first couple of loose-leaf teas available on the site within the next month, but it depends on the labor costs of having the vendor break-down 1# and 2# bags of tea into retail sizes (2 oz and 4 oz). I’ll update here when that happens, for you tea enthusiasts out there.
However, if you are interested in seeing what we have to offer, please check out the retail store at beanlover.com and consider making a purchase of coffee. If you need a suggestion, post a comment here about what you like and dislike about a particular coffee and I’ll do my best to make a recommendation. FYI — purchases over $42 include free shipping. Soon, within the next month, there will be a limited-time discount for folks who buy products from the site. How do you get that discount?
Well, that brings up the other portion of what I am doing for the store. I have also developed an informational site for coffee and tea at dormouseconfidential.com. The blog-style site will be a source of articles written by yours truly (and others, should anyone apply — how about you?) meant to be informative and written for the average joe. I intend that each article makes it easier to be informed about what you drink without sounding snobbish about the matter. No hard-sells at the site. Plugs for sure, but the site will generally be ad-free. When the aforementioned discount becomes available, you’ll find it by reading the articles at the site. I’ll make a mention here, but you’ll have to visit the new site to get the discount code.
Right now The Dormouse Confidential only has an About page and a short WTF post. I hope to have that remedied by next week with the first in a series of articles entitled “Esoteric Coffee Terminology Demystified”, an article about cupping (tasting) for pleasure and self-enrichment. The rest of the series will cover other coffee techniques, terms and protocol in the hopes that some of the connoisseur aspects (coffee has its own brand of snobs, just like wine) can be removed and clarified. Like I said, speaking to the average person.
Please visit both site and let me know what you think. All comments and suggestions will be taken seriously.