California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold Mine | Hacker News Reader

California-Grown Coffee Is Becoming the State's Next Gold Mine

npr.org

148 pointsdanans125 comments

So stupid. 250 pounds of beans were harvested. That is less than 2 (150lb) bags of coffee. This is pure novelty.

Just because someone can get a coffee plant to grow coffee in California does not mean the coffee will be any good. Coffee grows in a lot of places, really good coffee takes particular terroir to grow really well. E.g. low grown coffee generally doesn't taste very good and altitude alone isn't the answer. The combination between altitude, soil, climate(cold at night, hot in the day) makes the bean develop slowly and generates more flavour. This is not speculation, this is information that coffee agronomists understand.

So, it's totally ok for somebody to sell expensive coffee as a novelty. What is disappointing about this article is it extrapolates from a sale of 250 lbs of beans to a "Gold Mine", implying that other beans grown in California might be sold at a similar price. They won't be, because they will likely be very poor quality. With the extremely high costs of production of the coffee, it likely won't be profitable except as a novelty.

I admit, I didn't read the article, but that's primarily because upon seeing it my first thought was exactly along the lines of yours: "wait, how can that be true, California doesn't have the climate/conditions to grow good arabica coffee. Is this going to be some robusta nightmare?".

And it's not even just water, but temperature, soil, the whole works.

Glad to see my intuition seems to be on target...

You didn't read the article carefully enough- the 250 lbs refers to the output of one specific harvester, not the output from all 30k coffee trees in CA.

I great conditions a coffee tree produces an annual yield of 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of roasted coffee.

So we are only talking about ~250 bags of coffee. Which is still nothing.

Nope. “Last year, the 24-member coffee cooperative harvested 250 pounds of beans.“

So 24 farmers harvested 250 lbs, all of it bought by the one roaster at $60 /lb. Coffee plants take 18 months before they start producing harvestable amounts of cherry.

So $15,000 (250x$60) is a gold mine? I have a feeling this won't scale...

That’s some crazy expensive coffee. If I buy the most expensive coffee the importer brings in here is (copy paste) GUATEMALA FINCA EL SOCORRO YELLOW BOURBON $20.70NZ (which is $15.28 US).

In that sort of price range are some fantastic coffees - I struggle to see how something 4x more expensive could be that much better. My go to is Ethiopian Yirgacheffe which is a few dollars cheaper at NZ $17.50.

I shipped that coffee last year, tasted awesome:)

HN is awesome, even you get in touch with people who deliver your coffee.

Try Panama geisha from Ninety plus, it's much more expensive and better taste as well (depends fully on roaster). I've tried Hawaii Kona exclusively from UCC farm, and Blue Mountain genuinely from Jamaica, both are better than the rest but still not satisfied with the price.

Edit: I didn't mean to compare Guatemala vs. Panama coffees, just noting the price range.

Why is California so fascinated on agriculture which is extremely water intensive? Coffee is up there with Almonds as far as I understand the situation.

The better question is why are more states not so fascinated with agriculture?

Availability of cheap agricultural labor?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/california-agriculture-sees-...

It pretty much comes down to weather.

Importing water is easier than importing sun and heat.

...until said water runs out, then you’re hot, sunny, and dry.

But who knows, that might change:

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/8/1661171...

Climate is the big one, land and access to water (I know this seems weird for California but they do have it). You could grow in West TX, southern NM and AZ but the water logistics are not there. You see the same crops in FL, but they have less land to support the same kind of agriculture infrastructure as they do in California. The labor situation is a symptom of the above factors, by its very nature its mobile. If you had the farms to support it, the labor would follow.

Large famers lobbying groups.

Lack of market forces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

This comes up a lot here, but in theory a government is supposed to make hard decisions to prevent that tragedy. On its own simply saying “tragedy of the commons” is like a trauma surgeon saying, “sucking chest wound,” without stepping in to fix it.

I think it's more like the surgeon is being held back by people saying "No, don't step in because you'll make it worse! The human body can heal itself." And you, the surgeon, can do nothing but mutter "a punctured lung ain't gonna heal itself."

A good surgeon should step in and accept the consequences, while saving a life; that is ultimately what they signed up for. No one said it would be easy or make you happy to do good, right?

Still, I’m not ignoring your point, which is solid.

People and especially agricultural users don't pay anything like the true cost of water: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the.... Charge everyone the same cost per liter or gallon or 1,000 gallons and you will find out what should actually be grown.

> you will find out what should actually be grown.

the problem with that is "what should actually be grown" has different answers depending on whether you value profit or feeding people.

In this case though the high water items are not what feed people well - almonds and coffee?

In this case, we aren't feeding people. We're feeding cows.

We're also running into frequent water crises where politicians ask people to shower less while we dump 90% of the state's water on the ground.

Exactly. You want to decrease the water usage inefficiencies up the chain. The govt should advocate eating less animal products (I'm not necessarily saying all) if it really cared about conservation.

> the problem with that is "what should actually be grown" has different answers depending on whether you value profit or feeding people.

It can only be a choice between making a profit and feeding people at break-even (feeding people while losing money is not sustainable). Beyond that, the profit signal carries useful information about what the people being fed would rather eat, while keeping in line with what is economically and environmentally viable.

The problem with the current situation is that water is mispriced, and mispricing, regardless of whether it favours suppliers or consumers, makes it unsustainable in the long run.

False dichotomy. People will survive just fine with a different crop than almonds.

Exactly. One almond requires about a gallon of water. We can easily replace that with a more efficient food.

The Sierra provide ample water and silt for the central valley that makes it one of the worlds ideal farming lands. It's been very actively farmed for more than 100 years.

Sure, the water situation has gone up and down with the drought, but normally there's plenty of water. A lot of the almond orchards had to be scaled back during the drought, but when there's water they use it. It's a lot more sustainable than many other farming lands because it's not dependent on an underground aquifer that took eons to fill up or water piped in from somewhere far away except for the urban areas of course.

Oh come on, that's a weird definition of "ample", considering the frequent droughts and that water rights have always been a huge source of dispute in the western U.S.

The question is whether there's enough water for both farming and huge cities. Cities can pay much more, so if water rights were transferrable, farmers wouldn't grow almonds. They would sell their water to cities and retire.

Is it a drought or is the baseline taken from an unusually wet period?

I wish this was true, but it's not:

https://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/land-subsi...

The land in parts of the central valley has subsided by meters due to long-term groundwater depletion.

According to http://waterfootprint.org/media/downloads/Report14.pdf it requires 140 liters of water to produce 1 cup of coffee. The most expensive source of water that I can think of, from a reverse-osmosis desalinization plant, costs $0.40/1000 liters in Singapore (Hyflux, 20 year contract), - so that cup of coffee has a ceiling of about $0.08/to produce in terms of the cost of it's water content.

The question should never be "how much water to produce this" - but, "what value are we getting from the water" - if you are able to sell a cup of coffee for $5, then it's probably a good investment of that $0.08.

This depends on water being well-priced in California (i.e. not subsidized, reflective of opportunity costs and externalities). I don't know much about water in CA, but is this the case?

California has a very strange water system. It’s not really privatized, only ~5% of California’s water is provided by private parties last I checked. Californian water rights promise significantly more water than the state actually has (which will cause some problems).

The water districts and utilities do most of the price setting, as I understand it. The water districts are largely controlled by farming interests who do not want pricy water.

This info may be out of date, since I work in a very different water market (East Africa), so if someone knows better please correct me.

Definitely not and it would probably put most agriculture in California out of business. Farmers can't compete with cities on price.

https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21647994-why-go...

Yep. No more California beef too. Water there is too expensive and there's no free-market in agriculture there.

No it is not. The water districts are extremely powerful, and the biggest usage districts are held by agricultural interests. They have staggered elections to stop water board takeovers and ensure that they can shift water costs from usage based to per-meter fees. Captive homeowners in agriculture controlled water districts can end up with $200 a month water bills for a family of four.

Source: Lived in a water district for 7 years with some of the cheapest water in the state (sub $3 a unit) yet a water bill for a family of four with fake grass and small yard of around $180 a month. If we used ZERO water, the bill would have been about $120 in flat fees. We were subsidizing the massive avocado groves and other major agricultural producers in the water district. They brushed off our complaints and the fact that we pointed to neighboring cities with $40 water bills.

Was it $180 per month or $180 per quarter?

Per month. Very small yard. Fake grass in the back.

Just watched a documentary on Netflix about water in California which stated that 80 pct of the water goes subsidized to agriculture which is like 2 percent of the economy. They got into this family, the Resnicks of POM Wonderful and all the shady moves they made to control public water privately which caused this wake of issues including what you wrote about where families either had no water, tainted water or it was crazy expensive. California even bought back it's own water it invested to store in Kern county at a multiple. Insane stuff.

that really doesn't sound so bad. at least curiosity piquing enough to work out more of the economics and impact of using reverse osmosis water in agriculture.

I would think it might not hold up so feasible for non-cash crops, but at first glance that seems pretty cool that you might be able to use reverse osmosis water for crops. I guess you just have to convince/get farmers to give up their cheap water ha.

That's the retail price of the coffee and a whole lot of layers of people/businesses are involved between the grower and the retailer.

That sounds like a good argument to stop allowing california agriculture to externalize the cost of water.

That is purely a political problem, not an economic one. The economics are forehead-slap obvious.

Alfalfa is a very water intensive crop and is grown all over california. You can get 7 tons per acre per year at a value of $220 per ton [1]. It requires 435,000 gallons of water per acre per year [2].

[1] https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/f2/0e/f...

[2] https://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/workgroups/lcfssustain/han...

Am I missing something? That still sounds profitable just based on the data I read in these comments:

7 ton / acre * $220 / ton - (435000 gallon / acre * $0.40 / 1000 liter)

$881.34 / acre

Obviously your equation is a big simplification, but you’re missing a lot of the input costs.

Your math checks out - of the top of my head, 435,000 gallons is approx 1.6 million liters - 1600 m^3 * $0.4/m^3 = ~$640/acre of water, for $1440 of product, or ~ $800 profit (for just water costs)

One variable we are missing is transport costs - that $0.40 is for generation, and transportation of water from the ocean to the central valley would probably be expensive.

Alfalfa is also a nitrogen fixer, so on top of being something farmers can sell it reduces furtilizer costs.

> it requires 140 liters of water to produce 1 cup of coffee

Not to mention the milk that people usually add, which is even more water intensive

For someone outside the industry it’s suprisingly hard to get good data on the water needed to make milk. A search has given just under 1000L for Waikato NZ and just over 1000L for Canterbury. However the Guardian suggests 255L of water for a single litre of milk.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-mu...

https://sciblogs.co.nz/waiology/2012/05/24/how-much-water-do...

Those K-Cups bottom out at .25? .08 for the water is a lot.

those reverse-osmosis systems are really expensive.... I wish I could get one at my house that could provide pure water at $0.40/1000 liters over X years... I pay a lot more then that and it it is only to get softened well water (still has 400 ppm of stuff in it)... But the health department just came to test my water and according to them, it doesn't include petroleum products, at least.

> if you are able to sell a cup of coffee for $5

That's the retail price though, the grower doesn't see much of that.

You can grow pretty much anything in California. Soil is great, perfect weather for a wide variety of crops, and the dryness actually helps with pests and disease if you have another source of water.

That’s a hell of an ‘if’. The other stuff is surely easier to get than water is?

>Why is California so fascinated on agriculture which is extremely water intensive? Coffee is up there with Almonds as far as I understand the situation.

Check the Netflix documentary "Water & Power", it gives a good reason to consider why.

Essentially, people trying to control the water.

Your comment got me wondering if cactus juice is a thing, and apparently, it is.

Call it cactus milk and then it’ll sell.

California has a lot of ag industry and they are interested in making as much money as possible.

California doesn't have a collective consciousness.

Here’s a fascinating long form on CA water, Ag and the largest almond and pistachio land owner in California with 180,000 acres.

The more water a plant takes, the more CO2 it scrubs from the air, right? That's not entirely bad, I would think.

No, that is not how it works. CO2 is only removed from atmosphere if it is sequestered in some solid, like wood — CO2 is not deleted by plants, it’s just transformed to different form. Additionally, plants aren’t really sequestering CO2 from human emissions, unless you bury them underground as you grow them — if you only let it grow without storing it underground, you are only replacing CO2 from deforestation.

I know this, but still, I think temporary CO2 removal from the atmosphere is not totally worthless. It buys us more time until more clean energy comes online. And if this time is paid for by rich coffee aficionados, I think that's not a bad deal after all. Oh, and I doubt there's any deforestation going on in California.

Today? Probably not much. Historically? Yes, a lot. You still need to offset for that first, even if happened 150 years ago.

The majority of the water a plant absorbs is lost to the air as transpiration. Different plants lose different percentages of water this way, so high water use doesn't necessarily mean more CO2 absorption.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transpiration

Because it is profitable in California, with arable land and sunshine, to a degree not found in other states.

People don't ever talk about this, but we still grow rice in California. To grow rice you have to flood a field in several inches of water.

Sounds like rice should be grown aquaponically or hydroponically or not at all.

The logic here is slightly backwards. The reason there's a water crisis in California is because it's a fantastic place to grow things.

>A single cup sold for $18. The coffee sold out within two weeks.

This is mindboggling to me. I don't think I've ever paid more than $5 for a cup of coffee.

> Relative to all of the other things we're willing to spend $18 on — like a glass of wine or small-batch bourbon — investing in the memorable flavor experience of a great cup of coffee is worth it.

This quote further in the article captures the reason why someone might spend more. Producing good coffee is actually more expensive than the market would lead you to believe. For some people drinking good coffee is exactly like experiencing a fine wine.

I still wouldn't pay $18 but I'm sure some would.

That said the best coffee near me is in the little market and it's both cheaper and vastly better than star bucks, I go there after Chess Club on a Saturday and review the games I just played, it's so good I would pay £5 (~$7.5) for that one cup a week because it's an experience not the caffeine, the rest of the time it's LIDL's Columbian instant (which is a damn fine instant).

Given what I’ve learned about fraud in the wine world, the nature of individual taste perception, and the inflated value of wine... I’m sure it is entirely similar.

Useful references: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_fraud

Think wine is bad .. wait until you look at the olive oil business!

Oh yeah, the mafia is deep in that one too. The best advice I’ve gotten for olive oil, coffee, wine, beer, and chocolate is to satisfy your palette. If you like it, great! It doesn’t really matter if a group of “experts” disagrees, although it can be helpful to try a wide spectrum at first.

I don't think it is. I don't give a flying fuck about coffee or food or wine or any of that shit, but I can genuinely taste differences in coffee. I'd be surprised if you couldn't.

There's a little roaster in St Lawrence Market where I go and I pickup random bags of whatever coffees for fun, and they are extremely different.

Wine I've never been able to discern. I don't think coffee is in the same league at all.

In contrast coffee in general is vastly underpriced. In a shop you are lonely going to pay a premium but beans are generally produced by an underpaid labour market that allows for coffee to maintain such a low value.

So, it’s like most clothing, and consumer electronics, jewelry, and so on?

>For some people drinking good coffee is exactly like experiencing a fine wine.

I would phrase it differently.

Americans have become conditioned to accept high prices for drinks. For lots of reasons, but mostly because they are real money makers in almost every place that sells any sort of drink.

I mean, it costs up to $6 for a bottle of kombucha, and I know people who go through a couple of those a day. The next logical step is a $20 coffee.

Meanwhile in Europe you can get a good espresso for a euro.

That's obviously a false extrapolation on cultures.

In Paris you're not spending one euro on espresso typically. It's going to be closer to 2.50 to 3 euros. Adjust that to dollars, you get more like $3 to $3.70, adjust for income differences you get $5 to $6 (US incomes are far higher than French incomes, and especially if we're comparing eg NYC vs Paris).

https://francetravelplanner.com/go/paris/shop/costs.html

Americans have not been conditioned to accept high prices for drinks. When was the last time you wandered through Walmart's beverages section? Their grocery section has half an aisle for inexpensive coffee and tea products, and then another half aisle for inexpensive soda products. As another example, cases of water at Walmart go for $4 for a brand label pack of 24 to 32 500ml bottles, or $0.13 to $0.17 per unit. If anything, most Americans are conditioned to expect to pay very cheap prices for purchased beverages. That's why Starbucks is considered expensive to the average person.

A small group of high income Americans find it acceptable to spend what is a trivial sum for them, on such product experiences.

The notion that many Americans are spending $15-$20 on daily beverages, is laughable. The median income is $30,000. You want me to believe a lot of people are spending $7,000 annually on beverages? Yeah right.

It's equivalent to saying: in the US you can buy a vast array of great wines for $10 to $20, while in France people are paying $140 for wine.

Sure, some people in France are. It'd be false to pretend a large number of people in France are doing that regularly. Few Americans are actually spending outsized sums of money on beverages.

In Rome, I bought 1.20 euro for a espresso, and 2.0 for a cappuccino, right smack in the middle of the city near the train station.

In Albania, it is the 0.80 for a medium-good espresso (Lavazza or Illy), and 1.20 to 1.50 for a cappuccino.

In Barcelona, a glass of wine varied between 2.5. and 3 euros. I never paid more than that. In the US? 12-15 (In NYC at least).

Also, in NYC, you can't buy a bottle of water for $1, in most places, while in supermarkets in Spain was about 0.50 or 0.60

So, yeah, Americans in general pay twice as much for beverages.

NYC unfairly keeps large grocers such as Walmart out of the city. You can order 40 water bottle packs from Costco using Instacart for 3.69 in NYC [1]. NYC Bodegas are not competitive, it is unfortunate the city allows the poor to be taken advantage of and forced to shop at such uncompetitively priced stores.

[1] https://www.instacart.com/store/items/item_128043194

How does it keep them out?

I'm not familiar with NYC, but typical techniques involve refusing to issue business or construction permits, or imposing untenable restrictions.

You can’t compare prices in NYC and extrapolate that to the rest of the country - it’s the most expensive place for pretty much everything.

SF and Boston are close enough to NYC:

Consumer Prices in San Francisco, CA are 1.16% lower than in New York, Consumer Prices in Boston, MA are 12.87% lower than in New York, NY

Lol in the Midwest a glass of wine will run you $4-6 and an espresso around $2-3. Of course you'd pick the highest cost region.

I didn't pick the lowest cost regions in Italy or Spain either. I am comparing cities vs. cities and not cities vs. middle of nowhere. Both Rome and Barcelona are world class cities. (Barcelona the more modern one). The prices are similar in Berlin and many other cities in Europe expect in Scandinavian countries and London.

There are places where things are even cheaper (especially in Souther Italy), where 3 euros will get you a whole bottle of wine.

While NYC is expensive, is it not much more than either San Francisco or Boston. (maybe a 5% difference, but not 2x).

Just saying

Minneapolis/St Paul metro isn't the middle of no where. It's almost 4 million people... We have over 80 breweries and a 1 billion dollar sports stadium where the super bowl was held this year. I could go on.

"US incomes are far higher than French incomes, and especially if we're comparing eg NYC vs Paris"

A common assumption that americans get wrong: this isn't the case. (Taxes might affect things a bit, but that doesn't take into account the healthcare and retirement situation.)

Ughh.

The mythical 1-euro coffee persists due to cultural reasons. But also due to very depressed purchasing power in places in Greece, Italy etc

Go to any capital or premium tourist location, and u too will discover the pleasures of 5euro coffee.

> Meanwhile in Europe you can get a good espresso for a euro.

Even if this is still true, you're talking about different things than what most Americans purchase. Very few Americans purchase the single shot of espresso, but last I checked Starbucks has it for ~$1.50.

What many Americans consider coffee is really a milkshake flavored with a couple of shots of espresso. Then there is the size issue. If I walked into a cafe in Europe and wanted a grande sized latte it would end up being very similar in price to Starbucks (2 espresso shots and basically a glass of milk).

I'm not sure where you've gotten a latte, but I haven't noticed a significant difference between a latte from a US coffeeshop (and I've been to various across several states and regions) and a latte in Spain, for instance.

I haven't been to Starbucks recently, so I can't comment on their products.

The €1 coffee is possibly more prevalent across the border in Portugal.

They charge extra for milk, as black coffee is typically drunk as a side dish to iconic pasteis.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/08/da/d6/7b/...

While visiting LA I went to a farmers market. I paid $11 for a single cup of coffee that I was promised would blow my socks off. Bourbon barrel roasted something.

It was _good_ and the novelty was nice, but I probably wouldn't choose to do it again. Instead I just do my own pourovers at home for ~$0.30 each and add my own flavors at brew time (e.g. ground cinnamon sticks.)

I can't say much though, I grudgingly support my wife's Starbucks habit at $5/drink and just a few years ago I found that just as ridiculous.

“I can't say much though, I grudgingly support my wife's Starbucks habit at $5/drink and just a few years ago I found that just as ridiculous.”

Well, in this case what you’re paying for is not the coffee per se.

I agree with the sentiment. I am willing to pay more for my beans, but brew my own coffee at home and at working using a good burr grinder and an Aeropress. The lower temperature and higher pressure method makes such a smooth cup without bitterness that you can actually start tasting the coffee. I like the analogy of the camera-- you can buy a great lense, but if your hand shakes then the picture won't come out well.

Same for me. I once visited a coffee farm at Kona: the coffee was nice, but not that special. (For one thing, the coffee was in thermal carafes, with small paper cups next to it. Think Trader Joe's.)

I feel how the coffee is prepared matters more than where it is from. Or maybe I lack the taste buds to feel it properly. Oh well.

Bean source, processing, roasting profile, freshness, grind, temperature, and brewing method all play a part in making a good cup of coffee.

And of course taste is subjective so it's hard to get an absolute answer here. Kona coffee is likely overpriced and overhyped. In my opinion there's a diminishing return on coffee taste past a certain point. I haven't seen any indications that the really expensive coffees' tastes are proportional to the price, it's just that demand is high because they're famous in some way (Kona, Blue Mountain, Kopi Luwak)

For a real eye opener of "bean origin affects flavor", try some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe beans from a reputable roaster. You should get strong blueberry notes from the coffee, quite different from other regions' coffees. It'll be more expensive than a bag of whatever supermarket coffee, but there's a clear distinction in taste. Whether you like that taste is entirely another thing, but drink whatever tastes good to you!

A sociologist would point you at social stratification theory.

People want to pay more for coffee than they currently pay. I realized this after seeing the popularity of Philz Coffee. Only drip coffee, for about $4 a cup, much longer wait than sbux and lines out the door.

Philz was the first place where I could actually taste the difference in flavors between the different beans. I think it’s because they don’t burn their beans like Starbucks does. They also use heavy cooking cream rather than half and half. I am no coffee snob, but Starbucks coffee really is the lowest common denominator at this point, probably due to the scale they have to operate at.

It’s lowest common denominator because it is so common. If there were only a handful of Starbucks it would still be highly sought after. Now, you can’t turn a corner without seeing Starbucks.

Same thing happened to Godiva.

No, I don’t meant it as an issue of coolness - I mean that Starbucks needs to provide a consistent flavor to their customers at thousands and thousands of locations. My theory is that only way to do that for them is to burn their coffee beans and then drown it in syrup and milk, so the customer getting “extra tall vanilla latte” gets the same taste at any location from Alaska to Florida.

Compare it to coffee at Noah’s Bagels or Tim Hortons. Those are large chains too. Tastes vary, but I think if you take a plain black coffee from each of the three, Starbucks will still come out on bottom.

They are making an effort to prove they can do decent coffee at Starbucks Reserve apparently. One just opened here in Redwood City that I've been meaning to try out. I think you pay more for the experience, but regardless, it is good to see Starbucks get back to their roots in some form.

The article also points out that novelty was a big factor. I'd happily pay $20 to try the coffee from California. I might even pay $55 for a cup of that Klutsch coffee mentioned. Only once though. The coffee can be as good as it once, even if I was swimming in money I'd rather donate the money than regularly spend $20/cup.

I’ve got a photo of a cafe in Venice selling coffee for 9 euros if you sit down. That was 10 years ago too. I didn’t sit down.

Well but that’s 8 euros for chair rental and 1 Euro for the coffee (probably what you’d pay for an espresso to go at the bar)

So, what does it taste like?

I didn't like it. It lacked any sort of body or coffee taste. It had a taste as if it was the lightest blonde roast that I'd ever had, but it was supposed to be a medium roast, IIRC. And I love light roasts; My go-to daily consumption is a blonde roast from a local roaster. I couldn't tell you exactly when I had it, I left Santa Barbara a few years ago.

It is possible that it was poorly made. Light roasts are fully capable to meet or exceed the body or "strength" of a dark roast. That being said it was probably the coffee not having the most optimal growing conditions leading to an empty tasting cup.

It's a relatively new market so its possible flavours will evolve as farmers and roasters mature their experiences with the product. And I would expect the price to level out once the novelty of sampling it has passed.

But yes, living in the self-appointed 'coffee-snob' capital of the southern hemisphere, I do notice that fancy single origin roasts that dazzle the experts often leave the average man in the street underwhelmed "It's nice, but..."

Can I ask where you are? I’d nominate Wellington as somewhere like that - and by my reckoning it is damn good.

Melbourne - I am bemused at hearing a tourism spiel about our "historic" lanes overflowing with coffee shops, as if it were somehow unique. We do have per km^2 more tattooed millennials honing their barista skills than most, I guess.

Seriously? I use a long list of US products on daily basis, most of them are really good. That being said, American coffee is the only big no go I can think of.

People need to wake up from their day dream and realise something simple and plain - many travel to the US with instant coffee packed in their luggage because American coffee (made or grown in the US) is just !@#$%^.

Number of the Day: 18 Coffee Trees per Person

https://www.treehugger.com/green-food/number-of-the-day-18-c...

There was a coffee-in-California discussion last year at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14436704.

> Ruskey visited four different Blue Bottle cafes before finding a location where California coffee was still available.

The article never said how good the coffee was? That’s an important point in this context.

What’s truly sad about this is the misappropriation of resources. Why not donate the money to an efficient charity instead? I wish there was an onerous tax on this nonsense. This is exactly why high VAT + tax credits to the poor is the way we should generate our tax base.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com