December 2009 Newsletter

Another year has whizzed by like a rocket and we have the holiday
break to look forward to. Our last day of trading will be Tuesday
22nd  December;  our last roast will be Thursday 17th December
and as usual we will be running coffee stocks down to zero before
closing. This means that orders placed on or after Thursday will
have to take pot luck as we run out of various coffees. We will
reopen for business on Tuesday, 5th January 2010.

For those last minute gifts, we have coffee grinders on sale,
Sunbeam EM0450 grinders at $110.00 inc GST and Bregant Junior
Doser Grinders at $253.00 inc GST. Stocks are limited and prices
will not be repeated.

The Sunbeam EM0450, $110.00 inc GST	Bregant Junior Doser Grinder, $253.00 inc GST

The December Special coffee will be well known to regular
customers, it's the yummy

Costa Rica Tarrazu Miel
$45.00/kg

As I've said before, Smells like coffee, tastes like coffee, it's
the coffee-est coffee we've ever offered and a great single
origin espresso as well.

This is actually a coffee lot meant to be sold to someone else,
but circumstances have allowed me to snap it up.

The Global Financial Crisis hasn't really affected coffee bean
sales all that much but has had a profound negative effect on
coffee machine sales. This seems to apply to almost all small
domestic appliances going by the results of the major retailers.
Fortunately the profits on machines are so small that the drop in
sales hasn't damaged our business at all, but I've been seriously
thinking about the overall machine business.

As I have often said, I regard coffee machines as convenient
devices for consuming lots of coffee beans. Reliability,
longevity and ease-of-repair, as well as the ability to produce a
good shot, are the major factors in deciding which machines I
sell. Factored in to this has to be support from the
manufacturer, and this has been a bit spotty in a couple of cases
during the last year.

I'll be doing a lot of fact-and -figure investigation and a
considerable amount of navel-gazing over the break before making
any big decisions, but there are likely to be a few changes in
the New Year.

In the meantime, please get your orders in EARLY (shipping times
will inevitably be longer) to avoid disappointment.

We wish all our customers and newsletter readers the best of the
season. Please travel safely and have a prosperous and happy New
Year, and we'll be back in 2010.

Alan