In recent years, with the rise of the trend of freshly brewed coffee in China, buying a cup of coffee for work has become a habit for everyone. However, even freshly brewed coffee has recently started to roll up for a 30 day tasting period. Is it really necessary for coffee beans to roll so deeply?
1、 Even freshly brewed coffee has rolled up for a 30 day tasting period
According to a report by China National Radio, when consumers receive a freshly ground coffee from the counter, few people pay attention to when the coffee beans used in the cup are roasted? How long did you stay in the warehouse and logistics?
According to the R&D personnel of Guming Coffee, the brand has controlled the entire chain of coffee beans from roasting to store use within 30 days. The "30 day fresh bean" standard proposed by Gu Ming refers to the control of coffee beans from roasting to store use within 30 days, including a 10 day bean cultivation period.
Green coffee beans can maintain their optimal flavor for about 12 months when stored properly, but it is completely different after roasting. According to the consensus of SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) and multiple specialty roasters, the optimal flavor period for coffee beans is 7 to 30 days after roasting, with the 7th to 21st day being the peak flavor window. A study has shown that under appropriate storage conditions, the flavor score of coffee beans can reach 95 points (on a percentage scale) on the 10th day after roasting, and can still maintain above 85 points on the 30th day, but the flavor decay rate significantly accelerates after 30 days. After more than 30 days, a large amount of volatile substances such as floral and fruity aromas are lost, and even deep baked beans cannot conceal their woody flavor and hollow bitterness.
The 30 day standard imposes higher requirements on the supply chain. According to the person in charge of Guming Coffee, the core of this standard is that the supply chain needs to make stocking plans according to the logic of short-term guarantee products, warehouse inventory needs to be compressed, and planners need to pay attention to real-time inventory every day, judge sales expectations, and avoid stockouts or unsold goods. Coffee beans are different from other ingredients – if they are out of stock and restocked, they cannot be used directly, and a bean cultivation period needs to be reserved. Therefore, sales estimates need to be made 7 to 8 days in advance.
2、 Is it necessary to roll coffee beans?
Even freshly brewed coffee has begun to crazily roll up the flavor appreciation period, especially the concept of 30 day freshness around coffee beans, which has become a new bargaining chip for many brands to compete in the market. But when we calm down and examine it carefully, is it necessary to pursue this seemingly extreme internal competition?
Firstly, the biggest change in recent years has been the normalization and popularization of coffee. The coffee market in China has undergone a complete 'populist revolution' in recent years. What was the original state of coffee consumption in China? It is actually a low-frequency high-end consumer product. We have conducted specialized research on the development history of coffee. Whether it was the early days of island coffee or later when people went to Starbucks to drink, many times what they drank was not the coffee itself, but the so-called "third space", which was an added value for business negotiations and even a form of identity recognition with a petty bourgeois atmosphere.
At that time, the refreshing function of coffee was actually weakened. It was more like a social prop, and buying a cup of coffee without posting on social media seemed to lose the meaning of buying coffee. But with the widespread popularity of Jiu Jiu Jiu Coffee such as Luckin Coffee and Kudi Coffee, the underlying logic of the entire market has completely changed. Coffee Day has gradually become a daily necessity like mineral water and milk tea. When 9.9 yuan becomes the norm and drinking coffee no longer requires any psychological construction, it truly integrates into the daily commuting and working life of Chinese people.
But problems also arise, after long-term consumption of low-priced 9.9 yuan coffee, consumers' taste buds are actually gradually cultivated. At first, people thought that "having a coffee flavor is enough", and Nestle instant is also good. However, after drinking for a long time, some customers will inevitably become dissatisfied with just "having", and they will upgrade towards a more pursuit of flavor levels. This is like people who are used to eating from the big pot in the cafeteria, but once they have the conditions, they always want to go to private restaurants to satisfy their cravings. The market demand has been segmented, and some brands must come up with some new tricks in order to capture this group of "stubborn" people.
Secondly, during the coffee bean flavor appreciation period, rolling is a choice to shape a differentiated competitive advantage. For a long time, the core of industry competition has been price competition, with discounts of 9.9 yuan, 6.9 yuan, or even lower becoming normalized. The marginal effect of price wars continues to decrease, and simply lowering prices can no longer help brands seize more market share. Instead, it continues to compress the profit margins of the entire industry, leading most brands to fall into the dilemma of "low price volume, quantity without profit".
In such an industry landscape, brands must seek new dimensions of competition and break free from inefficient price competition. From the core essence of coffee products, the core competitiveness of beverages ultimately returns to the quality of raw materials, and coffee beans have a clear industry physical law. After roasting, the flavor substances of coffee beans will rapidly decay over time. Within 30 days, the flavor is the most full-bodied and layered stage, and after 30 days, core flavor indicators such as aroma, acidity, and aftertaste will continue to weaken. This objective industry law provides an excellent breakthrough for brand differentiation competition.
Compared to abstract "high-quality ingredients" and "exquisite taste", the 30 day tasting period is a tangible, quantifiable, and easy to spread selling point of the product. By binding the concept of short tasting period, brands can quickly convey the brand awareness of "high quality, freshness, and specialization" to the market, accurately distinguishing themselves from ordinary coffee brands that focus on affordable and essential needs, and completing the upgrade of brand tone. When the basic competitive dimension of the industry fails, enterprises will inevitably extend their competition to the refined links upstream of the industry chain, and the coffee bean flavor period will roll over. Essentially, it is the inevitable choice for the coffee industry competition to upgrade from downstream terminals to the upstream supply chain quality dimension.
Thirdly, the internalization of 30 day fresh beans is undoubtedly a double-edged sword. When you make "30 day fresh beans" your core selling point, it's not just a marketing move, it puts extremely high demands on the backend supply chain. From the production scheduling in the baking factory, to the deoxygenation and nitrogen filling in the packaging process, to the delivery of cold chain or high-speed logistics, and finally to the inventory turnover in the store, every step must be calculated with a stopwatch. Because once it exceeds 30 days, this batch of beans becomes synonymous with "expired" on the label and can only be scrapped. This actually creates a quite high barrier to entry, which most small and medium-sized brands simply cannot afford to play.
However, an excessive period of internal flavor appreciation can bring about a tricky problem, significantly increasing losses in baking and logistics. The underlying logic of business operation is economies of scale, and only through scaling can costs be reduced. But the logic of fresh beans is precisely against economies of scale. In order to ensure that the beans used in the store are all within 30 days, you cannot bake them in large quantities. You must bake them in small batches and frequently, which directly increases the baking cost of a single pound of beans.
In addition, with logistics losses and pressure on store expiration management, if your store density is insufficient or sales forecasts deviate, this excessive internal competition can actually lead to serious diseconomies of scale. In the end, this account may have earned a good reputation on the surface, but behind the scenes, it may have wiped out all the profits. This kind of loss making business is unsustainable in the long run, which is why non coffee chain stores like Guming have sparked such controversy by launching this taste period version of beans.
Fourthly, the short-term taste appreciation period is more of a marketing gimmick than a necessity. The 30 day tasting period's internal competition is more like a carefully packaged marketing gimmick, rather than a necessary choice that truly meets the needs of the public. We must face a reality that the vast majority of ordinary consumers, without professionally trained taste buds, cannot accurately distinguish the flavor difference between 30 day fresh beans and 90 day beans. The so-called flavor decay may only be a subtle change in taste in their mouths, and may even be difficult to detect.
Moreover, the mainstream commercial coffee nowadays mostly adopts medium deep roasting to adapt to the taste of the public and improve extraction efficiency. This roasting method itself will cause a large loss of flavor substances in the coffee beans. Even if the raw materials are 30 day fresh beans, after medium deep roasting, the freshness of their flavor has already been greatly reduced. The so-called 30 day advantage is weakened by half in the roasting process.
Only a small group of boutique coffee customers who pursue the ultimate flavor can truly perceive the value of 30 day fresh beans and are willing to pay for this freshness. They understand coffee, love coffee, and have almost strict pursuit of flavor, but this group of people accounts for a very small proportion in the overall coffee consumption market. For the vast majority of ordinary consumers, the core value of coffee remains to refresh their minds and satisfy their daily needs, rather than pursuing the ultimate flavor experience. This has never changed.
Therefore, it depends on how the coffee brand chooses itself. Do you want scale or a premium? If you want scale, then honestly make the supply chain thicker, lower the price, and don't get too caught up in the taste period; If you want a premium, then go deep into cultivating those geek players, open a small store, and make the service more refined. The biggest fear is wanting to dilute costs with scale while also trying to elevate oneself with a taste appreciation period. This approach, which requires both, often exhausts the brand itself in the tug of war of the supply chain. So, internal competition is not a problem, but blind internal competition is not advisable. Finding a rhythm that suits one's own industry chain positioning is the long-term solution.
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