โThis is the hero of the line,โ says Jessica Mitchell, Senior Director of Innovation at Peetโs Coffee. Sheโs just passed me a 12-ounce glass bottle of Baridi Black, the most straightforward of three variants in Peetโs newly-launched Ready-To-Drink (RTD) collection. She leans back to watch my face as I take the first sip, and I mentally scroll through a long list of coffee brands who have already taken the plunge into the RTD market. Can we call this one a hero?
To wit: Itโs been decades since Ueshima Coffee Coompanyย first tossed some coffee, milk, and sugar into a can and called it a profitable day back in the โ60s. Slowly, other companies began dipping their toes into the water. From Maxwell Houseโs conceptually problematic iteration in the early โ90s to Blue Bottle Coffeeโs milk carton-clad line and the Stumptown stubby, these days it seems like every major coffee brand has some RTD product to boast. Credit competitive marketing. Credit the popularity of healthier options over sugary sodas. Hell, get lofty and credit the way technology has shaped our approach to wait time and business-to-consumer interactions. Whatever the reasons, the demand for RTDs continues to grow.
And thatโs because at its core, ready-to-drink is uncomplicated. Itโs accessible. It sells. (Even Sprudgeโs own Zac Cadwalader is on board.) Itโs successful because, letโs be real: Deep down, even the most corporeal of coffee nerds occasionally, begrudgingly, enjoys convenience. Also, as Mitchell argues, it simply tastes good.
โWe found that when we started experimenting with cold brew about two years ago that we really loved the cold brew profileโthat lack of of bitterness and acidity,โ she explains. โItโs smooth, itโs refreshing, itโs aromatic.โ
And the Peetโs customer seemed to agree. In their cafes, cold brew sales doubled in those two years. Though the spike in cold brew demand isnโt unique to Peetโs (according to Food Business News, cold brew business in the United States grew 115% last year alone), the company could justify the desire to neatly bottle up that success into a RTD collection. Keen on locking down an already interested body of clientele, the San Francisco Bay Area-based corporation set out to shape their own productโa distinctly Peetโs product. Available as of the last Monday in July, the line is now carried in Peetโs cafes and grocery stores exclusively in the Bay Area.
Enticed parties have three options. Thereโs the aforementioned Baridi Black, a simple blend of Eastern Africa beans (from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Rwanda, to be exact) thatโs as straightforward as promised, andโdespite its ominous opaquenessโis not too toasty. Thereโs the Coffee Au Lait Cold Brew, a sweeter option that couples the Baridi blend with โthe freshest rBST-free milk.โ And finally, the Dark Chocolate Cold Brew, a Guittardย cocoa-infused wallop that, even as an enthusiastic guzzler of all things sugar, I find a little overwhelming.
Itโs easy to walk into any new situation with an agenda, and I fully admit that I find myself wanting to be all snobbily Third Wave, all hypercritical of any product that threatens to disrupt my blissfully cafe-filled lifestyle. But standing there with Mitchell, sneaking additional little sips of โheroโ Baridi Black as we chat, Iโm surprised. Iโm enjoying this.
Will green coffee buying legend Aleco Chigounis be squirreling away a lifetime supply of Peetโs RTDs to quaff whilst weeping? Probably not. Will some average, 9-to-5 Joe snag a few of these to drink while hammering away at a desk? SureโI happen to be that very same Joe at this exact moment, and Iโm having a totally decent time. Simply put: Youโre not going to be buying a bottle of the worldโs most interesting coffee when you pick up this RTD product, or frankly, any RTD product on the market right now. Youโre going to buy a bottle of coffee that gets the job doneโone that tastes much better than your parentโs generation of bottled Frappuccino dreck.
Can we call this line heroic? Letโs call it the least offensive product you could possibly imagine. To paraphrase Fitzgerald: Show me a hero, and Iโll bottle you an RTD.
Laura Jaye Cramer is a freelance writer based in San Francisco, and has written for SF Weekly,ย GOOD, and Catster. This is Laura Jaye Cramer’s first feature for Sprudge.ย
Photos courtesy of Peet’s Coffee & Tea.