One thing we’ve learned since launching the Sprudge Design Awards is that great coffee design is evident everywhere you look: in roasted whole bean offerings, on-demand coffee, ready-to-drink coffee, jute bags, cleaning products, everything! Something we haven’t quite covered before is great design in small-format green coffee bags. That’s exactly what Green Coffee Co. is doing with a new line of packaging, offering whole-bean unroasted coffee in 1lb, 2lb, 4lb, and 10lb sizes.
Roasting at home can be a delightful experience and it doesn’t take much to dip your toe in. “People really don’t need any fancy equipment to start roasting, and it can be done as simply as a cast iron skillet on a stovetop,” says Green Coffee Co.’s Jennifer Radke, “however, with a relatively small investment there are excellent options out there for individuals to buy a coffee roaster. A personal favorite is the Freshroast roaster. It is about the size of a blender, and allows a lot of flexibility and control for roasters to truly customize and adjust their roasts to exactly what they like in their coffee. It allows the one to roast up to 1/2lb at a time, in well under 20 minutes. Moving on up from there, the options are numerous, and technology is changing quickly.”
Finding quality green coffee in small quantities has been made a lot easier by pioneering home-roasting-forward companies like Sweet Maria’s out of the Bay Area, but until 2018, it was a challenge to find Canada-based small-scale green coffee suppliers. “We recognized that there was a lack of options for small home roasters when it came to sourcing green coffee,” says Radke, “many suppliers sell wholesale or larger amounts of coffee, but for the individual looking for quality green beans, there was very few options in Canada.”
Since late 2018, Canada-based home-roasting-enthusiasts have a local supplier in Green Coffee Co., who worked in-house to produce a new package design along with the team at Tricorbraun Flex. We spoke with Radke to learn more about their design process—and what coffees they’re looking forward to this season.
The Sprudge Design Awards are currently accepting submissions thru 10/19/23. Find out more at Sprudge Design Awards official website.
Tell us about the Green Coffee Co. bag redesign!
When we started the company, the bags we were using were all about function. As we have expanded our offerings, we wanted something that was consistent whether someone was buying 1lb, 2lbs, 4lbs or 10lb bags. The new design, handles wear much better, and includes a much better design for people to reseal the bag once opened. This helps keeps moisture out, and will keep the beans fresh until roasted. The overall design includes an image of a coffee plant with cherries on the plant. As our name is Green Coffee Co, we wanted to keep the color theme green as well, while the individual labels for each variety will include a pop of color along with all the pertinent details for each variety. I also wanted to design to read as timeless, and quality. All the coffee we supply is specialty grade and ethically sourced, so it is important we package our coffee to represent that quality.
Tell us about the design team behind the branding!
The design team for this was small, but I think that worked in our favor. It included myself and Isaias Vazquez. Vazquez was able to take the concepts and apply them to the program Tricorbraun required. We also had the help of Cyntia Bao and Justin Hsueh at Tricorbraun who walked us through every step of the way including color proofs, so we could ensure that what we were ordering was what we wanted. It ended up being a very smooth process!
Where is your coffee available to purchase?
All of our offerings are available on our website, for the smaller amounts (1, 2, 4, 10, and 25lbs) and larger roasters can reach out to us direct for wholesale amounts larger than 25lbs. A sampling of our varieties is also available on amazon.ca (2, 4, and 10lbs in limited varieties). For individuals that are in the central Alberta region, they can also visit our office in Lacombe, AB.
Have any exceptional coffees in the pipeline for Q4 2023?
We are quite excited to have our Mexico Oaxaca back in stock, as well as a couple new varieties. The Cerro Las Ranas Yellow Honey out of El Salvador, and also the Indonesia Java. All of these are exceptional, and each has a very different profile. The Oaxaca has a smooth chocolate notes and creamy body. Imagine a really great mole sauce. The Yellow Honey has the sweet acidity and smooth body one looks for in a honey process, while the Java has more of the spice notes and full body to offer a contrast from the other two options. We are always on the lookout for quality options though so our offerings do change throughout the year on some of the micro lots.
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Coffee Design is a feature series on Sprudge presented by TricorBraun Flex.
