A Convenient Cup of Premium Java
By Lorrie Baumann
Americans might be more likely to identify Java and Sumatra as coffee producers than they are to identify them as two of the islands in the Indonesian archipelago, but the long-time popularity of coffees from Sumatra, Java and Bali has propelled Indonesia into the ranks of the world’s top coffee-producing nations. “That’s how people in Europe know about Java coffee, Sumatra coffee, Bali coffee – those are all Indonesian islands,” said Michael Riady, the Founder of Tentera Coffee, which specializes in importing and roasting Indonesian coffees in small batches for the American market. “We only specialize in what we know best,” he said. “My family has been in Indonesia for five generations. We know Indonesian coffee very, very well, much better than a lot of people, and we go direct from the farm in Indonesia to the cup in America.”
Riady founded the coffee company in Los Angeles, California, after pursuing a career in real estate development in Indonesia. After 15 years in real estate, the industry lost its allure for him, and he decided to turn back to what his family, which grows coffee on Indonesian farms, knows best. “I’ve been traveling back and forth between Indonesia and America for the last 25 years. I love both places,” he said. “I love coffee myself. I decided to go back to my passion and import it straight to Americans. People know Sumatra; people know Java – they just don’t know that’s from Indonesia. Bali – that’s Indonesia.”
“Our mission is to exceed expectations. We have to exceed expectations each cup at a time, and the way we do that is by being very focused on what we do best,” he continued. “That’s the reason we try not to go and source coffee all over the world. We don’t know Brazilian coffee that well. We don’t know Ethiopian coffee that well. They’re great, but we know the Indonesian very well, and we believe that by focusing, we can exceed expectations.”
Tentera Coffee offers whole bean Indonesian coffees, ground coffees and the Single-Serve Pour-over Coffee Bag. The coffee bag was introduced to the coffee market by the Japanese, but its market has expanded very well across Asia, and it’s just being introduced to the American market by Tentera Coffee. “We are introducing a new way of drinking coffee to America,” Riady said. “This coffee solves a lot of problems.”
One of those problems is plastic waste from the cups that package most single-serve coffee. Coffee pods and capsules have been a bane of the environment ever since Nespresso patented its plastic capsule in 1991, according to environmental groups that have pointed accusatory fingers at the proliferation of the polypropylene pods as their popularity exploded in the 21st century. Their argument is that, despite the recyclable labels that generally appear on the plastic capsules, they generally end up in garbage incinerators or in landfills, where they take hundreds of years to degrade. Greenpeace points out in “Circular Claims Fall Flat,” a report published in February, 2020, that although a lot of plastic packaging products are labeled as recyclable, few of them actually are, either because of a lack of municipal recycling facilities that can handle anything other than polyethylene plastics, the kind of plastic that’s used to manufacture soda bottles, or because many other plastics cost more to recycle them than to make new plastic.
The Greenpeace report notes that the price of plastic waste has plummeted ever since China passed policies curbing Chinese imports of plastic waste, beginning in January of 2018. With China no longer accepting plastic waste, it’s become clearer in the U.S. that apparently plastic doesn’t recycle itself – someone has to think that there’s a value proposition there, and with China out of the market for recyclable plastics, Greenpeace argues that the recyclability claims that many manufacturers are making for their packaging are simply deceptive.
Tentera Coffee’s Single-Serve Pour-Over Coffee Bags are packed in aluminum packaging that’s recyclable. “The filter is made of paper. There’s no plastic within the product – it’s primarily paper,” Riady said. “We have to strive for eco-friendlier products. It’s much more eco-friendly than the plastic pods in which some other single-serve coffees are sold.”
The single-serve packaging also offers the advantage of less waste of the coffee itself, since the coffee is made one cup at a time rather than one pot at a time, which may mean that leftover coffee is simply discarded, Riady said. “The pour over-coffee is good for 6 to 8 ounces of coffee and does not require condiments.”
In addition, Tentera gives back 1 percent of its gross sales to 1% for the Planet, a nonprofit organization that advises on giving strategies for companies and individuals that want to use money and in-kind donations as a tool to benefit the environment and that certifies the donations. To date, the organization’s members have invested over $250 million in environmental nonprofit solutions through the 1% for the Planet network, according to the organization.
But since no one buys coffee primarily out of their urge to conserve the environment, Riady is quick to reassure that the Tentera coffee itself delivers on flavor. “The coffee itself tastes a lot better – it’s excellent coffee,” he said, pointing out that the coffee bags are really just an easy way to make a single cup of coffee using the pour-over method that consumers are used to seeing performed by their favorite baristas. “The best way to drink coffee is to do a manual pour – you want to pour hot water through your coffee…. That’s why people go to specialty coffee shops to have a barista do a manual brew for them, and it will cost you $8 to $10 a cup, which is a very expensive way to drink it,” Riady said. “With the Single-Serve Pour-Over Coffee Bag, the average cost is about $1.50 per cup, and without the equipment, you don’t have to clean it, either.”
With the Pour-Over Coffee Bag, the consumer simply opens the packet and puts it over the cup and then pours the hot water through it. “It’s the best method for getting the cleanest, smoothest cup of coffee you’re ever going to get,” Riady said. “And it’s portable, by the way – you can take as many packs of coffee as you want to travel with you. If you’re going camping, you take along a couple of packs with you – or 20 packs. You don’t need to bring your machine; you don’t need to do any cleaning. Bringing your grinder is such a mess.”
Tentera’s offerings of whole bean coffees include, among others, Sumatra Gayo, which offers dark chocolate flavors; Bali Kintamani, with citrus flavors; Sumatra Rasuna, which has sweet tropical flavors; and Celebes Toraja, which offers nutty, chocolate herbal flavors. Sumatra Gayo, Bali Kintamani and Sumatra Rasuna are also offered in the Single-Serve Coffee Bags, which come in three package sizes, of which the most popular is the seven-pack box, which retails for $16.45, Riady said. The Coffee Bags are also offered in a three-bag pack that serves as a sample for beginners and retails for $7.05, and a 30-pack box that retails for $59.99. “A lot of people try the seven-pack, they love it, and then they want to buy the 30-pack,” Riady said. “Almost everything is single-origin. We don’t blend any coffee. Coffee’s so good anyway, and it’s exactly how it came from the farm. We’re not doing anything to the coffee to try to hide the flavor.”
Tentera offers seven-bag and 30-bag variety packs that showcase all the different flavors of Indonesian coffee: Bali, Sumatra and Java. “A lot of people love that because they want to try a different coffee every day,” Riady said. “People love it – it’s a way to have an experience and enjoy something without having a lot of hassle.”
Hank’s Gourmet Beverages Introduces its Newest Seasonal Soda, Caramel Apple Cream
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Hank’s Gourmet Beverages is adding a 10th flavor to its lineup just in time for the holidays, a new seasonal offering, Hank’s Gourmet Caramel Apple Cream Soda.
This latest limited-entry for the company’s annual Hanksgiving event was developed over two years of painstaking, but very pleasurable research. Hank’s Caramel Apple Cream marries the tart bite of a perfectly ripe Granny Smith apple with the smooth body of toffee and hints of golden butter-caramel. The product is being released as a limited edition now through New Years, along with a new supply of Hank’s Pumpkin Spice, the hugely popular seasonal introduced during 2019’s Hanksgiving promotion, the company’s yearly event celebrating the pairing of gourmet sodas with food.
“Our new Caramel Apple Cream is like a trip to the farmer’s market, where you could smell that buttery caramel aroma in the air, even before you saw the glistening caramel apples on-a-stick,” says Tony Salvatore, Partner and Chief Customer Officer, Hank’s Beverage Company. “Tart, sweet, creamy all at once, you’ll be delighted at the blend of flavors our product development maven Bill Dunman managed to cram into each bottle! Together with the return of Pumpkin Spice, we are making the holiday season the most delicious time of the year for our retailers and fans alike.”
Hank’s Caramel Apple Cream comes packed in signature, award-winning amber bottles, as a 24-unit single case. It promotes well with fall imagery at retail, and can work nicely in displays throughout the holiday season.
Based on aggressive pre-orders, Caramel Apple has shown real traction across a range of new and innovative retail outlets, including bakeries, ice cream stands, orchards, farm stands and holiday shops. The flavor is also expected to be a featured in several supermarkets’ seasonal aisles nationwide.
Clear-Headed Choices for Conscious Consumers
By Lorrie Baumann
Consumers want choices, including the choice of whether or not to drink alcohol. But even when they’ve decided to take alcohol off their menus, they still want to participate in the social context that surrounds the kinds of occasions in which alcohol is generally served.
For those consumers, Ritual Zero Proof offers choices they haven’t had before – alternatives to whiskey, tequila and gin that mimic the flavors and even the burn of the alcoholic beverages to which they are analogs. “There’s a perception that this is about Millennials, but we’ve found it’s a much larger movement. People are demanding choice,” said Marcus Sakey, who founded Ritual Zero Proof along with his wife, G.G. Sakey; and his best friend, David Crooch. “People want a choice in the way they enjoy a sophisticated beverage.”
Ritual is the first American spirit alternative to use all natural botanical flavors – the Ritual Gin Alternative is bright and herbaceous, and the Whiskey Alternative has flavors with the warmth of a bourbon. The Ritual Tequila Alternative that’s the newest of the line was blended particularly to substitute for the spirit component in a margarita recipe, and it even brings in the grassy notes along with the bright flavor of a smooth-sipping tequila. The burn of an alcohol, present in all three, is an effect achieved by a complex blend of botanicals ranging from chili peppers to jambu to prickly ash along with other botanicals that calm some of the heat. “The burn comes from natural botanicals,” Sakey said. “It’s not alcohol with the alcohol removed.”
All three can be crafted into cocktails exactly the same way as their spirit analogs – they measure identically, and they are complemented by the same mixers, so everyone’s signature recipes will still work. “These are alternatives with a whole range of uses,” Sakey said. “All the botanicals are natural – organic when we can get them. It’s chef wizardry – not mad science.” The flavors are close enough to their spirit analogs that Ritual can even be blended into cocktails that also contain spirits, diluting their alcoholic and caloric content and providing another range of reasons to use them. “If I can make a drink that has half the alcohol and half the calories, then I can have two of them,” Sakey said. “I still love a good drink, and I drink regularly, but I wanted another tool in the kit. It lets you stay up and out and keep laughing and talking with your friends. It’s about having more – and then being able to crush the next day.”
Ritual started in Sakey’s home kitchen in 2018. A passionate amateur chef and bestselling novelist with nine books to his credit, Sakey, now in his mid 40s, was taking a conscious break from spirits. “I realized that what I missed was everything that went around making a drink – the process of crafting a cocktail, sitting around with a rocks glass in my hand in front of the fire,” he said.
He decided to try and recreate the experience he craved – but without the alcohol. “I came up with an early draft of Ritual, which I shared with my wife and my best friend, and right then, we realized this was something we not only wanted, we needed,” he said. Working with flavorists, distillers, chefs and bartenders through more than 500 iterations to achieve gin and whiskey alternatives that would share the gustatory delights of a fine spirit while leaving its consumers clear-headed, Sakey and his partners had a pair of products that were ready to launch onto the American market. “People have responded to this all over the country,” he said. “It’s been really thrilling to see that I wasn’t the only one waiting for this.” Development of a tequila alternative followed this year.
Ritual’s launch last year was embraced by both bartenders and liquor retailers, and the products were so dramatically successful that the company had a hard time supplying the demand. “At first, demand made it hard to get supply under control,” Sakey said. “It’s a very happy problem that can come with a new business.”
With production now scaled up, Ritual is ready for launch into conventional grocery channels, although the roll-out has been stalled by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sakey has responded with vigorous online marketing to help the brand find its tribe, so that when those people return to their neighborhood grocery stores after retailing has returned to something approaching normal, they’ll be looking for a brand with which they’re already familiar. In early results, demographics for the Ritual products are evenly split between males and females from ages 25 to 65, according to Sakey. “It’s just something that people wanted – they might not even have known they wanted it,” he said. “If you’re pregnant and still want to hang out. If you’re training or dieting or it’s a work night…. You are better than club soda.”
Ritual has three SKUs that are widely available to grocery retailers – the Whiskey Alternative, Gin Alternative and Tequila Alternative. They’re packaged in 750 ml glass bottles that retail for a suggested $24.95.
