It's In The Bag

When you are as passionate about coffee as we are here at Greenwell Farms, every detail of growing, harvesting, processing, quality control, and roasting must be considered.

When quality is your goal, you are constantly looking at ways to improve the final product. That of course includes packaging, and it is why we are excited to announce our re-designed Greenwell Farms Classic and Flavored series bags.

After a year + of research, design, testing color schemes, re-doing, fine-tuning details, and finding a supplier, our new coffee bags have dropped! 

The bags that have changed are Medium, Full City, Dark, French Roast (formerly Espresso Roast) Peaberry, Macadamia Nut, Chocolate Macadamia Nut, and Autumn Spice (Formerly Autumn Harvest).

Coffee bags certainly have an aesthetic appeal. The bag communicates relevant information (weight, ingredients, roast level, etc), but is also your brand ambassador, and from the shelf can communicate the story of the quality inside. The use of color and imagery, logo, and design elements may be akin to putting on a nice suit or dress. You are still you, but sometimes you want to put your best face forward.

The Technical Elements:

Starting from the ground up, we were very interested in what is known in the industry as barrier protection. Coffee bags can be thin, plastic lined, polyester, and a variety of materials. We have chosen the industry-leading double-ply, with a thick poly-carbon outer layer lined on the inside with a thin layer of food-grade aluminum.

This will ensure your coffee is protected from heat, light, and moisture and will travel better from our roaster to your front door.

The next step is choosing your one-way valve. Coffee degasses for up to a month after roasting, and when the bags are first sealed your goal is to have a way for the gas to escape but no oxygen or moisture to enter.

Not all one-way valves are equal, so we choose the industry-leading, Swiss-made, WIPF valves to create maximum protection for your sealed coffee bag. C02 can escape without trouble, and O2 is held at bay.

Down to the material of the valve (bp-free plastic) and the melting point (135 degrees), the compostability, and the pressure at which the gas begins to release, we have chosen a valve that will protect your coffee at the highest level possible.

We have also added a tin tie for ease of rolling down the bag. While most coffee professionals recommend putting your coffee beans in sealed containers for storage, the reality is that most people leave their coffee in the bag. Now, as you use your coffee, simply roll the bag as tight to the beans as you can, and use the tin tie to hold it in place. The more air you can keep out of the bag the better. If you’d like to see a video of proper Tin Tie usage click here.

We compared these to what is known as a zipper pouch, which has that Ziploc-style strip at the top of the bag. We found that they often fail, are prone to human error (where you think it is sealed but it isn’t) and most people just close it up without taking a moment to press out all of the air. In this case, we found the tin tie to be the superior choice.

We have also moved to a reinforced flat bottom (or square bottom) that allows the bag to stand upright for easy storage and hassle-free access to the bag when you are scooping out your coffee. We think you will find this simple addition to be really practical and have many benefits when using the bag.

Having said all of this, bags of coffee should be something that excites you, makes you happy to look at, and creates anticipation for the enjoyment of the goodness inside. 

Here, we hope our efforts have succeeded.  We hope that when you open your box and take out the bag of coffee inside, you will feel warm and joyful.  It will not only provide you with the information you need but with a functional bag that has protected your coffee at the highest level while being pretty to look at.

Tell us what you think of the new bags on social media and tag @greenwellfarms!

Matt Carter

Matt Carter is a retired teacher (1989-2018), part-time musician, farmer, and currently manages Greenwell Farm’s Tour and Retail Store Operations.