A few years ago Office Essentials was looking for a way to add some excitement to our office coffee offering. In doing our research, it became apparent to us that a partnership with Kaldi's Coffee made a lot of sense. First off, we're all huge fans, but there were deeper connections. We're both native St. Louis companies with a lot of pride in our hometown, yet we both also have a presence across the state in Kansas City. Both companies are devoted to our customers with an approach that focuses more on doing things right than doing them fast.
So, figuring that a lot of our customers enjoyed Kaldi's Coffee at their homes or the Kaldi's cafes, we wanted to close the gap and offer it to them in their offices as well. It has been a great partnership for us.
St. Louis Magazine recently interviewed Kaldi's Coffee co-founder Tyler Zimmer, and reading the interview, you get a sense of why we were drawn to offer Kaldi's to our customers. It's well worth a read. Here's a favorite question and answer:
How is Kaldi’s roasting process different?
Places like Starbucks and Peet’s Coffee & Tea are known for darker roasts with smoky, chocolaty, and sometimes bitter notes. Most of our roasts never get to that point. We choose to highlight the sweetness that comes first: the round, ripe fruits, and caramel notes that people like, and balance that with acidity. Our goal is to highlight the different flavors based on the soil they’re grown in. Flavor is an inherent part of the bean, and we develop that during the roasting process. You can’t take an average coffee and roast it better to make it taste better, but you can take a great coffee, roast it poorly, and make it taste worse. The potential is in the coffee; it’s up to the roaster to unlock it.
