Congrats on placing your first green coffee order! You’ve carefully curated your menu, talked through options with your trader, and you feel prepared for anything. Except…you’ve never been sent a delivery of green coffee beans, and you’re not entirely sure what comes next.

Receiving your first green coffee order can be exciting and stressful all at once. At Royal New York, our goal is to make your green coffee buying experience go as smoothly as possible. From accepting your delivery to developing your first roast profile, Evan Kluender & Mike Romagnino are here to walk you through the first steps of your specialty coffee journey.

Managing Your First Green Coffee Order

After you place your order, your next step will be to receive your shipment. If you’ve never accepted a freight delivery, there are a few things that are good to know ahead of time.

Understanding Your Order Details

By this point, you should have spoken with your trader about selecting a carrier to deliver your coffee. If you’ve elected to have RNY arrange shipping on your behalf, then your order will be billed COD, or collect on delivery. Instead of paying us for your shipment, you’re responsible for paying the carrier directly.

Once your order leaves our warehouse, you’ll receive an email with important information regarding your order. This will have your trucking rate, trucking quote number, PRO number, and instructions to track your order. Let’s break down what each of these means:

Trucking Rate

When we schedule your shipment, we reach out to our partner carriers to ask for their rate quotes so you know exactly what you’re paying. If you ordered by phone or email, your trader has likely already provided you with this quote.

Trucking Quote #

Additionally, you will receive a reference number that ties directly to your rate quote. You can use this in the event that your delivery driver arrives and requests an amount that differs from your original quote.

PRO Number

Carriers use PRO numbers to identify your order. If you want to track your order or contact your carrier with questions, this is the number you will reference.

Concerning payment, it’s important to note that each carrier operates differently. For specific payment instructions, make sure to reference your email from us with your tracking information. At any time throughout this process, you can always visit www.royalny.com to sign in to your profile and select My Account to view your order details.

How to Receive Your Coffee Beans

Next, it’s time to actually receive your order! On delivery day, you can track your order using the PRO number to see when your green coffee beans will be delivered. To successfully accept your delivery, you’ll want to take these steps:

First, carefully inspect your pallet upon arrival. Start by checking your order against the delivery paperwork that is either taped to the side of or wrapped into your pallet.

After you confirm that you have the right order, look closely for signs of potential damage. We recommend you scan for the following:

Pallet

Inspect the pallet itself for signs of broken wood. Make sure that no pieces splintered off and punctured the shrink-wrap or bags inside.

Shrink-wrap

Search for holes in the shrink-wrap that could potentially point to punctures. In particular, observe the bag(s) on the bottom as this is the area most commonly pierced by forklifts.

Odors

Lastly, smell for any unusual odors. For example, see if you detect the scent of motor oil, essential oils, or anything that smells like chemicals.

In the unlikely event you notice any damage to your order, it’s crucial that you make note of it on your delivery receipt prior to signing. This will allow you to file a claim with the carrier to receive compensation for any losses incurred due to damage. If you do not notate damage on the delivery receipt, you will not be able to file a claim.

While of course the vast majority of orders arrive unscathed, it’s important you know how to handle a damaged order to avoid further complications.

Green Coffee Storage

Now that you’ve received your delivery and checked that it arrived unharmed, the final step before roasting is deciding how to store that big pallet of beans.

As you know, coffee is a dried food product. It has been dried to specific moisture levels as a means of preservation so your coffee can stay fresh as long as possible. To maintain that level of freshness, you’ll want to utilize proper storage practices. We’ve listed a few tips below, but we recommend you review our Green Coffee Storage Guide for a more in-depth look at managing your inventory.

Temperature & Moisture

Ensure your coffee is stored in a climate-controlled environment. Large swings in temperature can cause green coffee beans to quickly dry out and lose freshness. Likewise, large swings in relative humidity can impact a coffee’s moisture content. This can lead to over-drying or even fungal growth in extreme cases.

Sunlight & Packaging

Avoid storing your coffee near heating/air conditioning units as well as near windows with direct sunlight as these can further dry out your coffee. Moreover, if you’ve purchased a coffee bagged in a hermetically sealed liner such as Ecotact or Grainpro, condensation could potentially form inside the plastic liner.

Roasting Your First Order of Coffee Beans

Once your coffee is safely delivered and stored, it’s time to roast! If this is your first time roasting an offering that’s about to be released on your menu, then we recommend following the below guidelines as a formula for success.

Sample Roasting

To develop your roast profile, a terrific way to start is by sample roasting your green coffee beans. Doing multiple sample roasts and taking them to different roast levels allows you the opportunity to see what a coffee has to offer, what flavors can be brought out, and how it reacts when roasted.

Cupping & Evaluating Sample Roasts

Each sample roast should be cupped and evaluated side by side, one after the other. It’s helpful to take notes of what you’re tasting, what you like or don’t like and why. Furthermore, cupping and tasting with other people always makes for a better experience as you can receive their insight as well.

Having finished tasting and discussing the sample roasts, you can begin to plan your trial production roasts. Setting goals and parameters for approaching a production roast can be helpful, especially when roasting new coffees. Maybe there was a certain flavor, pleasant acidity, or syrupy body in the sample roasts that you want to highlight in the production roasts. Factors like this will influence the adjustments you make while roasting.

Trial Production Roasts

After tasting sample roasts and learning what the coffee has to offer, the flavor profile will inform your plan on how to approach your production roast. We recommend you do at least two trial production roasts at different roast levels to compare on the cupping table.

Modifying factors such as development time, end temperature, and duration is an effective way of varying how your roast your batches. This does not mean that you have to approach the roasts differently. Rather, it may provide you with differing perspectives and flavors to taste through, evaluate, and discuss.

Cupping & Evaluating Trial Production Roasts

Like the sample roasts, cup and evaluate your production roasts side by side while recording your feedback and others’. If you’re pleased with the outcome, go to the next step to set your roast profile! However, there’s always a possibility you feel like your trial roasts need to be adjusted. Maybe you underdeveloped a roast and need to push it further to bring out more body. Maybe you overdeveloped a roast and need to pull back for a crisper acidity up front. Whatever the case, use this opportunity to steer the roast to what works best for you and your customers.

Developing a Roast Profile

Once you’ve tasted your trial roasts and considered all feedback, you can make adjustments that will ultimately lead to your roast profile. It’s easier to keep consistency from batch to batch once the profile is set, especially if multiple people are roasting the same coffee.

That being said, sometimes a profile may need to be adjusted. Maybe a coffee has been on your menu for an extended period of time and is starting to show that it’s aged. Maybe there’s new feedback on the roast, whether it be from more recent cupping sessions, employees, or even customers. All in all, you should expect that you’ll need to adjust a coffee’s profile at some point while it’s on your menu. If you want to stay on top of this, taste your roasts every week! This will ensure that you produce the cup you ultimately want.

Final Thoughts

Beginning your journey with green coffee beans can feel like a daunting task. When you take the necessary measures and have the right guidance, you’re on the path to success! If you have further questions about placing your first order, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re always here to help, every step of the way.

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