About Us
How this thing works.
The Coffee Plug is excited to share with you not just great coffee, but a great coffee experience. Particular coffees are available for purchase dependent on a nation of origins harvest season. The single origins are all limited edition, meaning they may sell out before new beans are ready to roast. If you place an order while that coffee is available, you will be notified, and your order will be carried out with priority as soon as possible. At the given moment there are a handful of coffees to choose from, and the menu is rotating. Of course, the selection will expand as I scour the globe for the most interesting single origins. Purchasing your coffee is simple and can be done on this website. At this moment in time, you can either ship it for a fee of $9.50 (free shipping on orders $75 or more), request a local delivery for a small fee (only if you are in the city of Chicago) or arrange with The Coffee Plug for pickup.
What is craft coffee?
Craft coffee refers to the skillful search for and creation of quality coffee while at the same time focusing on education by inviting consumers to explore the world and history of coffee, teaching them throughout the journey.
How does The Coffee Plug fulfill this?
Besides constantly striving to provide you with excellent coffee, The Coffee Plug website also features blogs called "Coffee Talk" on different topics that coffee drinkers may be interested in as they immerse themselves in the world of coffee. (see top of the page)
Principles of Practice
First and foremost, before any coffee is considered for The Coffee Plug menu it must be fair trade certified. This means that coffees are compliant with Fair Trade International's farm standards, labor standards, and price minimums.
Next, coffee's must be valued at a fair Farm Gate price. Farm Gate is a term that is used when talking abut the amount of money a farmer gets for coffee sold, in other words, how much they get "at the farm gate". A fair Farm Gate price for us is one that reflects not only the quality of the coffee, but the transparency in purchasing and the depth of information available when purchasing. Before a coffee is brought to the menu, it must achieve a minimum score of 86 in accordance to the generally accepted practices of coffee grading by not only The Coffee Plug but also those sourcing and producing the beans before they even get to me. This leads to exclusively purchasing green coffee at Farm Gate prices which are 500%+ that of Fair Trade minimums.
Key to The Coffee Plug's roasting philosophy are third wave coffee ideas and standards. Most crucial is the idea that each coffee has it's own precise roast level at which the bean's flavor profile is best represented. This is why roasts aren't grouped under broad terms such as "light", "medium", or "dark" per say, but instead each single origin is already described at a pre-determined roast level which is on some end of the "medium roast" scale.