Blue Bottle Coffee Your Next Investment
Starbucks is huge. There are so many Starbucks that Starbucks have Starbucks in Starbucks’ closets. Its that huge. And yet. There is room in the market for better coffee. Don’t get me wrong, I dig Starbucks’ coffee more than the next guy. (Maybe even more than what might be advisable.) But Starbucks has Jumped The Shark. There are only so many stores that can be created, and only so many Starbucks logos that you can be pummeled with before you decide to find something different.
And that “different” thing is going to be Blue Bottle Coffee.
I first encountered Blue Bottle in San Francisco a couple years ago. (The photos included in this story are from a several of my visits to the store.) Since then every time I’ve been back to the Bay Area I go way out of my way to get back to Blue Bottle. Every time I turn the corner and see the shop ahead, I’m greeted with a mile long line. The reason is fairly simple. Blue Bottle Coffee is artisan coffee created slowly and delicately for the perfect taste and experience.
So far the company is still a private company that has received almost 50 million in funding from 10 private investors. But I predict that the company will go public sometime soon. At which point I highly, highly recommend throwing some spare cash at the stock as quickly as possible. Eventually Starbucks will implode and someone has to be the heir apparent. And I predict that it will be Blue Bottle.
People have given Blue Bottle a hard time because of its proximity to tech firms and their investment in the firm. Tech firms don’t have any business in coffee. But who knows coffee better than geeks that do nothing but drink coffee and code all day I ask you? Another area that Blue Bottle does a great job at is in its online merchandise store. Their siphon brewing techniques create a strong and full bodied coffee that is just phenomenal. I mean, check out the explanation for when the coffee is ready in one of Blue Bottle’s Siphon systems:
Your coffee should take another minute or so to draw downward and finally rest in the bulb. You’ll know it’s ready when a dome of grounds has formed at the top of the filter, and when the coffee at the bottom has begun to bubble at approximately the pace and strength of a kitten’s heartbeat.
I dug this page, and their explanation so much that I’ve gone hunting for the best siphons out there for my own brewing. Maybe I’ll talk you through that research I’ve done someday.
Anyway. I personally will try and find some cash to purchase some stock as quickly as I can the moment they go public. Why not? If you are looking for a stock with incredible growth potential you’ll be hard pressed to find a stock with as much potential as Blue Bottle.