Frequently asked...
Huckleberry Roasters roasts, bags and ships coffee purchased through web store on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with a 7AM MST cut-off time.
Here's a cheat sheet: If you order coffee after 7:01AM MST on Thursday and before 7AM MST Monday, you will be pushed to Monday's production day and we guarantee it ships by end of day Tuesday (usually it will ship Monday, but sometimes the volume is large enough that a few get pushed to the next day). If you order coffee between 7:01AM MST Monday and 7AM MST Tuesday, you will be part of Tuesday's production day and shipped out Tuesday. If you order coffee between 7:01AM MST Tuesday and 7AM MST Thursday, you will be on Thursday's production schedule. Easy peasy, right?
If you have specific shipping requests or concerns, please e-mail us and we'll try to accommodate!
A delayed, missing, lost or stolen package is a frustrating situation — believe it or not, we do get it! We also order things from the World Wide Web from time to time and it doesn't always work perfectly. Let's start at the beginning...
If your package has been shipped (see above question for the when/why/how that happens), you will have received a tracking number. First thing is first, please check the tracking number! If the USPS tracking number shows that your package has been delivered, but you don't actually see it on your doorstep, in your mailbox, at your front desk, under your neighbors' planter box, with your receptionist, etc., please call your local post office right away. Often times your post office keeps it, awaiting to be claimed. Call them! They will tell you where it is and what happened. If nobody claims the package, the coffee sits at the USPS warehouse and we don't hear about it until the mangled package is returned back to us a month later.
Once a coffee is picked up by one of our shipping partners, Huckleberry Roasters does not assume responsibility for any damage that happens during shipment, or any loss of package during its travels to you. Any claims or attempts for refunds can be made directly with the shipping company.
We are pretty darn good about being timely with getting web orders roasted, bagged and out the door! When the package has left our facility, it is out of our hands.
All packages are insured within the United States through USPS, but USPS does NOT insure perishable items like coffee. As long as it shows up (even if it takes a month) we cannot reimburse you. If your coffee is damaged upon arrival, let us know and we can ship you a new bag, no problem!
For the time being, we can only offer shipping within the United States through our webstore. If you live abroad and are interested in purchasing Huckleberry Roasters coffee, fear not! We can ship abroad, just send us an email and we'll work out the details.
HUCK has switched to "dynamic shipping". We used to have some flat rate options, as well as a "free shipping over X", but we changed our shipping policies & pricing because flat rate & free shipping wasn’t a sustainable option for us. We have switched to "dynamic shipping" for now -- USPS/UPS create rates for us, and that's it. We don't make or lose any money off shipping!
We package our coffee in 12oz heat-sealed bags that feature a one-way gas valve. We package and ship only whole bean coffee. Our 2lb & 5lb offerings are sold in brown kraft paper bags with label sticker & tin tie.
Huckleberry Roasters is focused on sourcing, roasting and brewing tasty coffee. We do not find coffee specifically for being certified, nor do we intentionally avoid it. We do our very best to buy coffee that is responsibly and sustainably grown, harvested and imported. Additionally, we often try to by coffee that has the most immediate and direct developmental impact at origin.
As a company, we're not USDA organic-certified - yet. That means, even when we source coffees that are USDA organic-certified, we can't actually market any of our coffees as being so. If you'd like to know which coffees in our lineup are grown using organic practices, feel free to email kevin@huckleberryroasters.com
Our coffees are not Fair Trade certified, but we feel they are better. Fair Trade is a well intentioned model that helped shift the conversation towards paying commodity producers more for their labor. But we're not roasting commodity grade coffee. We work with farmers who are taking exceptional steps to produce great coffee, and reward them for that quality. As we grow, we actively seek to build more direct relationships with growers, and always pay far more than the Fair Trade price for our coffees.
On the sustainability front, we support farmers who are actively working to make their coffee production more environmentally friendly. And on the financial side, Huckleberry works to form long-term, direct relationships with farmers that are mutually beneficial to both parties. This is why you'll see many of the same coffees in our lineup, year after year - we want our small role in the supply chain to be dependable for the farmers who grow our coffee. The hope is that we'll get access to better, more consistent coffee and farmers get more money for their farms, families and communities.
Coffee is a perishable product, and Huckleberry cannot re-sell any returned coffee. That being said, we stand by the quality of our product, and if you are dissatisfied, please send us an email. As a general principle, we do ask that you ship back any unused coffee, at your expense, to receive a refund of the purchase.
For non-coffee items, we take it on a case by case basis. We are committed to making it right for you, but we'll have a conversation with you about how we can do that.
At the moment, we do not ship coffee internationally via the web store. Not only is it quite expensive (for you), but, in more instances than we'd like to count, we've had packages returned to us, which then leaves you without coffee, and us sitting on coffee.
That being said, if you would like to pursue getting some tasty coffee or have an interesting opportunity to run by us, we are happy to chat. Feel free to send an e-mail to wholesale@huckleberryroasters.com.
We ship coffee to some of the best cafes, restaurants and breweries in the U.S. To find Huckleberry near you, drop us a line at info@huckleberryroasters.com.
Processing - the way that coffee goes from cherry-like fruit to the dried "bean" we roast - has a huge impact on flavor. We made a little processing basics guide to help demystify that a bit.
Coffees from Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo occasionally demonstrate a very off flavor known as potato defect. A single bean with this defect can make a whole brew smell and taste like raw potato. The producers we work with do their best to weed out these bad seeds, but an occasional potato defect is unavoidable.
With coffees from these three countries, we recommend brewing single cups or smaller brews. Grind your coffee then give it a sniff. If you hit a potato, it should be very apparent and smell different than the normal coffee. If and only if you hit a potato, throw away that ground coffee (and maybe take out the trash, the smell can linger), purge your grinder by grinding around 5 grams of fresh coffee, then measure your brewing dose and grind again. The defect should be a very rare occurrence, and we think these coffees are beautiful despite this occasional flaw.
Please email us at info@huckleberryroasters.com for any questions or concerns regarding our coffee, company, and webstore.