FLAVOR LOG 011

Looking back, there's one part of the Flavor52 story that almost nobody knows.

We started talking seriously about the idea just after New Year's of 2026.

Everyone was back in the office. The holidays were over. Whiteboards started filling up. At first it was just a conversation.

"What if we actually did it?" Not a few new flavors. Not a seasonal launch.

Fifty-two new flavors. One every week.

The idea was exciting.

The timing was awful.

By January, 2026, it was around 360 per pound. It was down a little bit from where it had climbed to above $4.20 per pound, reaching an all-time record high after one of the fastest price increases the coffee industry had ever seen. 

Most people never noticed. They still walked into their grocery store, grabbed a bag of coffee, and started their morning exactly the way they always had. Inside coffee companies, though, it was all anyone was talking about. This was uncharted territory. Margins were disappearing. Costs were climbing almost overnight. There were literally coffee companies going out of business.

The obvious answer was to play it safe.

Consumers were just getting used to paying a bit more for coffee. Asking them to join a year-long journey built around 52 completely new flavors suddenly seemed like asking a lot at exactly the wrong moment.

We talked about it. Should we wait? Should we launch a smaller version? Should we let the market settle down? The more we talked, the more we realized we were asking the wrong question.

The question wasn't whether coffee was expensive. It was whether people would still get excited about something they'd never seen before. If the answer was no, then Flavor52 was never a good idea to begin with.

If the answer was yes...

...then the price of coffee couldn't be the reason we abandoned it.

So we moved forward.

Not because the market made sense.

Because the mission pushing the boundaries of great flavored coffee still did.

Looking back, we're glad we did.

Coffee prices are still elevated and may or may noteventually come down.

Opportunities to do something that has never been attempted before usually don't wait.

MISSION STATUS: Moving forward.