State of the Ship Address

It’s time for the 1^st Annual Captain’s State of the Ship Address! Ok, that’s lame even by my standards…It’s news time folks! This is a long post so scroll to the bottom for a TL:DR.

Many folks have been asking me lately “Where are the videos?!” I know, I really wanna get back to them too! I’ve got a whole video worth of footage that’s just been waiting to be edited for months now and I just can’t find the time. What started as a fun way to help the community while generating buzz for TCC ended up working SIGNIFICANTLY better than I anticipated! That means the little time I did have to dedicate to getting a video out once a month has vanished in order to keep up with orders, inquiries and all the other TCC…stuff. An awesome problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. We’re growing and I couldn’t be more grateful, but I need some help around here!

So, for a few months now I’ve been trying to decide how to go about bringing on some more help. After talking it over for many hours with Mrs. Captain, we finally made a decision: we’re going all in. She is coming on as the next full time employee! That’s right folks, we’re so serious about The Captain’s Coffee growing that it’s now gonna be THE family business. Over the coming months she’ll be transitioning over from helping out here and there to being a permanent member of our tiny team. Turning this little venture into a family business is a dream come true for us and again, we're so grateful for all of your support. And with double the hands on deck, we’re gonna have more time to devote to what we’re most passionate about, which is providing resources to the home roasting community. The videos will start coming out regularly again, we can expand our learning center with more articles and even begin experimenting with offering some live classes. With her help and new energy, we’re also planning on expanding the business by offering more coffee with more consistent supply as well as expanding our gear and roaster selection! Like I said, all in.

We are INCREDIBLY excited about this new chapter for TCC and our family! But, if you’re gonna go all in, you’d better stack the deck any way you can. And for us, the way to make sure TCC has the best chance for continued success means surrounding ourselves with folks who support us and want to see us succeed. Online, that means you folks: our newsletter subscribers, friends who follow us on social media and our loyal customers! Your support has been motivational and inspirational and we couldn’t be more grateful for you. And in person (or as they say “IRL”), that means our family. So that means we’re making another huge decision: we’re going to plant TCC in a newer, bigger space back where it all began, our home state of North Carolina. We’ve had a blast and made incredible, lifelong memories out West, but we miss our families. Their backup will help ensure TCC continues to grow in a way that’s healthy in the long run, both for us and the business.

But where, when and will my orders take 3x longer to get to me if I’m on the West Coast?! Well, we’ve been shipping most of our orders through USPS this year with priority mail. Despite some issues with USPS in 2020/2021, it has been LIGHTNING fast this year. Packages shipped from our current West Coast location to East Coast customers have only been taking an average of 3 business days! So for the most part, you might want to plan on an extra day or two to be safe, but you shouldn’t see a big change. More importantly, we plan to continue to offer low cost, flat rate shipping so you don't have to worry about paying more just because you live on the Left Coast! Where? We’ve decided to land in Statesville, NC: It’s smack dab in the middle of the Old North State and it’s been my family’s home for generations. Stop on by anytime! Well…anytime we’re open. Also, I should mention our new space is going to be TWICE as big as our current space! Cool, well how about when? We plan on beginning operations at the new location November 1^st. WHOA, that’s less than a month from now! Yeah, you’ll have to forgive the sudden news, but I don’t like announcing things until they are firmly in place and the plans have all been made solid. Nobody dislikes uncertainty and shaky plans more than we do!

Now for the tough part: we’re going to need to be closed for 12-14 days to get everything packed up, drive it all across the country and get set up to start running November 1^st. So the last 2 weeks of October (10/17-10/31) we won’t be shipping out orders…ouch. When I was considering this and how much of a bummer it would be to haul all this coffee across the country, I landed on an idea: Why not save my back and save you all a buck at the same time! So, we’re gonna have a moving sale so you all can stock up on at a discount and have plenty of coffee to last you until we’re back up and running. Starting right now use code TCCMove2022 to get 15% off all green coffee through October 14^th! A quick note, you can place orders during the downtime as well, but they won't ship out until 11/1.