PULL UP A CHAIR AND i’LL TELL YOU THE TALE
Who is Baron Von Beanhardi and what does he have to do with coffee?
The baron’s story begins with me.
I’m Darryl, I’m from South Africa and I’ve been working in China as a designer for 20 years.
I have a small studio where I do a mash up of branding, print design, and packaging. If you’re anything like me, coffee is the fuel that keeps the engine running and the creative juices flowing. Sometimes the ritual of coffee making is just as important as the drinking! However, when I first came to China, coffee hadn’t caught on yet. There was no “backwards bending green queen” to be seen. I would have to bring bags and bags of coffee from abroad and, when that ran out, my dear friends in Capetown would send care packages to tide me over.
About ten years ago, the Chinese province of Yunnan started getting a reputation for coffee growing. After much sampling, I am disappointed to say it did not meet my expectations; it seems you can be famous for tea or coffee, but not both.
Then, a year or two ago, some of my friends here sampled my coffee and encouraged me to sell it. What follows next is how all this came to pass.
My Nan, Your Nan, China, and Yunnan
In 2018, I took a holiday with the coffee baroness and our little baronlings and we ended up in Yunnan, intentionally in the middle of the coffee harvest season. Coffee fruits (I call them fruits so I don’t get into the berries versus cherries debate, but you and I both know what’s right) were being stripped of their flesh and coffee beans were out drying in the sun virtually everywhere. The fruits on the coffee trees (yes, they are trees, they only look like shrubs due to the way they are farmed and pruned) looked exceptionally top-quality and world class.
The baffling question: Why wasn’t the coffee I’d tried as good as it could be? Nothing is sadder then seeing a seedling failing to live up to its potential.
Coffee Nerd
You have probably figured out that I’m a bit more than simply a coffee drinker. I’m a coffee nerd. I’ve worn this identity since my late teens and it’s fair to say I know more than the average cuppa Joe about the entire lifecycle and the production processes around creating the kind of coffee that sparks joy.
It was time to work out what was going wrong by taking the Yunnan samples back to my Coffee Cave (or, as my wife calls it, the “kitchen.”) Before that, though, I followed the fruits. From the tree to the final retailer. I looked at every step of the process to understand where the coffee fruits were losing their power.
(Nerd moment: For those of you who don’t fully understand how coffee is processed and where the main influences to the aromas and flavours in coffee come from, you can CLICK HERE to read more. For the rest of you, it all percolates down to this part.)
Long story short, I identified all of the key stages in the process that were affecting the flavours of the coffee in a negative way and then I created my own approach to processing coffee. This approach not only improves upon local methods, but also upon the industry-wide approaches that are taken by all the suppliers to the massive, multi-nationals that roast and package coffee. Essentially, I found a way to make coffee exceptional.
Patent Pending
I’ve put my money where my mouth is and I’ve sunk a stack of cash into patenting my production process. Indeed, I’m that confident in what I’m doing.
I say without pride that nobody in the world, to my knowledge, processes coffee in the way that I do. It’s not because they can’t or don’t know how to, but rather because it would cost them too much money. Commercial processing is all about speed, efficiency, and as much mechanisation as possible. My process is the polar opposite. It takes about 8 times longer, is entirely manual, and costs 4 times more in manual labour.
Ah, I know what you are thinking. But don’t worry, the only reason it’s actually commercially viable is because the only link in the chain between the fruits on the coffee trees and you, the end consumer, is me. My work in my design studio keeps the wife and the kids fed with a roof over their head. For me, coffee is a passionate hobby that I enjoy talking about and brewing a cup for friends that come over. It sure beats throwing mad money at overpriced cafe’s or waiting for a melted down or spilled waimai coffee delivery.
Beanhardi? What?
You might be wondering where the name comes from. I imagined a coffee superhero of sorts, one who would bring some disruptive but positive noise to the world about how “Big Coffee” is just a profit driven machine. The vast majority of those profits are made at the retail level, but with some coffee brands owning their entire supply chain, they are making bank.
Of course, there are some brands out there that claim they cooperate with and take care of the farmers, and a few celebrities have ponied up and said “we really very super truly care” – but it’s mostly nonsense for PR and marketing. I know, I’ve researched it.
Baron Von Beanhardi is the underdog superhero of the coffee industry. He has an artistically embroidered history, but shares some serious facts that most coffee drinkers overlook when getting their daily fix. Throw in some jokes, some trivia, and some rare insights and he’s the face of the brand. I guess in a way, he’s me.
Well, to be serious a moment, he really is closer to me than I might let on. His name is a play on a bit of my own history; his name is an anagram of my family name (on my mother’s side) so that it could be registered as a trademark.
Friends of the Baron
Coffee is a hobby, passion, and lifestyle. This website and my products are labors of love, to be sure, but it wouldn’t be possible without a little help from my friends and fellow coffee connoisseurs from Nine Rivers Distillery, a project I am very proud to be involved in that plans to put China on the international whisky map. (You can click here to read about Nine Rivers Distillery.)
In no particular order, Phill, who’s helped me to put together all the content for this website. Next, a gentleman that we can only refer to by his pen name “Harry Potter’s Dad” for his amazing editorial work. Jay, who has been my biggest cheerleader by nagging me to share my coffee with the world for about 2 years now. He’s also given me some server space to host everything and access to his logistics team who pack and ship for me. Last but not least, a special thanks to my wife, for helping with translation of the content, being a sounding board over the last two years, and for patiently tolerating my passion for coffee.