For those who loves to import roasted coffee, here’s a story for you.

For those who loves to import roasted coffee, here’s a story for you.


Couple of months ago, a coffee enthusiast told me that the coffee he ordered from Canada were checked by Hong Kong custom. They opened some bags to see what’s inside and closed it back.. But that’s not the end of the story. The custom officer who took care of the matter mixed all the bean from several bags together and pack it back!!! What’s wrong, it’s just a coffee, right.


One of the coffees that the custom officer ended up mixing them together is a prized Hacienda la esmeralda auction lot (Caballeriza). The coffee was believed to be mixed with a specialty grade Kenya coffee. Still people cherish this expensive Esmeralda as single origin for its long lasting lemony notes and jasmine fragrance and I wonder whether we could ask HK custom for compensation on the damage inflicted on this coffee.


In addition, I believe that the coffee was ‘aired’ for quite a while before it was repacked back… Apart from the abuse of air travel (air travel never improved coffee – at best just do nothing or negatively affected the cup quality)… The resulting cup was ‘blah’ with a Chinese medicine note as if the coffee started deteriorating by oxygen in the air. So, the coffee which separately should be great ones, ending up a mediocre/ruined by this act!!!


Sure, this does not happen every shipment/day but it does happen… When it happens, it’s more likely to happen with what we don’t want to the most, like the expensive Esmeralda…


As such, this is another good reason to buy locally roasted bean apart from better tasting note.

I thought that those smugglers used ground coffee for a better distraction. This is a coffee lover so it's the whole bean he ordered.


Still I have no problem with the officer check the thing out but his carelessness was quite clear.


One can easily open the back, empty the content into a tray/plate to see what's inside and repacked that content back right away and that would be fine for coffee. Do it one by one then move on to the next bag...


Instead, my guess is the guy just opened all the bags at once, dumping the content of all bags into only one tray which mixed it all up... Leave it there for who knows how long and repacked it back... One can't hide such bad treatment as the taste of the coffee told abuses the coffee received... :(