# Review: Mac & Me



## Mrwayne86 (Dec 11, 2020)

Review of another local roastery in Chelmsford, Essex. No pictures this time, forgot to take them before I tossed the bags out.

*Max & Me *- Chelmsford

https://www.macandmeroasting.co.uk/

To be honest this was disappointing. I was led to believe we would be getting a weekly roasting so ordered two different bags. On delivery one bag was over two weeks old and another already well over three weeks old. On opening the bags i knew this wasn't going to be good. Again, I am not an expert in coffee but I know what fresh tastes like and this tasted unsurprisingly stale. I ended up tossing both bags out, one half full and the other almost completely full.

I feel others might have a different experience but I was also annoyed as was led to believe these would be fresh with weekly roastings and instead was fobbed off with old stock.

In comparison to my other review of the local Little Fin roastery in Southend the difference was night and day.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Two week old coffee isn't stale unless it's been poorly stored ( imho ) and for me isn't old stock .
are you brewing them for filter or espresso , as espresso needs at least 10 to 14 days rest , filter less so .


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## profesor_historia (Sep 1, 2020)

Mrwayne86 said:


> Review of another local roastery in Chelmsford, Essex. No pictures this time, forgot to take them before I tossed the bags out.
> 
> *Max & Me *- Chelmsford
> https://www.macandmeroasting.co.uk/
> ...


But independently of the roasting date, how was the coffee in the cup? 2 or 3 weeks for espresso is not so much.

Sent from my ALP-L09 using Tapatalk


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## Mrwayne86 (Dec 11, 2020)

Yea i know it's not terrible in terms of age, but it tasted stale, i didn't like it at all. Again I can't give much in the way of taste notes, other than i tried dialing in the grind settings and no matter what i did it just tasted off.

For me anyway the proof was in the pudding when i tried some other roasters and the coffee was great, using the same setup.


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## TomHughes (Dec 16, 2019)

Don't take this the wrong way but why are you writing 'reviews' when you don't seem to know anything about coffee? 
It's hardly fair on the roasters is it? 
What if people find these 'reviews' and don't order from them as a result.


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## Stox (Jul 19, 2020)

You haven't said what you ordered or even whether it was beans or pre-ground.

For beans 2 weeks old is nothing: I tend to order 1KG at a time, and that lasts me around 4 weeks. I choose and order the next batch of coffee when I am about half way through my 'current' order, so I'm never using anything that is less than 2-3 weeks old. There was a thread here a few months ago regarding a re-seller who was closing down and clearing out their stock at a large discount. I think I ordered 3 of the more expensive beans, all of which were at least 3 months after their roasting date and, although they may have been a bit past their best, they were still excellent. This gave me an opportunity to try out some coffees that were no longer available from the original roasters, at considerably reduced prices.

When I find something I like I will mention it here, and the same goes for roasters whose products I consistently like. There have been a couple of roasters I have tried where what I ordered really did not meet expectations, and by that I mean that I couldn't produce a cup that of something I really liked regardless of dose, grind or yield. Given my lack of qualifications and experience I think it's safer to assume the roaster's taste and mine are not going to agree, and move on without comment.


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## MediumRoastSteam (Jul 7, 2015)

I've been following this. I think the OP feels disappointed that beans were ordered, on the assumption it was roasted to order. I think it's fair to say that this would be the expectation of most of us whist ordering from a roaster these days.

However...

now... that's the thing: I've been trawling through their website and there's nowhere it says it roasts to order. So, in that sense, the OP feels just plain wrong and unfair towards the roaster. It's obviously not their mainline of business.

On the secondary comments about coffee being stale after 2 weeks... err.... OK... I like many of us let my coffee rest for at least a week. I'm still drinking this months LSOL, and it's been over 3 weeks.


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## Coffeenoobster (Nov 24, 2018)

Looking at your first review it seems you may have bought pre ground which may explain things a little. But as Tom asked it seems a little odd you are reviewing coffee when you can't even provide any meaningful information on the coffee. At best it is a review of the service which you have provided little insight on and provided even less opportunity to the roaster to make things right and at worst it is a commentary of what particular beans you like. Given you don't know how to provide tasting notes how can we trust that the beans were truly stale? Could you describe what stale beans taste like?

edit: OP mentioned dialling in and grind settings in their second comment so looks like they bought whole beans. Unless for whatever reason they were feeling frisky and wanted to re grind pre ground beans.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Mrwayne86 said:


> Review of another local roastery in Chelmsford, Essex. No pictures this time, forgot to take them before I tossed the bags out.
> 
> *Max & Me *- Chelmsford
> 
> ...


 *It's usually a good idea to contact the roaster and see what they say/do, give them a chance to rectify the problem before posting a negative review. *Most roasters appreciate this, as I believe you would if you owned a roasting business. I normally advise my roast sharers to wait 5-7 days before drinking the coffee, although I know it's often better at 2 weeks and beyond. I'll happily drink coffee roasted 6 weeks ago, of course it depends on how well and quickly it's packed.

I'd advise you contact them and see what they say next time, even though you have thrown the coffee out...which was a mistake as they probably would have liked to check the batch number of the roast.

I notice some negativity on the thread but @Mrwayne86is entitled to review against any standard he likes, even that the coffee was 3 weeks old, and he didn't like the taste. My only issue is that there appears to have been no contact with the roaster that we are aware of.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Re the comments above , I think I would consider how you review a roaster given that they are all small businesses trying to make a living and these things pop up on google searches and on here.

Points to consider , are you ordering whole bean or ground, if ground and using for espresso then its a bit of a non starter , for all the reasons pre ground isn't good for espresso . Drinking any pre ground is never goign to give the best experience for that coffee, it stales really quickly for any brew Method.

What is your technique for drilling in whole beans if you are grinding ?

Next let us know , how are you brewing it, espresso , filter, with what. Be worth letting people know who's you tried it. Did you add milk ?

How was the coffee described to taste , what were the roasters notes, what was your experience? Not asking for endless descriptors , but was it sweet, bitter, acidic . You are happy to allude to whether a coffee tastes fresh or not , so you can probably discern some basic other qualities of the coffee.

I am not trying to chip at you , just give some constructive feedback , we dont even know what coffee you bought

Lastly as Dave posted best to take up with a roaster before publicly calling them out.

EDIT - look like you are have a grinder now perhaps ? If you do not consider yourself to be an expert when you get a coffee you are struggling to dial in , perhaps ask for help , will save you wasting coffee.


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## Coffeenoobster (Nov 24, 2018)

DavecUK said:


> I notice some negativity on the thread


 I don't think anyone is being negative I feel that people are responding with legitimate questions and concerns on how a "review" can be taken at face value and the impact it can have. Having an opinion and giving review are two different things in my opinion. If you have an opinion I'm not going to look into who is providing it. But if you are reviewing something I would. Would you value a review provided by myself as much as an expert with a history? Personally I'm not going to be swayed either way by this review but someone who is legitimately looking at using the roaster may.


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## winterlight (Feb 27, 2016)

Mrwayne's opinion is, of course, entirely valid and if he didn't like the beans he didn't like the beans. Accordingly, he's free to voice this online and any business should be aware that unfavourable reviews will pop up online.

Personally, I don't have time to contact roasters to discuss what I'm potentially doing wrong with the beans, I just make a note and move on to something else. Sometimes I'll pop a comment on these forums saying that I didn't enjoy the beans for whatever reason and, last time I checked, all those roasters were still operating.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

winterlight said:


> Personally, I don't have time to contact roasters to discuss what I'm potentially doing wrong with the beans, I just make a note and move on to something else. Sometimes I'll pop a comment on these forums saying that I didn't enjoy the beans for whatever reason and, last time I checked, all those roasters were still operating.


 I agree with you about the opinions the OP is voicing. Although it's not about what "you are doing wrong", many roasters appreciate the feedback, as something may have gone wrong with that batch that they were unaware off. Few roasters will lay the problem at your door, usually they will be interested enough to ask for a photo of the beans and batch number, so they can check their logs.

I guess if you have the time to pop a comment in these forums, it's worth thinking about whether you have time to copy the text of that comment in an email to the roaster...


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## winterlight (Feb 27, 2016)

DavecUK said:


> I agree with you about the opinions the OP is voicing. Although it's not about what "you are doing wrong", many roasters appreciate the feedback, as something may have gone wrong with that batch that they were unaware off. Few roasters will lay the problem at your door, usually they will be interested enough to ask for a photo of the beans and batch number, so they can check their logs.
> 
> I guess if you have the time to pop a comment in these forums, it's worth thinking about whether you have time to copy the text of that comment in an email to the roaster...


 Ah, okay, I see what you mean. It makes sense for the roaster to carry out a bit of QC if a customer hasn't been satisfied.

Personally, I'm not to fussed about opening a dialogue with a roaster over potential issues with what is a relatively low-cost product. If I bought one of those £200 bags of Gardelli beans then it might, as you would expect, be a different story. But that's just me. Others are clearly happy for a little back and forth to support the roaster.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Roasters could have a range of responses, and I am sure I don't cover them all:



Thanks for the feedback, or ignored


let me send you another bag (investigates nothing)


Thanks for the feedback can I have the batch number, photo of beans, I'd also like to send you another bag (investigates, may even feed back to you)


On that very broad scale, the roaster with the last response is more likely to become a great roaster...you simply play a small part in helping them. When I train people how to roast, I always make the point (more than once), "they are roasting for their customers and not themselves"...It's surprising how people can lose sight of that.


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

Most roasters value feedback from customers, it does help if you can be specific if it about things, as has been mentioned above, the batch number and a photo will give a roaster a lot of valuable information, as sometimes things do go wrong and it is important for them to investigate the why it went wrong and to also rectify the problem for you (or at least be given the opportunity to do so). Customer service is such an important factor in success and as such how roasters respond to any problems often drives a review far more than just not engaging in the first place.


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