... with a little help from our friends, few of who've been as adamant about spreading the gospel of Ristretto Roasters as Amy Alkon, longtime friend, Advice Goddess extraordinaire, daily imbiber of Sumatra, and tireless Ristretto booster. I cannot tell you how many people have ordered coffee from us online after reading in one of her blog posts that "it's like drinking velvet." I am not sure how she introduced the brew to Jake, but this is the email she received from him today:
Amy –
I don’t mean pave an already well-shaped path here, but I have to tell you something . . .
Ristretto has ruined all other coffee for me for life.
About a month ago, I told you I had purchased my first Mexican Chiapas and wondered aloud as to how it would compare with my beloved Peete’s.You told me you can’t even drink Peete’s anymore. To myself, I scoffed at the notion. OK it might be good, but completely supplant Peete’s? Come on.
Last Friday, I ran out of Ristretto beans. Then, in a moment of weakness and laziness, I purchased some Peete’s at the store.
This morning, as I sat down to begin my day with my freshly-brewed Peete’s, all I could think was “yuck.”
I placed my Ristretto order this morning and it can’t come fast enough.
Curses!!
Jake, Los Angeles
Take heart, Jake; your pound of Harrar went out today!
It arrived. Its delicious. All is right with the world.
Posted by: Jake | October 05, 2006 at 08:41 AM
Howdy, it took me a bit to find the link to the actual Roasters web site, then once there, it took too long to find the "Order Coffee Online" thing in the left sidebar -- which turns out not to be a link, and the link directly under it is a link to my empty "shopping cart", which is a bit of a dead end. Ahh, turns out the beans are in the *right* sidebar! Not so bad, then, but still not very clear.
Of course you don't want to be annoyingly lurid or vulgar about it, but after all, you're here to sell coffee beans, and customers are here to buy them -- or at least contemplate it. No need to be coy!
It would be a win for everybody if the link(s) to the main purpose of the site were more prominent or at least visually distinct from the other links, I think.
Posted by: A. C. Hynes | October 22, 2006 at 05:44 PM
Yes, I see what you mean about the "Order Online" tab on the website; we'll fix that. And perhaps put a more obvious conduit from the blog (which we'd assumed folks would come to second, but google seems to have other ideas) to the website.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Posted by: nancy | October 22, 2006 at 05:53 PM