An Irish filter focused coffee blog?

Hannibal6.0

I am considering setting up a coffee blog. The purpose of the blog is to share my experiences as I search to find the best places for coffee in Ireland.

The blog will have two objectives

1. Inform
2. Educate

'Informing' will come in the form of me and possibly other guest writers sharing our reviews of coffee being sold in Ireland.

'Educate' would be focused on sharing recipes and best practice methods for home brewing.

However I had a couple of questions.
1. Do you think there would be much of a demand in Ireland for a blog like this?
2. Is there potential for it to be completely filter focused?
3. Is there anything else that people would like to see included in this blog, e.g. have the same style and setup as described but for cakes as well as coffee
4. Is anyone interested in getting involved?

maxwell smart

Something along the following lines would be interesting to include:

What is your professional coffee expertise? What qualifies you to write a blog on coffee? How did you get to where you are now (if you consider yourself experienced) You will need to outline why people should read your blog.

If you have no experience apart from the drink coffee at home type, this could be quite an interesting angle, or maybe if you are experienced then why not have a complete coffee beginner tag along on your journey?

Filter focussed is really limiting your audience in my opinion.

Cakes as well? Not really bothered about that but it will expand your offering

BaronVon

I'd be interested, filter coffee does seem to be the hardest to get a decent cup of, but as stated, you would be limiting your market potential. Maybe if you got others on board to try different types of coffee?

Hannibal6.0

maxwell smart wrote: »

Something along the following lines would be interesting to include:

What is your professional coffee expertise? What qualifies you to write a blog on coffee? How did you get to where you are now (if you consider yourself experienced) You will need to outline why people should read your blog.

If you have no experience apart from the drink coffee at home type, this could be quite an interesting angle, or maybe if you are experienced then why not have a complete coffee beginner tag along on your journey?

Filter focussed is really limiting your audience in my opinion.

Cakes as well? Not really bothered about that but it will expand your offering

My own background, is that I had previously tried to set up a mobile coffee business targeting commuters. We sold filter coffee which meant that the coffee and brewing had to be of the highest quality if we were going to expect people to consume coffee in this way. During that venture, I had done one of 3FE's brewing classes and spent a lot of time researching online and experimenting.

Unfortunately the business was a flop and people just didn't take to it. However what I did learn from it was how little Irish people seemed to know about coffee (me included)

Since then I have continued spend time learning about coffee, in particular filter coffee.

I am not an expert but I would know more than your average coffee drinker. For this blog I would be taking the beginner approach as you described and looking to share the information that I learn along the way. The purpose is still to find the best coffee in Ireland, but it would be my responsibility to conduct prior research and share how I arrived at my findings(reviews) with the readers.


Reviewing cake's was just an example, it can be anything really, just looking for a way to broaden the potential of the reader base.

Thanks for the feedback, point taken on filter coffee limiting my audience.

Hannibal6.0

draiochtanois wrote: »

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A start for what?

James_R

I was thinking it would be great to open a small coffee shop that only did filter but there's just not the market there for it in Ireland now. You'd have to offer espresso based drinks and everything that goes with them also.

I do like the idea of an Irish coffee blog but I'd stick to just coffee and not dilute it with cakes etc.

Where do you see it going? What do you want to achieve with it?

Might be something I'd be willing to put some time into.

donnacha

Hannibal6.0 wrote: »

1. Do you think there would be much of a demand in Ireland for a blog like this?

I don't want to sound like a smart arse - but what do you mean by demand? I read quite a few blogs, some are focused on coffee, others such as beer, brewing, running, the list goes on and on. I don't think any of the people that run these blogs know I read them ... some have little to no comments on the posts yet they continue to be updated. How are you going to gauge the demand? What purpose does it serve?

Hannibal6.0 wrote: »

2. Is there potential for it to be completely filter focused?

How many coffee shops do you know in Ireland that sell filter coffee? Seriously I drink filter all the time at home - I live in Dublin and there are 3 (maybe 4) coffee shops in total that I'd buy a filter coffee at.

Hannibal6.0

James_R wrote: »

I was thinking it would be great to open a small coffee shop that only did filter but there's just not the market there for it in Ireland now. You'd have to offer espresso based drinks and everything that goes with them also.

I do like the idea of an Irish coffee blog but I'd stick to just coffee and not dilute it with cakes etc.

Where do you see it going? What do you want to achieve with it?

Might be something I'd be willing to put some time into.

Big picture thinking is that ideally I would like it to become the go to place to find out where to get good coffee in a town/city. The potential in monetary terms would be that if you could get enough of a following that would warrant selling coffee online or actually setting up a cafe somewhere. No idea how long it would take to get to that level, but it is important to be working towards a goal.

draiochtanois wrote: »

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I believe blogs and forums serve two very different purposes.

donnacha wrote: »

I don't want to sound like a smart arse - but what do you mean by demand? I read quite a few blogs, some are focused on coffee, others such as beer, brewing, running, the list goes on and on. I don't think any of the people that run these blogs know I read them ... some have little to no comments on the posts yet they continue to be updated. How are you going to gauge the demand? What purpose does it serve?


How many coffee shops do you know in Ireland that sell filter coffee? Seriously I drink filter all the time at home - I live in Dublin and there are 3 (maybe 4) coffee shops in total that I'd buy a filter coffee at.

To your first point, page views would be the metric for measuring that. Not sure I know what you mean by what purpose does it serve? If you mean why would you measure something like this, you would measure it because it helps you understand what your readers want to see more of e.g. If certain styles of blog posts get higher views than others, then you would use the more popular blog post style for future posts.


I mentioned earlier on in the thread that I agree that having a blog about just filter coffee could limit the audience base significantly.

Hannibal6.0

draiochtanois wrote: »

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I didn't mean to upset you by not taking your advice, I just didn't understand why you felt writing extensively about coffee on boards.ie was the better way to achieve the objectives I had mentioned.

I actually thought you may have just been trolling, but I would genuinely be interested in hearing why you think boards is the way go instead of setting up a blog?