EnCoffee: The software known as “Ascension” just underwent beta testing with customers. How did that go?
Aaron of Altitude: When it comes to Ascension there were a number of user interface bugs that were found but when it comes to the data collection and computation, that end was solid. So just some smaller display bugs that need to get fixed as we move forward. But in my opinion it was tremendously successful. We were able to get a lot of “coffee geeks” on there playing with it and we were very fortunate to have a number of bloggers in the field playing with it too. There were a lot of really great reviews in the forums as to what they felt the coffees were like and a lot of great feedback. And I’d like to say that overwhelmingly the largest observed response was that it was really neat to be able to put all these origins next to each other and taste what really is the differences between say a Colombian and a Brazil. Most people have never been able to do that before. And it was a cool opportunity for people to understand a little bit more about their own palates and help them progress in their own hobby and adventure in coffee.
En Coffee: I love it that the consumer is part or the process and is contributing rather than just playing a passive role.
Aaron from Altitude: Yes exactly, and when it comes to the point where we need a new origin we’ll put up a vote on the forum. For a region we’ll purchase bags from a set of importers, roast them at different levels and send them out to our users who want to be involved in this process. From there they can taste them and vote on what they like the best and that’s the next one.
And we also have a ranking function on the site so that the more you rate the coffee … the more you are involved the higher in ranking you get. And we do that for a couple of reasons the first is to say thank you for your involvement. Secondly, coffee is not an easy thing to grasp and this will positively weight people’s experience levels.
EnCoffee: How about some insight into the background of the Altitude Team?
Aaron of Altitude: Barista and retail .. cafes .. I myself have a background in statistics and economics hence my very data-driven approach to all this. I have a lot of experience with economic and social models and something that really struck me was that you really can apply these tools universally. And we had some brain storming sessions and ultimately we were able to apply all of our knowledge and expertise to the web side, the modeling side and on the coffee & tasting side to this new concept.
EnCoffee: What do you envision looking forward?
Aaron of Altitude: My ultimate goal with this is not to become a monster. I want to keep it about the user I want to keep it intimate with everybody having a say. If you get too big then that level of intimacy begins to disappear. A future goal will be to have at some point, say within five years, a cafe or two.. establishments that care about the coffee as much as we do.
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