Cunard switches coffee brand: now Union Coffee

[Pushpit]

With a hat tip to @D&N for spotting this.

 

Cunard have switched coffee brands from their longstanding relationship with Illy, to Union Coffee. Now we can see this has happened for QE, QV, QA, and I'm guessing for QM2 too.  Here is the very discreet note that Union put up on LinkedIn:

 

 

Union Coffee are based in Canning Town, East London (UK). They have been going since 2001  and have won the Queen's Award for Industry. They are a top shelf product, they sell to Waitrose, which is the supermarket at the top end of the market, Whole Foods or Wegmans would be an imperfect analogy for those based in the USA.  Union also supply coffee to the Business and First class cabins on British Airways, and Union is the coffee used in the First Lounge and Concorde Room in Heathrow. I think that link with BA is relevant here, since BA's profitability comes substantially from flights between London and the USA. 

 

The other factor is that Illy focuses on a very brand centred taste based on a couple of strengths and using their espresso machines, so that no matter where you go, Illy coffee will have the same good quality taste. So the espresso focus is important to them. Union is bean focused, so less bothered about what equipment is used, and more differentiated between all sorts of origins - Guatemala, Peru, Costa Rica etc: it's not intended that all Union coffee tastes the same. The USA market is still very much brew coffee focused, albeit Seattle very much responsible for taking the world in a different direction. Union beans can be used in brew coffee, though that seems not (yet) on the menu (below is for QE and QV):

 

 

They don't appear to have a Cunard blend, but it would not surprise me if that is the next step of this relationship. Main website for Union:

https://unionroasted.com/collections/bestsellers

 

Spooky coincidence: one year ago, 23 June 2023, I suggested Cunard moves to Union!

 

 

[tacticalbanjo]

It's also stocked in Tesco and Sainsburys. It's the one of the few supermarket coffees that has a roasted on date but it's hard to find freshly roasted beans due to how the supply chain works. Probably better than Illy as a mainstream coffee roaster but not exactly top drawer speciality coffee. However, I suspect that for Cunard, consistency is a bigger priority than fresh beans and a variety of flavours.

[WantedOnVoyage]

Well that is good news. British Airways have been featuring this brand for two years or more and at least in Business Class last flight I had the best cup of coffee aloft in 46 years of air travel. 

[ExArkie]

Does this mean they will have to replace the Illy machines in the Grills cabins? I don’t know if Union Coffee makes compatible pods for Illy, but I have seen some Keurig-compatible pods from them. 

[NE John]

Maybe @Victoria2 and others can use these machines instead of battling the enigmatic Illy machines. I’m bummed about this, Illy is my favorite brand. 

[Victoria2]

Just now, NE John said:

Maybe @Victoria2 and others can use these machines instead of battling the enigmatic Illy machines. I’m bummed about this, Illy is my favorite brand. 

Not a chance.

My instant coffee from home is a perfectly acceptable cabin coffee as long as I have enough milk sticks, as I don't like the long life milk provided.

If we brought any drinks onboard, It would be four pts of semi skimmed milk to stick in the fridge!

 

Now there's an idea! 😄

[foodsvcmgr]

Normally in a food service environment the coffee company provides the brewing and serving machines as part of the contract, typically at little or no cost in conjunction with buying their product exclusively.

Contractually Cunard can’t brew Union coffee in Illy proprietary equipment.

[WantedOnVoyage]

So here's hoping East London sensabilities will prevail in supplying coffee makers "en suite" that do not require the "exploded diagram" of flatpack furniture and actually can be worked by the average husband. 

[elmsliebev]

hopefully they will provide decaf as well. 

Having just looked at the temperatures for next week in Norway, I'll be on the iced coffees! 

[buchanan101]

1 hour ago, elmsliebev said:

hopefully they will provide decaf as well. 

Having just looked at the temperatures for next week in Norway, I'll be on the iced coffees! 

Is it warming up? Oh yes…

 

see you there…

 

 

Edited June 20 by buchanan101

[rsquare]

Is this just for premium coffee drinks ordered in bars, or will it affect the coffee served with dessert in Britannia?  If the latter, it is bad news for me since I really dislike espresso and Italian roasts (Starbucks and Caffe Nero have survived without my custom).  An ordinary US cup of coffee seems to translate to an Americano in Europe, which I understand to be a diluted espresso.

 

As long as they don't change the coffee machine located outside of Connexions, I'll be fine.  Best coffee on the ship, and free.

[JT1101]

I like this move. It represents a quality increase as Union has good stuff. 

 

As far as the free coffees I expect they will not change their sourcing right now. I like the coffees on draw at King's Court and as mentioned Connexions. 

[TowandaUK]

18 hours ago, Victoria2 said:

Not a chance.

My instant coffee from home is a perfectly acceptable cabin coffee as long as I have enough milk sticks, as I don't like the long life milk provided.

If we brought any drinks onboard, It would be four pts of semi skimmed milk to stick in the fridge!

 

Now there's an idea! 😄

I’m with you on long life milk. Have to have black coffee onboard. 

[Pushpit]

6 hours ago, rsquare said:

Is this just for premium coffee drinks ordered in bars, or will it affect the coffee served with dessert in Britannia?  If the latter, it is bad news for me since I really dislike espresso and Italian roasts (Starbucks and Caffe Nero have survived without my custom).  An ordinary US cup of coffee seems to translate to an Americano in Europe, which I understand to be a diluted espresso.

 

As long as they don't change the coffee machine located outside of Connexions, I'll be fine.  Best coffee on the ship, and free.

The Connexions and Britannia coffees are from a bean to cup machine, so it's all about what beans go into the machine more than the machine itself. I don't know for certain, but I would hazard it's the same beans that go into both sets of machines. (Lido and Kings Court use ground coffee). And the method is essentially brewing, rather than espresso based.

 

As you indicate the way we Europeans cheat with American tastes for brewed coffee is to add a lot of hot water to espresso, to about two thirds or even three quarters hot water. The story goes that this was what working class American GIs, based in Italy after the war had to do, in order to make their coffee vaguely palatable to their taste buds. A nice tale, but it's probably untrue, since the term Americano came around in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

I doubt that Cunard are going to use Union coffee beans in these machines, it's quite expensive, so you're probably going to be OK. And bean to cup / brew just always tastes different to espresso based coffee. Union doesn't do an Italian style roast in the same way as Illy, based in Trieste, does. The original Signor Illy was actually from Romania, so his coffee tastes were slightly more international than Italy. Union is a Latin America and southern Africa specialist, so a different range of tastes but not specifically Italian.

[Kynance]

@Pushpit - thank you for posting this.  We still had Illy on QM2 at the beginning of this month. I belatedly realised that they were making lattes and cappuccinos with double espressos, which made the coffee way too bitter for me. When I switched to a single espresso, it was much more enjoyable.

 

I do wish Cunard would bring back the option to have a larger serving - the coffees are much smaller than anything I would normally order. My tastes are probably anathema to connoisseurs but I like my coffee long, milky and frothy!

[elmsliebev]

12 hours ago, buchanan101 said:

Is it warming up? Oh yes…

 

see you there…

 

 

yes - I'll definitely be on the icedcoffee. Not tried Union so I'm looking forward to trying it 

 

[Pushpit]

13 minutes ago, Kynance said:

I do wish Cunard would bring back the option to have a larger serving - the coffees are much smaller than anything I would normally order. My tastes are probably anathema to connoisseurs but I like my coffee long, milky and frothy!

I presume you are trying Latte, which is 4 to 1 milk to espresso, and with a single espresso, which in theory gets you to 8 to 1 (probably in between though).

 

I really disagree with the notion that connoisseurs can disregard the tastes of others. Instant coffee is the preferred drink of billions of people, nothing wrong with that at all, and I drink gallons of Gold Blend. You probably want something like Cafe con leche / café au lait, which is brewed coffee and plenty of milk, which actually has more coffee in it, at least typically, but not as bitter. Because Cunard is no longer tied to the Illy way of doing things, they have more options now since Union is bean based rather than espresso focused. The question is whether Cunard want the complexity.

 

In the ideal world Union would offer additionally a Cunard blend and a guest blend, and these would be available as big jug drip / brewed coffee. This would allow the bar staff to prepare a mug of coffee very quickly rather than going through the whole barrista routines. And they could sell the Cunard blend beans with a silly markup in the shop.

[King Amo]

For black coffee drinkers this is an excellent move, and I would hope (but doubt) that they would utilise the relationship to offer some guest single origins as an alternative to the standard blend. The Union decaf is decent, although their Rwandan version is even better (if drinking black, rather than milk based). 

 

If going for milk based drinks I think Illy is really quite tough to beat in terms of reliability, and particularly the decaf, which has just the right cocoa bitterness to counter the sweeter milk. 

 

I can't see any way Cunard will be using Union coffee in the dining rooms. It will be cheap, dark roasted commodity coffee which will be perfect for the vast majority of drinkers. The price difference (my guess at wholesale would be around 3-4 times the price for Union) is simply not justified, when most will be completely satisfied. The jump to providing bean to cup from the old instant machines has got them 95% of the way there in perceived quality. 

[Pushpit]

2 hours ago, King Amo said:

The jump to providing bean to cup from the old instant machines has got them 95% of the way there in perceived quality. 

And for 20% of the cost.

[King Amo]

8 minutes ago, Pushpit said:

And for 20% of the cost.

It's funny that here in the UK sticking an awful Cafebar-style machine that mixed hoppers of instant coffee, whitener and hot chocolate powder to create a selection of different drinks was considered a step up from batch brew filter. Fortunately things have changed somewhat, with novelty now starting to take a back seat to quality, but it astounds me how people still view filter coffee as the pits, when nothing could be further from the truth. 

[NE John]

Still on QE. 

[majortom10]

12 hours ago, NE John said:

Still on QE. 

Never managed to work it even after speaking to butler and supposedly replaced with a new one. Cost Cunard a fortune in pods wasted trying to get it work, in the end gave up.

[Victoria2]

9 minutes ago, majortom10 said:

Never managed to work it even after speaking to butler and supposedly replaced with a new one. Cost Cunard a fortune in pods wasted trying to get it work, in the end gave up.

Snap! 😀

[Lee Jones Jnr]

It was Union in Sir Samuels mid May