Seasonal Booking Workflow

Every year, the curing room fills up faster than we can manage by hand. Orders for Madagascar bourbon beans spike in late summer, just as the new harvest arrives, and the old spreadsheet system could not keep up. We needed a booking process that matched the rhythm of the curing cycle, not one that forced every client into the same queue.

The first decision was to split the year into four curing windows, each tied to a specific harvest and aging schedule. Clients now choose a window when they place their order, and we confirm the exact week their beans will be sorted and crated. This sounds simple, but it changed how we plan labor, how much green stock we buy, and how we talk to pastry chefs who need beans for a fixed production date.

The tradeoff was flexibility. A strict window system means we cannot always accommodate a last-minute request, even from a regular buyer. To balance this, we hold back a small reserve of aged beans for urgent orders, but the reserve is capped at ten percent of each batch. That limit is visible to clients during booking, so there are no surprises later.

What the workflow covers

The booking form asks for three things only: the curing window, the quantity in kilograms, and the intended use. We found that asking for more detail upfront just created friction. The intended use field matters because extract makers need beans at a different moisture level than pastry kitchens, and we adjust the grading accordingly.

• Four curing windows per year, aligned with harvest and aging cycles
• Moisture content targets set by intended use, from extract to direct infusion
• A visible reserve cap of ten percent for urgent orders
• Confirmation within two working days, with the exact crate week

The confirmation email includes the moisture specification for the chosen window, so a client can plan their recipe around it. If the moisture level does not suit their process, they can move to the next window without penalty, as long as they notify us before the sorting date.