Covid-19 Customer Information Page

Dear Valued Customers,

We are experiencing an exceptionally high and unprecedented number of orders, to ensure continuity of service and to remain within the timeframes promised, it has become necessary to only accept a limited number of orders daily.

This means that we will be pausing our online Store once the daily number has been reached.

We could keep the online store running permanently like a lot of other companies are doing, but there are a few reasons why we have chosen not to do so.

We are operating at 50% capacity due to the limited space in the Store in which we can only operate from. This means that there are only 3 people preparing all orders.
Each order is individually weighed and freshly ground to order, nothing is pre-packed.
We do not think it right that our customers need to wait more than the timeframe we have stated to dispatch the parcels. We are committed to ensuring we can provide you with exceptional customer service and care when processing your orders.

We will announce daily when the next opening time is, please check the top banner of our pages! We can’t deny that the limited number of orders are being reached within minutes so please do be patient when trying to get an order across. We hope that this surge will calm down shortly once a percentage of our customers have stocked up.

Please may we ask that you refrain from calling us to place an order unless you are not able to do so online. This will keep our lines free for our elderly customers.

We also ask you to refrain from sending over an order via email for the time being.

A HUGE THANK YOU

We wanted to thank each and every one of you for your invaluable support over these difficult times. The decision to close back in March was extremely hard for us but your kind messages of support via email and on our social media platforms made it less stressful and we appreciate the understanding that you have showed us. It will never be forgotten! We do believe that we have the best customers in the world!!! You have all made this scary and uncertain time much more bearable, we can’t thank you enough!

We also want to thank our suppliers who are still working hard to get our coffee and tea to us, our roasters who have had to deal with our huge order increase, the delivery men and women who always deliver with a smile no matter what and our faithful postman who collects your orders on a daily basis without complaining about the vast amount of postal sacks we have ready for him!

And of course the biggest thank you goes to our Healthcare and Key workers who have put their own lives on the frontline to help and protect us all. YOU ARE ALL HEROES!

HOW WE ARE KEEPING YOU SAFE

Since the lockdown was announced, we worked hard to get back up and running as soon as we could but we only were able to do so once we were confident that we could keep our valued customers as well as our amazing staff safe.

If you have ever visited our Store, you will know that it is quite small and narrow, only 6 to 7 people max can work behind the counters normally. With the new social distancing requirements, having that amount of staff on the shop floor would be unsafe, this is why we have decided to rotate our staff and allow 50% back to work normally and the other 50% will be Furloughed. After some time, they will switch which will allow them all to come back to work and regain some sort of normality in their day to day life.

All staff have had Covid-19 related H&S training and now wear masks and gloves when processing and packing your orders. They each have their workstation which allows them to maintain social distancing from one another. Their workstation is santised constantly throughout the day and thoroughly at the end of their shift. At their workstation they each have access to cleaning equipment as well as hand santiser which they use regularly. All communal areas such as bathrooms and staff rooms are santised after each use and there is no access to our Store to the public.

All shop collections will be prepaid to avoid exchange of money and therefore contact free at the front door.

We will continuously review the guidance given to us from the government and WHO and update any procedures as soon as they are put into place.

Please do take care out there and we hope to be back to some sort of normality soon!

Best wishes from,

Algerian Coffee Stores Team.

ADDITIONAL INFO

We have temporarily suspended all International orders.
Shop Collections are now bookable online and take around 5 working days to process. You will be called to arrange a time.
Our operating hours and therefore postal and shop collections will be from Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm only. We are currently not operational over the weekend.

COVID-19 STATEMENT FROM OUR TEA SUPPLIER

Following concerns and queries from several clients we would like to share the following statement in respect to coronavirus and our tea supply.

All Chinese tea that is in our facility was grown and made before June 2019 and stored in high vacuum.
Chinese tea (black, green, oolong) is dried at temperatures above 200 degrees F (95 degrees C) for minimally 15 minutes.
Chinese white tea is sun dried and may undergo up to 5 minutes of mechanical drying at the above noted temperature.
After drying, the transit time from the estates to their facility is minimally 60 days.
Reports from the W.H.O. and other authorities indicate that the incubation period is up to 14 days in a live host.
There have been no reports that Covid-19 is able to survive in high temperatures or in products that are dried to below 4-5% moisture.
The recommended steeping temperature of tea in water is greater than 190 degrees F (90 deg C) for 5 minutes. (We also recommend that you bring the water to a boil and allow it to cool to the desired steeping temperature).