Yep, it finally happened. Starting today, you can order Fenster coffee with delivery anywhere in the United States. This became real after I organized and shipped our first batch: almost 150 kilos of coffee in total (about 330 lbs). We’ve got whole beans, drip bags, and coffee sticks ready to go.
On September 4, we dropped the pallet off with the freight company that handled the shipment, and I finally picked it up in New York on October 23. Technically, I could’ve received it around the 18th, but due to some “fun” miscommunications with the vessel agent, it took a little longer. So in the end it was about a month and a half door-to-door. All in all, pretty acceptable.
The shipment physically arrived at the port on October 11. From there, I spent almost two weeks wrestling with the import paperwork. “Wrestling” because this was my first time doing anything like this, and at the beginning I had literally nothing in place except the receiving company. I had to rush through registrations with different agencies and government databases just to be allowed to accept imported goods. That whole bureaucratic quest deserves its own separate story. Thank God it all worked out in the end, and pretty much without any unnecessary losses.
The upside is that next time we do this, I’ll be 100% ready. I’ll be able to clear everything on the very first day the shipment hits the port. The process and logistics are now mapped out and tested. The only thing I’m missing now is my own cargo van, because hauling everything in a regular Mercedes was… let’s say, not the easiest task in the world.
Now let’s talk about the price, because that part is honestly kind of wild in the world of freight. I’ll start with the bottom line. Vienna → New York, one pallet, total gross weight 189 kg (net coffee weight 143 kg / 168.2 kg including packaging) cost $1,353 (€1,161) altogether. That’s $9.46 per kilo of actual coffee. This price includes absolutely everything: the shipment itself, export and import clearance, unloading, customs warehouse, duty, insurance—every possible and impossible fee. Keep in mind, when you export goods from Europe to the U.S., you pay a 15% “political” duty on the invoice value. Yes, that one.
If the shipment had been heavier, the cost per kilo would have gone down, because a big chunk of the total is made up of flat, “per shipment” charges—document handling, various fees, and so on. Those are billed per shipment, not per kilogram, and make up roughly half of the total cost.
And now to the whole point of this exercise: actually selling coffee in the United States. Of course, before the shipment arrived, I registered the company, set up the tax accounts, got the necessary licenses and permits, and—most importantly—set up and configured the online store.
So yes, if you’re in the U.S., you can already buy our coffee through the online shop.
Naturally, the very first thing I did was brew a fresh cup from the Vienna shipment I had just picked up. And you know what? It really is the best coffee I’ve had in the last few months. For me, Fenster coffee is genuinely the tastiest coffee I’ve tried—both in Europe and in the U.S. I really do love my coffee.
Now the easy part: sell everything I just brought in.
And that’s what we’ll talk about in the next episodes.
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