Hello LEx community! We are looking to add pelletized Cryo Hops to our site, but we need some feedback first! Here are some basic questions we need answered before we roll out the changes:
Are the Cryo hops you’re looking to sell in pellet form?
Do you need new Varieties? Sort of like how “US Cascade” and “US Cascade - Organic” are their own varieties.
Do you need new Types? Right now the types are “Lupulin Powder”, “T45 Pellet”, “T90 Pellet” and “Whole Leaf”.
. If you don’t need a new Type, which existing one would you use?
Do you need new Packaging? (I.E. “10 lbs”, “40 lbs”, etc).
. If you don’t need new Packaging, which existing one would you use?
Would it be possible (and easier and clearer) to use existing Types and Packaging (like “T90”/“11 lbs”) and then select a checkbox indicating the hops are Cryo?
Let us know your thoughts and thanks so much for you help!
Yes, I think the cleanest and likely fastest thing to do is just add a “CryoHops” type to the “Type” dropdown. Cryohops are made with the same varieties that already exist in the database and in the same packaging sizes as already exist in the database. We just need a way to separate them from Lupulin Powder which is the non-pelletized form of the same enriched product.
I agree with Anthony. Cryo Hops are the pelletized form of the Lupulin Powder. They are sold in the same weights as the regular T-90 pellets, so no need to make a change there. The varieties those come in are already listed on the site, so really the only thing that needs to be added to accurately describe them is a new type that reads “LUPULN2 Cryo Pellets”. That would let the buyers know exactly what they are getting.
It seems like perhaps Cryo Hops® should be listed as a separate brand (ie Yakima Chief Cryo Hops®) rather than a type. All of the other hop merchants also produce enriched powder and pellets (and have for many years) but obviously not under the Cryo Hops registered trademark.
YCH essentially trademarked their process, which uses liquid nitrogen instead of the super-refrigerated air that the other major dealers use to accomplish the same result - the separation of lupulin from the plant material.
“Cryo” is just how YCH is branding that intermediate step that is necessary to make an enriched product (ie T45). In contrast, Haas, Steiner, etc. haven’t branded their enrichment process, but in some cases have trademarked the resulting product(s) (ie BBC Pure Hop Pellet™). Hopsteiner simply refers to their fully enriched powder as T35. A T45 has some plant material blended back in to produce a pellet with standardized alpha.
It probably makes the most sense/would be the least ambiguous to list YCH’s LupuLN2® as brand = Yakima Chief Cryo Hops® and Type = powder/T35. I’ve never used their pelletized Cryo Hops® and haven’t been able to find a ton of info on their website, but I’d guess those should be listed as brand = Yakima Chief Cryo Hops® and Type = T45 (or whatever is actually accurate) I don’t know if T45 is correct in that case, but hopefully someone out there can tell us definitively.
I welcome any feedback, especially from hop merchants/dealers who might have a preference for how their products get listed. As a general rule, a trademarked name should probably never become a type on The Exchange.
What will you do for Debittered leaf/American Noble from YCH? Also add a brand for that? The umbrella brand is YCH. T-45, T-90, Debittered Leaf/American Noble, CryoHops, LupulN2 are all types of hops that brand offers.
I think your relational problem here is that brand should be a one to many relationship to type (not many to many) so that when I select a brand like Haas, the types should become what that brand offers, not what every brand offers. Similarly how Lupulin Powder is exposed right now for every brand, but not every brand actually offers it… and arguably, YCH was the one who started using that term which is why articles about LupulN2 are at the top of Google search results for “lupulin powder”.
Further, the relationship becomes non-sensical when you consider that a person could select ‘Yakima Chief Cryo Hops’ as the brand and then select ‘Whole Leaf’ as the type. Or when I presumably pick ‘Yakima Chief American Noble’ as the brand and then select ‘T90 pellets’ as the type. At that point, the relational model no longer reflects the reality.
The other option is to allow sellers to select “other” when it comes to the type of hops they are selling and then allow them to just fill in what that is. I sold some Cryo Pellets recently and I let the buyer know what they were getting by writing that in after the Lot #. That also allowed the buyer to verify what I was selling by providing that information for them to lookup themselves. If you don’t want to have to keep up with every hop product out there this might be the easiest way to go.
And if somebody just tries to make something up, buyers should be to question what it is they are selling or just report it to the admin.