What is in a coffee sack gift wrap

A coffee sack gift wrap is a piece of a real, used coffee sack, cut by hand, folded around your order and tied with natural twine, with a small card inside that tells you where in the world the sack started out. Inside is the jar itself, plain amber glass with a black lid and a cream label. That is the whole parcel: sack, twine, card, jar.

Every Bale order ships this way, one wrap per order, whether it is one jar or three. Here is what each piece is, why it is there, and what to expect if you are sending it as a gift.

What exactly is wrapped around the jar?

Burlap, cut from a sack that carried coffee across an ocean. Before a sack reaches a roaster it is filled where the coffee grows, stamped with where it came from, loaded onto a ship and carried a long way. Once the beans are out, the sack has done its job. I give it a second one.

I cut them by hand from a pile with red, green and blue stamps, country names, numbers and marks from places I have never been. No two are the same, and nobody picks theirs, so every order arrives a little different. Some pieces carry a full stencil, some a corner of one, some plain weave. Yours is whichever came off the pile.

The sack wraps the parcel. It is never a band around the jar. The jar is plain, and it is meant to be.

What else is in the parcel?

• The jar, or jars. 6 oz (170 g) of body butter on a shea and cocoa butter base, scented, and made in small batches.
• Natural twine, tied around the sack. Keep it. It goes back around the next gift.
• The origin card. A small kraft card with the country the sack came from written on it. It is the part people photograph.
• A free travel tin if you ordered 2 jars, and a free mystery gift if you ordered 3.

The sack is the presentation. If you ordered the Discovery Set, the six 1 oz sample jars arrive the same way, and the box includes a $15 credit code toward a full jar.

Does a coffee sack gift wrap smell like coffee?

No. The jar is sealed under its lid, and none of the six Bale scents smells of coffee either. The sack is packaging and story, not a note.

What you will notice is the smell of burlap itself. It is woven from jute, a plant fiber, and it has a faint dry smell of its own, a bit like rope. I like it. It settles down once the sack has been open on a shelf for a while.

Is it a good wrap for a gift?

It is the reason a lot of people send one. The parcel arrives finished: he unties the twine, the burlap falls open, the card says the sack came from somewhere he has probably never been, and the jar is sitting in the middle of it. Nobody has to wrap anything.

A few practical points. You can add a gift message in your cart. 2 jars are $43.38 and come with a free travel tin; 3 jars are $58.08 with a free mystery gift, and that clears the $50 line for free US shipping. Orders ship from the US in 1 to 2 business days with tracking. Butter softens in heat, so if the parcel sits on a hot porch and the jar arrives soft, the fridge firms it back up.

If you are buying for her as well, her six obsessed scents, our sister line for women, are in the For her collection at $25 a jar. They go in the same order as yours, count toward the same bundle, and arrive inside the same sack. The guide to picking hers is Don't forget her: a guide to buying for the woman in your life, and the logic behind which of your scents goes with which of hers is in his and hers: how to pair two scents. For a man, the gift page matches the six scents to the one you are buying for.

What can he do with the sack afterward?

Keep it. It is reused, not new, and after it has carried the jar it is his: wrap the next gift in it, cover a plant pot, hang it on the wall, or keep it folded as the start of a collection. Every order comes from a different sack, so a second order will not look like the first. Some people come back for the scent. Some come back to see where the next sack is from. The ideas are in what to do with your coffee sack after you open it.

Quick answers

What is a coffee sack gift wrap?

A hand-cut piece of a real coffee sack, folded around your order and tied with twine, with a card inside naming where the sack came from. Every Bale order ships in one.

Can I choose which coffee sack I get?

No. The sacks come from growing regions all over the world, no two are alike, and I cut them as they come off the pile. The card tells you which one you got.

Is there a wrap for every jar?

One wrap per order, whether that is one jar or three. The jars sit together inside it.

Does the jar itself have burlap on it?

No. The jar is plain amber glass with a black lid and a cream label. The sack wraps the parcel, not the jar.

Pick the scent and the sack takes care of the rest: all six scents.