Do you want amazing coffee in your mailbox? I certainly do. Several excellent specialty coffee roasters can make this dream a reality. There are a lot of good options out there, but which companies offer the best value, variety and home brewing experience?
Here are nine specialty coffee subscription services that will deliver delicious coffee and also help you step up your home barista skills. From single origin coffees to blends, I tried them all. The services range in price and frequency but quality is the key across the board.
Ritual Coffee Roasters
If you can’t get to one of the San Francisco-based Ritual cafes, a subscription is the next best thing. Ritual’s Last Exit seasonal espresso (a four-bean blend) is one of my favorites of all the coffees I sampled for the article. It’s freshly-roasted and fragrant and makes sweet, delicious espresso. The packaging includes the recommended dose weight, water temp, and brew time, which helped me to improve the shots I pulled, which greatly enhanced my tasting experience.
I also sampled the organic Hama from Ethiopia. The coffee smells slightly peppery and has a rich taste. The package tells the coffee producer’s story. My box came with a helpful stack of cards that explained the recommended brewing methods and instructions. These little things helped to educate me about brewing a better cup.
Cost: Weekly, bi-weekly and monthly subscriptions of one 12 oz bag available from $22. Choose from espresso, roaster’s choice or decaf.
Angels’ Cup
The Angels’ Cup Black Box subscription is a unique concept that helps coffee aficionados train their palettes. The Black Box comes with four 2.75 oz. samples in sleek bags with a code number and tasting card. You grind, brew and taste, then log into the Angels’ Cup app to rate the coffee and write up your notes. Are you tasting the fruity flavor of Costa Rican or Kenyan soil? On your tasting card you can write your guess of the coffee’s origin before turning it over to find out if you’re right.
Angels’ Cup works with an impressive array of specialty roasters including La Colombe, Madcap, Verve and Coava. Angels’ Cup offers an innovative way to learn to distinguish coffee origins while also getting to sample some of the best roasters in the country.
My box included two samples from Quills Coffee and two from Verve Coffee Roasters. The first coffee I tried, Los Naranjos from Colombia, roasted by Quills, came out muddy and nutty in my drip coffeemaker. I compared against the notes on the card and the high praise for the coffee from other Angels’ Cup users and realized the fault was mine. I brewed it again using less coffee and got closer to the fig-y, fruity flavors and smooth taste described. With a Chemex the coffee was even brighter and the fruit flavors were more clearly pronounced.
The Verve sample I liked best was the Gatomboya from Kenya. It is fragrant, with an aroma of flowers and herbs, and had a slightly sour/sweet taste of caramel and brown sugar. Good for filter coffee or espresso.
Cost: The Black Box subscription is $21.99 per box. Weekly, bi-weekly or monthly subscription options available. Bonus: Free tasting app and Facebook community of like-minded coffee tasters.
Turntable Kitchen
Turntable Kitchen’s combination of coffee and vinyl is genius. I love the handcrafted, curated feel of this pairings box. Each month you get a bag of truly refined coffee and a 7” vinyl release.
I sampled the Pinheirinho (Brazil), which was roasted by Slate Coffee Roasters. The nutty and chocolate flavors are deep but not too heavy and balanced with a juicy fruity flavor (the bag says pineapple and grape). The luscious coffee came with a perfect pairing: the Lucius What We Have (To Change) EP.
Brooklyn-based Lucius blends rock, rhythm and blues to create a sound akin to an indie rock gospel record. Listening to this record managed to make watching coffee slowly drip through a filter a pleasant experience. In addition to the coffee and record, each month you get access to a new Turntable Kitchen digital mixtape.
Cost: $25 a month for 7” and 12 oz bag.
Collected Coffee
This is an elegant coffee experience. Collected Coffee focuses on providing a sustainable supply chain of high quality coffees. I tried the Karimikui from Kenya, which was roasted by La Cabra in Denmark. This coffee smelled like a bag of dark chocolate and tasted smooth, almost silky, and fruity (strawberry) with a pleasant tartness.
Each coffee comes with a brochure detailing the coffee’s backstory and the recommended brewing method with instructions, including brew time, grind setting and expected yield. Each month brings a different coffee and roaster pairing.
Cost: $25 per 250g bag for monthly subscription.
