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I brew my coffee at home every day, and while I’m not greatly picky about my beans, I do know what a pain it can be to run out of a fresh stash. (This is usually when I find myself at my local shop, annoyed to be spending $6 on a large to-go cup.) Coffee subscriptions are an easy antidote to this — a reliable way to ensure a bag (or two, or three) ends up on my doorstep right before my current stockpile is done. More discerning drinkers are bound to appreciate the perks beyond convenience that come with a subscription as well, like choosing from dozens (or even hundreds) of different varieties, or learning about the origins of a rare type.
To find the best coffee subscriptions for every kind of person, I, plus Strategist writer (and true coffee lover) Kat Gillespie, tried out many different options. Below, I’ve detailed our findings. For reference, I brew my coffee in a standard electric maker, whereas Gillespie uses filter methods and an espresso machine. But that’s kind of the point: These clubs are catered to you. And if you’re interested in more coffee content, read my guides to the best coffee grinders and milk frothers, too.
What we’re looking for
Consistency vs. variety
Coffee drinkers tend to fall into one of two camps: You either have a type you like and always stick with, or you prefer to jump from one roast to another. Coffee subscriptions work the same way. Some companies let you order the same bag of beans over and over (usually because the purveyors are roasting the beans themselves), while others ship you new flavors each month (in this case, the beans are generally provided by smaller roasters). Some allow for both, but here I’ve noted whether each subscription is overall best for consistency or variety.
User experience
Ordering coffee beans online means that the more user-friendly the platform, the better the experience will be. With the picks below (besides Fellow’s text-message-based service, which operates a bit differently than the others), you can go to the company’s website or open its app and see all relevant information, like your order history and when your next shipment is headed to you. You can also make changes on the fly, like pausing delivery when you’ll be on vacation or updating the grind size when you get a new style of coffee-maker.
But some purveyors do more hand-holding than others to help newbies find the right kind. They include quizzes on which roast levels you prefer, how you plan to brew the coffee, and which popular chain coffee you like. Your feedback guides their recommendations. For this category, I’ve noted the standout features.
Bag size
Most subscriptions mail out 12-ounce bags of beans. This yields around 16 cups of coffee if you brew them at 12 fluid ounces each (a tall size at Starbucks), or about 20 single shots of espresso if you’re grinding seven grams of beans per shot. If you drink two cups per day, a 12-ounce bag will last about a week. From there, you can scale up based on how many coffee drinkers are in your household. But if you don’t drink that much, or if you live alone, you might want smaller bags to ensure freshness. Some subscriptions offer to ship your coffee in smaller portions, usually between four and eight ounces. Others have an option to ship beans as flights, so you get several small bags of different varieties in one delivery. Here, I’ve listed the options each purveyor offers.
Best coffee subscription overall
Consistency vs. variety: Variety | User experience: Personalized preference quiz, personalized coffee ratings, delivery-management dashboard | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans
With the second-largest selection of coffees of any subscription on this list, Trade has something for everyone. The company delineates between three types of coffee drinkers: those, like me, who hanker for a classic cup of joe (or as Trade calls it, “coffee that tastes like coffee”), in-between brewers who are getting into third-wave coffee, and serious home baristas who have all the latest gear and turn up their noses at doughnut-shop blends. This in and of itself is an inviting way to welcome people in, no matter their preferences.
From there, it narrows down beans from around 450 U.S. roasters with a customization quiz that asks about your coffee-making setup and takes into account whether or not you’ll be adding milk and sugar. You can choose between five roast levels, from very light to very dark, and decaf is an option too. Every time you try a bag, you can give feedback, and Trade will use that information to home in on your preferences over time. The site makes it easy to reorder a favorite bag from a specific roaster, too, satisfying coffee drinkers who want consistency or have discovered their perfect blend. Shipping cost varies because bags come directly from the roasters (to ensure freshness), but it’s a fairly cost-effective system; larger orders accrue discounts and free bags.
Best value coffee subscription
Consistency vs. variety: Consistency | User experience: Easy-to-change shipping date, asks what kind of supermarket beans you like | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans, plus tasting flights and 4-ounce bags of beans
Craft’s subscription beans start at about $1 per ounce — and while you can sometimes find whole beans at the supermarket for less, the flavor won’t be nearly as fresh. It’s also the only subscription Gillespie tested that asks which mainstream brand you prefer — like Starbucks, Dunkin’, or Peet’s — a feature she says is helpful as a starting reference point. (As a die-hard Dunkin’ fan, I love that Craft takes this into account.) The company recommends a blend based on your answer, like the Streetlight Mix from Latin America and Sumatra, “which has a rich roasted flavor and pleasing bitterness,” Gillespie says. You can adjust it to be lighter or darker since the company roasts its own beans, or if you like, you can switch to a pricier single-origin coffee.
Best coffee subscription for learning what flavors you like
Consistency vs. variety: Variety | User experience: Well-designed dashboard, place to store coffee notes, easy-to-change shipping date | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans
MistoBox’s best feature is its well-designed dashboard, which makes it easy to take notes on new coffee varieties as they arrive so you can keep track of what you like and what you don’t. You can store the details for yourself (helpful when trying to compare future varieties), as well as share them with the company so it can dial in subsequent shipments better as it chooses from over 500 varieties in its inventory. When you initially dive in, the interface is quite bare-bones: There’s a short quiz that asks basic questions (like if you want ground or whole beans and if you drink your brew with milk). As you go along, the website makes it easy to adjust shipment dates, pause your subscription, and switch between different pricing tiers.
Best coffee subscription for learning how to brew
Consistency vs. variety: Variety | User experience: Easy-to-reorder beans, personalized coffee rating, well-designed dashboard with the ability to text a coffee order | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans
All the beans from Bean Box are roasted by independent coffee shops in the Pacific Northwest. Here, the focus is less on learning about a particular coffee’s story and more on brewing a better cup at home. Bean Box includes how-to guides for everything from storing the beans to using a moka pot to frothing milk. Setting up an account is easy and doesn’t require any quizzes — just pick a roast level and delivery frequency. Each coffee has a roast number on it, and the bags have QR codes, which makes it easy to reorder a variety you love without having to remember its name.
Best single-origin coffee subscription
Consistency vs. variety: Variety | User experience: Good customer service, easy-to-change shipping date | Bag size: 6-, 12-, and 24-ounce bags of beans
Perhaps this is surprising coming from a self-declared non-coffee-snob, but I like Atlas’s super-informative approach to a coffee subscription. It offers only single-origin beans (as opposed to blends) from across the globe — including areas that tend to fall under the radar, like Congo, Bolivia, and China — and roasts them in Austin, Texas. Everyone who subscribes gets beans from the same location at the same time, roasted and prepared to their personal preference (I like mine medium and pre-ground for a classic drip coffee-maker). Each shipment includes cards that explain the history of the region of origin and tasting notes in a clear and concise way.
If you get a bag of beans you don’t like, Atlas will help you troubleshoot your brewing method or send you a replacement. But I’ve loved every type I’ve tried so far, each of them nuanced yet still completely approachable. Gillespie, who has also tested the service, notes that while single-origin beans aren’t always ideal for making espresso, the ones she tested tasted rich and flavorful whether she brewed or pulled them. “In fact, they resulted in some of my favorite espresso drinks I’ve ever made at home,” she says.
Best experiential coffee subscription
Consistency vs. variety: Variety | User experience: Zoom calls with experts available, personalized coffee ratings, delivery-management dashboard | Bag size: 8- and 12-ounce bags of beans, plus tasting flights with 4-ounce bags of beans
I’ve tried Driftaway’s coffees several times in stand-alone orders, and they’ve always resulted in a delicious brew. When it comes to its subscription offerings, the Explorer Coffee Kit is especially appealing: It ships five bags of beans, each with a different two-ounce blend from around the world that the company roasts in Brooklyn. You can jot down notes on a provided chart about what you taste on your own. Or you can do so alongside an expert on a Zoom call, where they’ll teach you how to better understand and describe what you’re drinking and help you dial in your preferences. From there, you can get a bigger bag based on what you like, or keep ordering the Explorer Kit for a new set of beans each month. Gillespie calls it “the most fun and experiential” subscription she tested.
Best simple coffee subscription
Consistency vs. variety: Consistency | User experience: Personalized preference quiz | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans
To my mind, Blue Bottle is the coffee-subscription service for those who want a super-pared-down experience (meaning you’re not interested in taking a ton of notes or sifting through hundreds of varieties). The company is fairly ubiquitous (it has nearly 100 shops across five major U.S. states as well as abroad, and you can buy its beans from major grocery stores like Whole Foods) — but the subscription is a way to ensure the beans you might already know and love come in regularly and freshly roasted. What it lacks in range — there are a handful of coffee blends, a single-origin coffee, and a few varieties for espresso, all of which are always the same — it makes up for in consistency and speedy shipping. There’s a simple coffee-match quiz to help you narrow down the options and to specify what style of brewing you’ll be doing — and that’s really it. Still, there are some nontraditional offerings in the mix, like its well-known New Orleans–style cold-brew blend made with chicory.
Best (less expensive) simple coffee subscription
Consistency vs. variety: Consistency | User experience: Free shipping | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans
Brooklyn-based roaster Partners is another uncomplicated option. You choose from eight different coffees (these always stay the same), or opt for the Roaster’s Choice subscription, where an expert selects either a blend or single-origin coffee (for the latter, the batch changes every two weeks according to what’s in season) and roasts it to order. The only decisions for you to make are if you want whole beans or ground (there are six different grind sizes for various brewing methods) and how often you want your shipment sent (you can opt for every one, two, three, or four weeks).
Best low-commitment coffee subscription
Consistency vs. variety: Variety | User experience: Low commitment, text-message based | Bag size: 12-ounce bags of beans
Fellow is one of my favorite brands for coffee products (its electric kettle is the best I’ve ever tried, and its coffee grinders and travel mug are great, too). It also offers a text-message-based, no-obligation club. In this way, it’s quite different from all the picks above, but just as easy: The company stores your information, and every week sends a message highlighting one type of coffee from a given small, independent roaster. If it appeals, you simply reply that you want to give it a try, and it’ll ship it to you immediately. Gillespie says it’s great for the adventurous coffee drinker, and it even introduced her to “what I think might be my favorite coffee ever,” she says. “Unity Coffee’s Serious Black.”
Some brewing gear we’ve written about
Additional reporting by Sal Vaglica.
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