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If you’re a coffee drinker, you know there’s nothing worse than dragging yourself out of bed only to realize you’ve run out of beans. That’s where the best coffee subscriptions come in. These services guarantee that you’ll have a supply of freshly roasted coffee, just the way you like it, at all times. We know coffee preferences can be wide-ranging, which is why we’ve scoured the earth for subscriptions that offer tailored picks for different kinds of coffee lovers, whether you’re a third-wave coffee nerd looking to try a new craft roaster or a decaf drinker on the hunt for some actually good decaffeinated beans. After years of testing, Trade is our top pick—but depending on what kind of coffee you like, we have recommendations for plenty of other options.
The best coffee subscriptions
- The best coffee subscription service overall: Trade
- Best single-origin coffee subscription: Atlas Coffee Club
- For the adventurous coffee drinker: Podium Coffee Club Platinum
- For people who want to taste a wide variety of coffee: Bean Box
- The freshest, most flavorful coffee subscription: Origin Roasted
- For people who want a mini tasting lesson with their coffee delivery: Driftaway
Featured in this article
While each of the following services was subjected to extensive testing by a member of the Bon Appétit staff, there were two guiding principles we followed in selecting which subscriptions to test.
For one, we made sure only to test subscription services that guarantee freshly roasted beans, either roasted to order or within a week or so of shipping. That’s because a coffee’s freshness has a huge impact on its flavor once brewed, no matter if you’re using a fancy espresso machine or a simple French press.
The other major factor in your coffee’s flavor is how recently the beans were ground. We’re big advocates of ordering whole bean coffee and grinding the beans just before brewing, so all of the options we tested at least have that as an option. (Of course, we know that many people may prefer the convenience of ground coffee. Most of the services below offer that as an option, too, although we’ll continue to raise our eyebrows at you until you get a good coffee grinder.)
- The best multi-roaster coffee subscriptions
- Trade
- Atlas Coffee Club
- Podium Coffee Club
- Bean Box
- MistoBox
- Swiss Water
- The best single-roaster coffee subscriptions
- Driftaway
- Intelligentsia
- Counter Culture
- Stumptown Coffee Roasters
- Equator
- Partners Coffee Roasters
- Blue Bottle Coffee
- Origin Roasted
- Sightglass
- How we tested the best coffee subscription services
- FAQs
The best coffee subscription service overall: Trade
Pros and cons
Pros
- A generalized service that partners with over 50 roasters
- Very intuitive interface and flexible ordering options
- Complete trackability so you know when more coffee is coming
Cons
- I would rather try to support more local roasters but can’t always manage to get beans in time or make special trips just to buy them
Specs
Price: starting at $15.75/10.93-oz. bag, with free shipping
Delivery frequency: Every 7, 10, or 14 days for the curated subscription, or 1–4 deliveries per month for single variety subscriptions
Our go-to order: The “Most Popular Collection,” featuring fan-favorite coffees like the candy-bar-sweet Compass blend from Common Voice in Nashville, and easy-drinking medium roast Kickstart from Greater Goods in Austin
Tester: Chris Morocco, food director
Best for: Someone looking for great specialty coffee with an interest in trying a number of different roasters, and even in different roasting styles.
Trade is a multi-roaster subscription that pulls in coffee from all over the country. It was lightning-fast to set up, even accounting for my preferences. I liked how easy it was to set up, but also to amend. It is really hard to know how my own preferences will line up with a given company’s descriptions, and as I tasted through different coffees, it was clear it wouldn’t be an issue to switch to a different roast profile if I wanted to. I have tried subscriptions in the past that made it very finicky to switch from light to dark.
This was the easiest subscription I have ever set up, and Trade did such a good job of hitting my preferences right in their sweet spot: medium roast, medium body, medium fruit…just medium all around. I have gotten stuck in the past tasting the same coffees or style of coffee over and over, and after just two bags, I could tell this would be different.
I set up an order for one 12-oz. bag of whole beans every two weeks, which is just slightly less than what I regularly consume. The first bag was Atomic Roasters Space Cadet out of Peabody, MA, and my second bag was Sparrows Coffee, Harmony Series All Seasons Blend from Grand Rapids, MI. I loved the Sparrow in particular because it had just enough roast to it to feel pleasantly dense and weighty on my palate, yet with enough fruit, brightness, and acid to feel lively. When I clicked the box for “medium roast” coffee, this is exactly what I had in mind. I only do pour-over at home, and this was awesome in my Hario V60 coffee dripper.
The bottom line? There is a lot of great coffee out in the world, but finding it and getting it right when you want it can be a challenge. Trade takes care of that for you, making this subscription absolutely worth it.
The best multi-roaster coffee subscriptions
The best single-origin coffee subscription: Atlas Coffee Club
Pros and cons
Pros
- Cost is reasonable, considering it’s fair traded, sustainable, and globally sourced
- Thoughtful packaging and information cards
Cons
- For the double bag option, would like to be able to opt to receive two different coffees
- Shipping was on the slow side
Specs
Price: $11/6-oz. bag, $17/12-oz. bag
Delivery frequency: every 2 or 4 weeks
Our go-to order: The selection rotates, but the beans from Colombia—with notes of toasted graham cracker and marshmallow—is a definite highlight
Tester: Kelly Janke, director, culinary production
Best for: The globally curious coffee connoisseur.
If you’re a curious coffee connoisseur looking to try single-origin coffee from around the world while directly supporting fair trade and sustainable practices, Atlas is the subscription service for you. Every month, you’ll get a bag of single-origin coffee from a different country that comes with an ID card detailing sourcing information and tasting notes.
The ordering process was easy. It asked me a few questions about my preferences in roast level, brewing type, and coffee quantity, with options ranging from a half bag to four bags per month. The shipping did seem to take longer than I expected, which was my main qualm with the service.
The beans I received in my first month were medium roast from Rwanda. I really enjoyed the cards that came in the box with tasting notes and information on the growing region. I had chosen two bags per month because I drink a fair amount of coffee, but it’s worth noting that this meant I received 2 of the same exact coffee (which wasn’t clear at the time of ordering—I had assumed they would be different). I ground the beans in my Oxo burr coffee grinder to a medium grind, and brewed in a Chemex with a metal reusable filter using a 1:16 coffee-to-water ratio. The coffee definitely tasted on the darker side of a medium with notes of grape, red apple, and roasted almonds. I love to try new coffee varieties and appreciate the difference; if you feel similarly, then Atlas is a great option for you.
For the adventurous coffee drinker: Podium Coffee Club Podium Platinum
Pros and cons
Pros
- Variety of coffees you never would have heard of or tried
- Cool and unique flavor notes and/or experimental processing
Cons
- Only one bag per month
- Expensive
- No customization options
Specs
Price: $29.50/10.58-oz. bag
Delivery frequency: Every month
Our go-to order: Podium Platinum subscription
Tester: Noah Kaufman and Alaina Chou
Best for: People interested in discovering unique coffees from a variety of roasters.
If you’re the kind of person who’s always ordering the fun new seasonal pour-over option at your local craft coffee shop, or who hunts down rare varietals of beans like it’s your job, Podium Coffee Club’s Podium Platinum is the coffee subscription for you. Founded in 2023, Podium is a relatively new kid on the block in the world of coffee subs. The concept? A subscription service that solely sends out coffees that have stood on the podium (hence the name) at a major US coffee competition. The brand’s Podium Platinum subscription focuses in on coffees that are unique and experimental in some way, be it flavor-wise, varietal-wise, or through the processing technique used.
In the two months we’ve tested this service so far, we’ve received two bags of coffee that have lived up to that claim. The first bag was a light roast from Royal Flamingo Coffee, a micro-roasted based in Columbus, Ohio. The beans, grown in Colombia, were made using the Black Honey process and mossto lactic fermentation, which you can read more about on Podium’s website. The notes of blueberries, white chocolate, and florals definitely came through in the brewed coffee in both smell and taste, though not too aggressively. We quite enjoyed this one.
The next coffee hailed from Wonderstate Coffee and claimed notes of gummy bear, melon, and cooked berries. That might seem like a crazy flavor profile for a bag of coffee, but the brewed stuff was subtle and highly drinkable.
The bottom line? This is a great coffee subscription to get if you’re looking to explore, nerd out on coffee-making processes, or discover award-winning roasters from across the country. Note that Podium also offers a less expensive Podium Gold subscription option, which does not get you the same unique selection that the Platinum offers.
For people who want to taste a wide variety of coffee: Bean Box
Pros and cons
Pros
- Absolutely massive selection of expertly curated coffees
- Tremendous support of local, small-batch, sustainably sourced roasters who appear to be putting morality above sheer profits
- Ability to customize order preferences
Cons
- Price: A 12-oz. bag every week will run you $80 a month, and one bag every 4 weeks is a $24 order
Specs
Price: $22/12-oz. bag
Delivery frequency: Every 2 or 4 weeks
Our go-to order: Cloud City Blend #935 is fun find infused with graham cracker, marshmallow, and chocolate
Tester: Dan Siegel, senior director of creative development
Best for: People who tend to leave every cute coffee shop with a full bag of roasted beans to take home, regardless of the price.
Bean Box is focused on the “curation” experience. The service’s tasting team offers what they claim is the largest selection of specialty coffee online with over 600 different brews in its rolodex. The selection is sourced from dozens of small-batch, sustainably focused roasters from around the country—meaning you could likely go years without tasting coffee from the same roaster twice.
Starting my subscription was exceptionally easy and clear. I appreciated the option to tailor the subscription to my own tastes: Bean Box asked me to choose among Light & Bright, Medium & Cozy, Dark & Toasty, Espresso, or Decaf. For this run I selected the Curators Choice option, marketed as the curation team’s seasonal favorites and a mix of new and old coffees. Bean Box ships 12-oz. bags, which it claims are 10% larger than leading competitors (though it’s hard to verify whether that’s true). There is an app available to manage subscriptions and read lengthy details on each roaster or track the origin of your beans.
The subscription offers a choice between one or two bags, delivered every two or four weeks, priced on a sliding scale of $20–$24 per bag depending on your order size and frequency (to get the $20 per bag price, you need two bags every two weeks, which is…beyond my budget). This subscription was not designed to save me money on coffee; this is for enthusiasts. My first bag from “Gimme! Coffee,” out of Ithaca, NY, hit hard on the Bean Box mission: The roaster is employee-owned, shipping fair trade beans from Coopfam, Brazil’s first certified fair trade coffee grower. This was a standout for any time of day as a medium bodied brew, subtly sweet with virtually no bitterness or acidity via my automatic Oxo 8-cup machine or my Hario V60 pour-over. My second bag, La Cumbre from Little City in Austin, was a bit too bright and fruity for my taste, advertising caramel, mango, and green apple tasting notes—but this was the path I chose with the Curator’s Choice option.
My verdict? If you have the means, get the beans. I loved every coffee I tried and would keep this going for years if money were no object. The money seems to be going toward roasters that align with my values. One of my values is delicious coffee. But also treating workers at every stop along the way like human beings.
A great coffee subscription for people who want personalized picks: MistoBox
Pros and cons
Pros
- Highly personalized selections
- Ability to give feedback to curators
- Extensive catalogue of coffees from a broad range of roasters
Cons
- Shipping isn’t free
Specs
Price: starting at $17.95/bag
Delivery frequency: every 1–4 weeks
Our go-to order: Personalized coffee subscription
Tester: Alaina Chou, commerce writer
Best for: Anyone looking for some expert guidance in discovering new coffees from roasters all over the country.
If receiving personalized coffee picks from a catalogue of nearly 600 coffees from 60 different roasters sounds like your cup of tea (or, rather, joe), then I will point you toward MistoBox. I found a lot to love about this service after testing it for several months, particularly the way Misto tailored its selections and overall experience felt to me and my taste.
The ordering process starts with a quiz that’ll ask you about your coffee preferences: Choose among how you drink your coffee, whole or ground beans, roast level, other designations you’re interested in trying (single-origin, blend, espresso, or “I’m not sure”), frequency (ranging from weekly to every four weeks), and pay plan (pay for every individual bag, every six, or 12 coffees). But the customization doesn’t end there: After ordering, MistoBox will send you another quiz in which you’ll input things like how you make your coffee, how you grind your beans, which of the four options it presents sounds most appealing and which sounds the least, and a field to share any other important info with the MistoBox team as it goes to curate your order. The whole process feels very personal, which I appreciated—after all, while convenience is certainly one of the things you’re paying for when you opt for a subscription service, the other major perk that makes these services worth it to me is the expert-curated aspect.
I’ve loved every coffee MistoBox has sent me so far. The first shipment was the Roma Espresso Blend from Parisi Artisan Coffee, which was aptly described as having notes of milk chocolate, almond, and honeysuckle. I tend to drink espresso, most often with milk in a cappuccino made using my Breville Oracle Jet. The Roma blend, which MistoBox sent me based on that information, worked beautifully for this. After you receive each coffee, you’ll have the chance to rate it out of five and leave any tasting notes, which you can share with your curators if you’d like. Coffees you’ve tried show up in a customer dashboard, as will your “Brew Queue,” a.k.a. the lineup of the next coffees coming to your door. These will appear as “MistoBox’s choice” by default, but if you loved a coffee you tried and want it again, or spy a coffee in their collection that you’d like to request, you can opt to add specific coffees to your queue as well. All in all, MistoBox’s user-friendly interface and extensive feedback options make it a great choice for anyone looking for some expert guidance in discovering new coffees from roasters all over the country.
For the decaf drinker: Swiss Water
Pros and cons
Pros
- Great quality decaf coffees from a wide range of roasters
- Straightforward service
Cons
- No customization options or choices
- Shipment dates can vary depending on roasters’ timelines
- Only available in the US
Specs
Price: $18/12-oz. bag, with free shipping (only available in the US)
Delivery frequency: weekly, biweekly, monthly, or bimonthly
Our go-to order: Curated subscription
Tester: Alaina Chou
Best for: Decaf drinkers who want in on the coffee subscription experience
If you’ve been reading all of this as a decaf drinker thinking to yourself, Wow, I wish I could get in on the coffee subscription life, here’s some good news: This subscription offers a rotating selection of decaf coffees from roasters all across the US, all of which have gone through the Swiss Water process, a chemical-free decaffeination technique that you can read more about here. You won’t find the kind of customization and curation options here that you see in most of the other subscriptions on this list, but if you’re okay with trying out a range of coffees and aren’t married to one particular roast level or flavor profile, this service will work for you. Swiss Water currently only offers whole bean coffees, so you’ll need to grind your own beans if you decide to try it out.
I opted for biweekly shipments, though Swiss Water also offers weekly, monthly, and bimonthly. The first coffee I received was from Manzanita Roasting Company, based in San Diego. There was no informational card included here, so all I really gathered about the coffee was that it was from Guatemala and had notes of berries and chocolate, which it did. For a decaf brew, I was impressed by the quality and nuance of the flavor. The same can be said for the second bag of beans I received, which was a blend called Kick Back from South Carolina–based Barista Alley.
The best single-roaster coffee subscriptions
For people who want a mini tasting lesson with their coffee delivery: Driftaway
Pros and cons
Pros
- Emphasis on education and tasting
- Transparency about every step of the process
- Mission-driven
Cons
- You get out of it what you put in: If intentionally tasting and giving feedback sounds like too much work for you and you’d rather be more mindless about your coffee selection, you may want to look elsewhere
Specs
Price: $22 for the explorer box, then $21/12-oz. bag, with free shipping and options to prepay and save
Delivery frequency: every 1, 2, or 4 weeks
Our go-to order: Start with the Explorer Box and go from there
Tester: Alaina Chou
Best for: People who want to hone their coffee-tasting skills
If you dream of being able to approach the coffee world with sommelier-like expertise but you aren’t quite there yet, a Driftaway coffee subscription will help with that. Driftaway is an immigrant-owned, woman-led roastery based in Brooklyn, NY, and it’s the only service we’ve tried that starts out with a blind tasting. When you go to place your first order, you’ll have the option to choose between light roast, medium, and dark roasts, or espresso (which each include two or three different 4-oz. bags of coffee to blind taste test), or opt for the Explorer Box, which includes five different coffees spanning all roast levels.
If the tasting aspect of this service appeals to you, I’d recommend going with the Explorer Box option. Each initial Explorer Box comes with five mystery coffees, a wheel with flavor notes, a tasting form, and an envelope revealing the identities of your coffees. Driftaway offers weekly virtual tasting classes free of charge, but if you’d rather taste on your own time, they also have prerecorded tasting tutorials available on their website. Regardless of whether you opt for the Explorer Box or a roast-specific subscription, after your initial order, you’ll give feedback on which coffee you preferred in order to inform your future shipments. Many coffee companies even give you the option to send the farmer feedback, which I appreciated.
Along with the Explorer Box, I also tried out the espresso subscription. I was partial to the Burundi Turihamwe and Guatemala Ella blend, which was wonderfully nutty and had notes of milk chocolate and stone fruits. I loved being able to read more about the women farmers behind this blend and trace the story of the coffee from harvest to brewing, a feature that’s in keeping with Driftaway’s overall ethos.
A great, affordable option: Intelligentsia
Pros and cons
Pros
- Easy sign up
- Consistent coffee
- Good espresso options
- Easy user interface
Cons
- Limited single-origin collection
- Majority-owned by a big company (if that’s the sort of thing that bothers you)
- Lots of what you can get via subscription you can also get at the grocery store, so it may not seem as special
Specs
Price: starting at $16.50/12-oz. bag
Delivery frequency: every 1–4 weeks
Our go-to order: The straightforward, milk chocolate–tinged House Blend for automatic drip, and molasses-y Black Cat Classic Espresso for, well, espresso
Tester: Noah Kaufman, senior commerce editor
Best for: People who want high-quality coffee, but aren’t interested in choosing from a dizzying array of adventurous options
Intelligentsia, out of Chicago, is one of the OG players in third-wave coffee (if you’re unfamiliar, "third wave" has a specific meaning, but is sometimes used as shorthand for a generation of coffee roasters deeply invested in quality, consistency, and unique flavors in coffee). Intelligentsia’s House Blend and Black Cat espresso roast have become staples at bakeries and coffee shops all over the country, and its subscription service gives you a regular supply of those two as well as its deeper catalog of different beans. There’s one single origin option, but the subscription itself is mostly based around Intelligentsia’s blends, which rotate seasonally.
This is a pretty simple, straightforward subscription. There is no quiz or process to determine what kind of coffee is “best for you”; rather, you just manually put in which subscription you want, choosing between the same blend (including espresso), rotating blends, or the roaster’s choice. You can also select how many times a month you want beans and how many bags you want per shipment. Changing to a different subscription is also quite easy. While you won’t find the same kind of personalized curation options as some of the other subscriptions on this list, Intelligentsia does offer one of the widest ranges of grind types if you aren’t getting whole bean coffee, running from the finest Turkish coffee grind to a super coarse (even coarser than cold brew) percolator grind.
I got “Intelligentsia's Choice” because I’m a sucker for single-origin beans (and have had the opportunity to try all their classic blends already). The beans came from some of the strongholds of international coffee production: Ethiopia and Nicaragua. Making a carafe of pour-over coffee a day, enough for two people or one me, I used about one bag every two weeks. The most noteworthy coffee to me was a very fruity natural process Ethiopian coffee. After testing it extensively, I can tell you that this is a reliable, relatively affordable subscription; the Intelligentsia Classics subscription is only $17 a bag. It would be worthwhile for anyone who wants quality but isn’t trying to be too adventurous with their morning coffee.
Just to note, in 2015, Peet’s bought up a majority stake in Intelligentsia. I don’t think it has changed the quality of the coffee at all, but it is something worth being transparent about.
A consistent BA favorite: Counter Culture
Pros and cons
Pros
- Ability to try different options to see what you like
- Easy to navigate the shipping options and change your subscription
- Super easy to gift a subscription (for a 6- or 12-month period of time, not indefinitely!)
Cons
- The box arrives with just two bags of beans and nothing else. To learn about those blends, you have to look them up on their website. I wish they came with more information about each blend.
- Definitely pricier than your average grocery store beans
Specs
Price: starting at $16/12-oz. bag
Delivery frequency: every 1–8 weeks
Our go-to order: Finca la Victoria, a sweet, approachable, single-origin light roast ideal for French press and drip, and Big Trouble for caramelly espresso
Tester: Carly Westerfield, associate manager of audience strategy
Best for: Someone who likes high-quality beans and doesn’t know exactly what flavor they’re looking for, but might get overwhelmed by some of the multi-roaster options on this list
Counter Culture is a longtime favorite roaster of many a BA staffer (food director Chris Morocco included). It has storefronts in several major cities, and you can find Counter Culture’s coffee in stores across the country, but they also offer several subscription options online.
I had a really easy time ordering the coffee. There aren’t endless options to choose from, which is nice because subscriptions like these can sometimes be a lot to manage. Because I wanted to see a variety of beans, there were only two: the Single-Origin Subscription and the Blend Box. I opted for the latter. As someone who’s often overwhelmed by choices, I always appreciate a curated shopping experience where there are fewer things to choose from and therefore fewer things to compare, contrast, and potentially have buyer’s remorse over. I did struggle a little to figure out how to end the subscription; Counter Culture makes that part a little trickier than everything else.
This subscription sends two different blends (12-oz. bags) at a time at a frequency of your choosing. Options there ranged from every week to every eight weeks, and the ability to change this post-purchase was clear. The Blend Box subscription pulls from six blend options ranging from light to dark roast, plus any “seasonal blend’ they have available, so you will end up seeing the same beans after about four deliveries. Shipping was fast and the email communication from CC made it so I always knew when I was being charged and when the box would be shipped and delivered.
While trying out this subscription, I received four different coffee blends: Iridescent Winter Blend, Big Trouble, Fast Forward, and Forty-Six. At home, I use a Moccamaster Thermal Carafe Coffee Brewer and a Baratza Encore Coffee Grinder. With each of the blends I received, I was able to use the same measurements that I always use (9 g of coffee per 6 oz. of water) and found the coffee to be the right strength for me. Each blend has spot-on tasting notes provided as well. Overall, while the flavor profiles were totally different, none were overwhelmingly bitter or acidic—a big no-no in my book. These coffees all had a really well-rounded, almost creamy quality to them that actually resulted in me using way less half-and-half than I normally take in my coffee. By far my favorite blend is, sadly, the limited edition Iridescent Winter Blend. Big Trouble came in a close second.
This subscription is great for someone who likes high-quality beans but doesn’t know exactly what flavor they’re looking for—perhaps, for instance, a recent college grad who’s been drinking coffee for years but hasn’t had to buy it for their own home yet. The ability to pause or change how often the deliveries come also makes it nice for someone who might travel often or need to have more coffee on hand at random times (maybe they have frequent house guests?).
Another reliable single roaster subscription: Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Pros and cons
Pros
- High-quality coffee
- Interesting variety
- Free shipping
Cons
- This is a luxury product, so the Roaster’s Choice subscription in particular is not cheap ($23/12 oz.)
- No discount on the retail price of a single bag
- No pre-ground options
Specs
Pricing: starting at $17/12-oz. bag for the Blend Shuffle option; $23/12-oz. bag for the Roaster’s Choice
Delivery frequency: Every 1—4 weeks
Our go-to order: Holler Mountain for a burst of citrus and berry rounded out with caramel or Hundred Mile for a touch of toffee
Tester: Maria Paz Mendez Hodes, director of creative development
Best for: Eager-to-learn beginners
Stumptown is a Portland, OR–based roaster that’s been around since 1999. It offers three subscription options: Roaster’s Choice, Blend Shuffle, and Favorite on Repeat. As a novice coffee brewer, I wished there were a little more elaboration on the differences between Roaster’s Choice and Blend Shuffle. In the end I opted for the Roaster’s Choice, which promised to be a tour of seasonal, single-origin, and occasionally rare coffees, changing every two weeks.
I wasn’t 100% sure until the bag showed up at my door that I was ordering whole beans versus ground coffee. To some that may be glaringly obvious, but just another reminder that the site did not seem aimed at rank beginners like me. From what I can tell, Stumptown subscriptions are all whole-bean-only. Beyond that, the ordering process was clear and easy! My first bag arrived three days after ordering, and the next one almost exactly on schedule.
A guilty confession: We keep breaking the Hario V60 carafe that I use to make pour-over, and I’ve gotten hooked on the extravagant convenience of bottled cold brew. The arrival of the Stumptown beans was exciting enough that we couldn’t wait for a replacement to arrive from Amazon, so we improvised by setting the dripper over a mason jar. Unglamorous setup aside, the first brew was an immediate reminder of the sense pleasures of the morning coffee ritual, dramatically amplified by using the fanciest beans I’d ever purchased. The freshness of the seasonal beans was obvious upon opening the package—they were lustrous and almost oily, with juicy notes that I’ve rarely detected in the supermarket brands near me. I don’t have a highly attuned coffee nose, but I could certainly taste distinct differences between the bags I received: light, bright fruit in the Montes de Oro from Costa Rica and deep caramel and spice in the Duramina from Ethiopia.
There were blurbs on the back of each bag sketching details about the coffee producers (e.g., how long they’d partnered with Stumptown and some unique features of their agricultural operations). It’s a good initiation for an interested newbie, but I think a coffee enthusiast could still glean quite a bit from these brief details. The one addition I would have loved would have been a card in the box with some deeper insights connecting the tasting notes and flavors to the processes and places mentioned. While there were tasting notes on the website for “Pick of the Week,” the coffee described wasn’t one I had received—another argument for a card in the box.
For coffee with distinct personality: Equator
Pros and cons
Pros
- Each coffee variety is distinct from the next, which you may not always like, but you’ll never get bored
- The ease of subscription management made the process much less daunting than I’d typically associated with subscription services
- There’s quite a bit of information on the bags of coffee you get, so if you love researching about coffee, you have everything you need to go crazy
Cons
- Communication in every relationship is important, but you will get a steady stream of emails from Equator informing you of each purchase, order fulfillment, shipment, and delivery
Specs
Price: starting at $17/12-oz. bag, with 30% off your first bag upon purchase of a subscription
Delivery frequency: every 1–8 weeks
Our go-to order: Prime Meridian for a fruity, chocolaty morning drip, and Decaf Eye of the Tiger Espresso for jitter-free afternoon lattes
Tester: Travis Rainey, staff photographer/visuals editor
Best for: People who like a little personality in their morning coffee
Founded in Marin, CA, Equator is another old-timer in the direct trade coffee world. My ordering experience was relatively easy. It takes a few more clicks than you’d think on the site to arrive at the actual coffee subscriptions, but the process is still very straightforward. The variety was pleasantly much more than I was expecting; I sat and deliberated for a while about which kind of subscription I wanted to try. If there’s a specific Equator coffee you know and love, you can subscribe to a single type, it also offers a wide range of curated subscription options (espresso, single-origin, blend, fair trade) so you can get quite specific about what kind of coffee you're interested in, even if you want to mix it up.
I was tempted to choose a curveball and select the espresso subscription, but opted for a more American coffee experience this time. I chose to test the Curated Single Origin subscription, which sends you a different single-origin coffee bean each week. The first bag of beans I received was from Concepción Huista, just north of Huehuetenango in western Guatemala. It was a very light, almost delicate kind of coffee. I had to adjust the grinder setting to a finer coffee ground to make the coffee a little more bold. For the most part, I make coffee with a pour-over method. A new coffee arrives each week, so the next selection was from Abana Estate near Jimma in southwestern Ethiopia. This has been my favorite coffee to make so far. It's distinctive, spiced, but still goes down smooth. The third variety is Panangan Mata from Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra in Indonesia. I’ve only had one cup yet, but it’s fruity, which is a fun surprise.
In general, I’ve found that each Equator coffee has had a distinct personality, making this subscription ideal for people who want to have opinions about coffee—the beans here are the kind that sort of demand one of you. I also appreciate that the containers the coffee beans come in feature detailed, but succinct information on where the coffee is coming from.
A New York City icon: Partners Coffee Roasters
Pros and cons
Pros
- Fast shipping
- Giftability (nice branding)
- Introduction to a local roaster
Cons
- None that I found!
Tester: Hana Asbrink, deputy food director
Best for: Both novice and experienced coffee drinkers alike who want their coffee selections handled for them
Partners Coffee Roasters is a Brooklyn-based roaster committed to sustainable sourcing practices and community. The service’s offerings include both blends and single-origin roasts, and you can either subscribe to a single variety or opt for the “Roaster’s Choice” subscription.
My ordering experience was straightforward. I chose the Roaster’s Choice Subscription, so I didn’t know what I’d be getting first. My first bag (Honduras San Francisco whole beans) had a roast date just three days before it arrived at my house, so you can’t get much fresher than that. I appreciated this first blind bean as I’m not sure I would have chosen it for myself based on my personal preferences. I used a medium grind on the whole beans for my drip coffee maker. I’m curious to see how I’ll enjoy it pulled in the big boy coffee maker as an Americano.
The bag touts tasting notes of strawberry, raspberry, and dark chocolate, which are spot-on. The first whiff gave me a fruit-and-nut chocolate bar, and the taste matches in a delicate way with a touch some floral undertones.
For the trendy coffee shop devotee: Blue Bottle Coffee
Pros and cons
Pros
- Convenient and consistent
Cons
- Only sourced from one roaster, so not the best if you like to try a lot of different places in one subscription
Specs
Price: starting at $13/6-oz. half bag, $21/12-oz. full bag, with free shipping
Delivery frequency: every 1–4 weeks
Our go-to order: Toasty, nutty New Orleans–style coffee and chicory
Tester: Carina Finn
Best for: Best for someone with a high-end caffeine routine
You can find a Blue Bottle café in most major cities—the brand makes a reliably great cup of coffee, whether you’re into fruity pour-overs or sophisticated seasonal lattes. Blue Bottle’s coffee subscription makes it easy to recreate that experience at home. It has around 10 different subscription options for things like instant espresso and matcha powders to rotating single-origin offerings and subscriptions tailored to specific roast level preferences.
I loved that Blue Bottle offers a ton of variety while still coming from a single roaster. The quality is consistent across offerings, but it's easy to customize. Since I drink both espresso and matcha, I subscribed to a monthly tin of ceremonial-grade matcha powder and a biweekly bag of rotating single-origin espressos. I know we’re focused on coffee beans here, but I’ve tried a lot of matcha powders, and the Blue Bottle is one of my all-time favorites. It’s great hot or iced, mixed with water or in lattes, and doesn’t require sweeteners to mask any unpleasant flavors. For espresso, I went with the assortment, since I like some nuance in my daily flat white. My favorite was the Hayes Valley Espresso, one of the brand’s longtime stalwart blends, because I love a smooth, chocolaty shot. The fruitier Opascope was a close second.
For the freshest, most flavorful coffee money can buy: Origin Roasted
Pros and cons
Pros
- Flavors that are bigger and unlike any other subscription
- Constant variation
- Guaranteed coffee that is “in season”
Cons
- Can only get one bag a month
- Can’t give any input on what coffee you receive
Specs
Price: $20/10-oz. bag, with free shipping within the US
Delivery frequency: monthly
Our go-to order: No need to choose—sign up for the subscription and the selection rotates
Tester: Noah Kaufman
Best for: Adventurous coffee drinkers
When I first tried Origin Roasted coffee, it went by the name Quintal. The premise and the coffee are the same, but since the name change, the packaging comes with some brighter, harder to miss colors. Of every coffee subscription I’ve ever tried, this one is unique. Most coffee beans, even if freshly roasted, are stored as green beans for months. Origin Roasted beans hit the roaster almost immediately after harvest and get shipped out right after that. Truly, they are the freshest coffee beans you can get without picking them yourself. It’s a subjective call as to whether that makes the flavor "better," but it makes it different. Fruity or chocolate tasting notes that are present in beans that sit green are massively accentuated with Origin Roasted beans. If a flavorful cup of coffee is what you’re after, these beans are as flavorful as they come. The brand’s commitment to roasting at the beans’ origin has the added effect of bringing more coffee roasting work and expertise to countries of origin; roasting for most American coffees happens in the United States.
The ordering process is straightforward because there are no choices for you to make. Just give them your address and credit card number and the coffee will be on its way to you at the end of each month. The company only sends the beans it is harvesting that month, which come from a single farm somewhere in Central or South America. The locations are limited to ensure that Origin Roasted can actually get the beans to your door while they’re as fresh as they’re supposed to be.
I got beans from all over Central and South America: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Brazil. Each coffee was entirely unlike the one that came before it. Shipments only get sent out on the 28th of every month, so I was limited to one bag per month. Because of the harvest and roast process, this really is a boutique product, so you can’t order en masse the way you can with larger roasters. I don’t think it makes sense to identify my favorite beans here because you, dear reader, are not guaranteed to get them anyway. What you are guaranteed to get are incredibly cool coffees. At $20 a month (with free shipping), I think this subscription is a remarkable value for the coffee I got to experience.
A San Francisco coffee shop that’s small-scale producing excellent beans: Sightglass
Pros and cons
Pros
- Coffee roasted to order
- Option to stick with one favorite type or receive a rotating selection
Cons
- No personalization options
Specs
Price: $20/10-oz. bag, with free shipping within the US
Delivery frequency: monthly
Our go-to order: No need to choose—sign up for the subscription and the selection rotates
Tester: Alaina Chou
Best for: Someone looking for seasonality in their coffee
Sightglass is another coffee-shop-slash-roaster based in San Francisco. They offer subscriptions for all of the coffees in their regular lineup if you find a fave you want to stick to, but we’d recommend trying out one of their rotating options to get a taste for all the brand has to offer. That leaves you with either the Blend Shuffle or the Seasonal Variety subscription. The ordering process is simple: Just select which subscription you want, how much coffee you want in each shipment (12 ounces, 2 pounds, or 5 pounds), what kind of grind you want, and how often you’d like to receive deliveries.
One of the things I like about Sightglass, as opposed to some other coffee shop-roaster hybrids, is that they regularly introduce new single-origin coffees, which might feature in that seasonal subscription. You can also opt in to get notified about any new drops through the Sightglass Batches text-to-order service.
I'm partial to Sightglass’s Blueboon blend. It's a medium roast with notes of milk chocolate, mandarin, and honeysuckle that I quite enjoy brewed as espresso and used in my morning iced latte. It’s beautifully balanced, and the components get changed seasonally to retain the right ratio of sweetness, body, and acidity.
How we tested the best subscription coffee services
Our editors have used every one of these coffee subscriptions in their homes over several months, and some for years. We’ve made sure to try a variety of bean types where possible, and to try the beans with a variety of brewing methods to see how well they perform as espresso, pour-over and drip coffee, and French-pressed coffee.
Our editors are continually testing many of these services and constantly trying new coffee subscriptions to keep this list updated as the market changes, so be sure to check back as we update it often.
FAQs about coffee subscriptions
Are coffee subscriptions worth it?
If you’re a frequent coffee drinker, the answer is probably yes. Whether you have a favorite blend you find yourself buying on repeat or you’re eager to try new beans and hone your tasting skills, a coffee subscription will make your life easier and may even save you some money. If you’re currently buying a bag of beans every few weeks at your local coffee shop or grocery store, that bag could potentially be cheaper when bought on subscription—and you’ll get the added convenience of never needing to worry about restocking your stash.
How do coffee subscriptions work?
At the most basic level, a coffee subscription works much like any other subscription service: You select a quantity and frequency, and lo and behold, a bag of freshly roasted coffee shows up at your doorstep every one to four weeks, depending what you chose. But no one wants to come home from vacation to a pile of beans that are past their prime, only to receive another package the following day. So these coffee subscriptions make it easy to put your coffee deliveries on hold, or cancel them altogether. Some also offer personalization in the form of quizzes or feedback forms, so you can know you're getting a curated selection that’s tailored specifically to your tastes.
How much coffee should you order?
Many of the subscriptions on this list will let you customize your delivery frequency and bag quantity to best accommodate your household size and coffee drinking habits. Ideally, you’ll want to hit a sweet spot where you're using up nearly all of your beans by the time the next shipment comes. To figure out the right amount of coffee for you, you’ll need to do a little math:
- If you’re brewing a single cup of pour-over or a double shot of espresso, you’ll need about 16 grams of coffee per day (give or take depending on your preferred brewing ratio). That means you'll need a 310–340-gram bag of coffee (which is what most of these subscriptions offer) every 3 weeks—though you may want to order at a 2-week frequency just in case.
- If you live in a larger household (or take in a lot of caffeine) and make a 6-cup pot of drip coffee every morning, you’ll need around 80–90 grams of coffee per day—which works out to about 2 bags/week.
- If you fill a 1 liter French press, you'll need about 50–56 grams of coffee per day, and 350–392 grams of coffee per week. That means a single 340-gram bag won't quite cut it, so you’ll be better off ordering 2 bags/week.
What about instant coffee?
If instant coffee is more your speed, we don’t blame you—it’s hard to beat the convenience. And while instant coffee has historically gotten a bad wrap from third wave coffee nerds and espresso heads everywhere, you’d be surprised what innovations have been made in the space in recent years. After tasting a whopping 40, we found a range of great-tasting options that would impress even the most seasoned coffee pro. Head this way for our review of all the best instant coffees and espressos money can buy.
Now that you've read all about the best coffee subscription services out there, it's time to upgrade that old drip coffee machine or invest in a new espresso setup.