Trade’s Coffee Subscription Offers a Mean Stream of Steady Caffeine

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Am I jittery because I’m excited or just because I’m on my third cup of coffee before I’ve even had a chance to jump in the shower this morning? OK, I’m slamming coffee today because I’m trying to use up the last few scoops left in this bag of beans, and I’m in sort of a race.

Not just any race, but a race with a Trade coffee subscription. They’re probably the most interesting thing that regularly arrives in the mail for me. I mean, the competition could be tougher than healthcare bills and Eddie Bauer catalogs, but you get my point.

Out there on the streets of New York, like a relentless, gasoline-powered shark, is a mail truck rushing toward my apartment with a new bag of coffee I’ve never had before, and I want to be done with the old so that I can dive right into the new. So I must be over-caffeinated and excited.

OK Jeeves, what am i drinking today?

With more than 450 varieties of coffee on offer from a wide variety of roasters, you’d have to drink Herculean quantities of coffee to exhaust the variety on offer from Trade. Like, so much that your friends would hold the world’s first(?) intervention for coffee drinking.

In three years as a subscriber, I’ve had a lot of ’em. I like trying out a variety rather than reordering the same things, so every two weeks I’d receive something new. Usually I’d let the the algorithm recommend and choose for me, because I like surprises.

How it Works

On your account page, you can see your queue of which coffees you’ll get in your next three orders. You can go into your queue and swap around the orders, or swap them out and select specific coffees if you want more control over what you’ll be drinking next.

Sometimes I’d seek out new coffees from roasters I’d been introduced to through Trade and particularly loved, such as Máquina Coffee, from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and Necessary Coffee, from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and pop them into my queue.

Trade’s idea of what you like and don’t like evolves and grows smarter as you rate your past orders. You can tell the algorithm that you loved it, liked it, didn’t like it, or were neutral. And while you don’t have to rate your orders, if you don’t then the recommendations won’t be as smart.

You can also write small reviews or tasting notes to yourself. These aren’t taken into account by the recommendation algorithm, though. They’re more for your own enjoyment or if you’d like to remember the tasting details for the future, when you might be buying it again.

Looking back at one of my earliest reviews for H.O.M.E.S. Blend from Sparrows, a wonderful roaster in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I wrote “”Exactly what it promises. Nothing exotic. Just a heavy, smokey, cocoa-rich gut punch. What I call cast-iron coffee.”

Your profile, which you can edit at any time, includes answers to certain questions that helps narrow down the types of coffees Trade recommends to you. How do you usually take your coffee? Decaf or regular? Hot or cold? Black, with milk or sugar, or both?

Do you like light, medium, or dark roasts? Or really dark roasts? Would you call your tastes classic and straightforward, slightly more complex, or complex with bright, fruity notes?

matchmaker, matchmaker…

On my very first order, I got a bag that, well, kind of sucked. I wasn’t feeling it at all. Wanting to test out that First Match Guarantee, whereby Trade will replace your first bag for free with a different coffee if you don’t like it, I reached out to customer support.

I didn’t mention that I was a reviewer or worked in media. For this purpose, I was just a regular customer who needed a caffeine fix.

The chat representative was quick to offer a replacement bag, a delicious bag of Guatemala Ixlama from Methodical, a roaster in Greenville, South Carolina that I’d never have found on my own up here in New York.

Trade’s customer support was just as pleasant to call upon in subsequent interactions. At times, I’d have a question about near-future product availability or, in a couple of cases, whether they could tweak the shipping for an order that juuust went out.

Every time, I barely had to wait before a rep handily solved my issue. You hear that, other companies? People like being able to reach actual humans on customer support, especially if those actual humans can do more than just read you the information already on the website.

order, order!

Standard bags run about 11 ounces and big bags run two pounds—and there’s a wide variety of grounds that you can specify when ordering and setting up your subscription.

You can order whole bean, like I did, or grinds optimized for making automatic drip, pour over, espresso, French press, cold brew, AeroPress, Chemex, Moka Pot, refillable pods, or a percolator, if you happen to be trapped in an episode of Green Acres.

It’s not Perfect

Because the supply of coffees changes so often, I did run into a recurring issue with my queue. I’d set it three shipments in advance, with shipments coming into intervals of two weeks. But then I’d receive a bag I wasn’t expecting because it wasn’t what had been in my queue.

And it happened quite a lot. At the least, I’d have liked to have gotten a notification or an email that a coffee in my queue was no longer available. That would’ve given me a chance to check and then approve or alter the replacement coffees.

What happened is that the coffees that’d been in my queue were no longer offered by Trade, either temporarily or indefinitely, and so the algorithm swapped in ones it thought I’d like. It was frustrating when I’d picked out specific coffees for my queue, only to have this happen.

But shipments were quick and came via USPS. And I never had a problem with receiving my packages. Most came with a day or two of shipping out, with the longest taking four or five days, but that was very rare.

Trade is transparent about when you’ll receive your next bag. For each order, it’ll show you on which days that roaster roasts beans. So if it’s Thursday and the next roasting day is Monday, you’ll know the wait will be a few days longer wait before it ships out.

How Trade Stacks Up with the COmpetition

We’ve tested a lot of the best coffee subscriptions out there. Here’s how Trade Coffee rates compared to a few of our other favorites.

Trade vs. Atlas

My colleague Jaina Rodriguez Grey says early in her review of Atlas Coffee, “Here’s the thing: I’ve never been disappointed by a bag of Atlas coffee.” High praise from one of the most proliflic fellow coffee addicts I know.

Trade offers more control in selection through its algorithm and manual intervention, whereas with Atlas you get what they send that month, but it does offer tasting notes and coffee history with each bag.

Trade vs. Driftaway

Driftaway offers some customization options, such as shipping frequency, roast preferences, and whole beans versus grounds, but Trade wins out on richer customization and with its algorithm. Driftaway instead emphasizes telling the story of the people who grow each bag.

the last drop

No matter how much of a cultured enthusiast or savvy shopper we think ourselves, it can be easy to wake up one day and find yourself looking up from the bottom of a rut. The thought of drinking the same coffee day in, day out depresses me, but how do I find new coffees?

Trade can be for the pragmatic coffee drinker who wants a steady supply of coffee without having to venture to the store, but Trade shines when it comes to the adventurous coffee drinker.

Its clever algorithm, plus—when you want it—the freedom to interfere and take the reins makes Trade more than a morning routine. I grew to anticipate every shipment.

If you love your coffee and despair at the thought of being locked into drinking the same old, same old of only what’s available near you, then Trade could be your salvation.

Coffee may be bittersweet, but Trade’s coffee subscription is not so bitter—mostly just sweet.