The 8 Best Coffee Subscriptions (to Turn Your Kitchen Into a Cozy Neighborhood Cafe)

There are more coffee subscriptions today than there have ever been. The pandemic was bad news for our collective mental health (and health health), but good news for the coffee subscription business.

While we were all locked up inside, we turned to mail-order coffee to soothe our existential dread, and most of us have never looked back. That presents a problem, though: Now, there are way too many coffee subscriptions to choose from, and they can look very similar on the surface. 

I’ve tested dozens of these subscriptions over the last several years, and continue to test them every month, every week, every day, sacrificing my resting heart rate and ability to sleep so I can bring you a list of the best coffee subscriptions that I’ve personally tried out, and tell you why these ones stand out from the crowd. 

Quick Look at the BEST COFFEE SUbscriptions

• Best coffee subscription overall – Trade Coffee
• Best for single origins – Atlas Coffee Club
• Best of NYC – Bean & Bean
• Best for expanding your palate – Partners Coffee
• Best Robusta roaster – Blue Bottle Coffee
• Best of the South – Grit Coffee
• Best small roastery – Kuma Coffee
• Best curators choice options – Verve Coffee

How We Evaluated

Coffee is a very subjective thing, ten different people can taste the same cup and each come away feeling differently about the roast, the flavors, the aroma, the acidity. When I’m testing these coffee subscriptions, I take into account more than just flavor. Typically I start by trying to answer these questions: 

• Did it arrive on time? 
• Does it arrive fresh? 
• How consistent is the roast? 
• How is it unique?
• Does it make me want to tell people about it? 

Plus, I usually test each bag using a variety of different brewing methods (pour over, drip, aeropress, espresso, hot, iced, flavored, unflavored, etc) to try and experience everything the coffee has to offer. 

Best Overall – Trade Coffee

Think of Trade as your coffee sommelier. By partnering with roasters and cafes all over the US, Trade can ship you a selection of coffees from some of the best roasters around. I love this subscription model because it puts a new set of roasters in front of you every month. It connects you with roasteries you might otherwise have never thought to try.

I first encountered some of my favorite coffee roasters (and at least one on this list) through Trade. The downside is that Trade is not a roaster itself, so the coffee you receive might be a couple days less fresh than it would be if you ordered straight from a roastery itself. 

Starts at $15 per 11oz bag, ships every 7 days, 10 days, or 14 days. For all the options you have to choose “customize subscription” otherwise all the preset options are one 11oz bag every two weeks. Check out VICE’s full review of Trade’s coffee subscription service to learn more.

Best for Single Origins – Atlas Coffee Club

Single origin focus, wide variety, flavorful and memorable. Atlas Coffee Club specializes in providing a rotating series of single origin coffees to its subscribers. They’re some of the most memorable coffees you might drink in a given year, letting you really get to know the different flavors and processing styles that are prevalent in each given coffee-producing region.

When a bag of Atlas coffee shows up at my door I’m always excited to give it a try. Just have a chip clip handy, the bag closures have a habit of falling off. Still, some of the best coffee you’re ever likely to try, especially if you’re just starting to explore single origins. Check out my full review of Atlas Coffee Club to learn more.

Starts at $17 per 12oz bag, ships every two or four weeks.

Best of NYC – Bean & Bean

Bean & Bean holds a special place in my heart. It’s operated by Rachel and Jinyoo Han, a mother and daughter duo with deep knowledge of the coffee industry, and produces consistently brilliant coffee. On top of that, Bean & Bean does a lot of work behind the scenes to make the coffee industry a more equitable place for women coffee growers and smallholders. Part of that is making sure its coffees are all as traceable as possible. Every Bean & Bean coffee can be traced back to individual farms or co-ops. 

That’s important because the coffee industry has historically been a very closed system, opaque from the outside, and in that darkness a lot of frankly awful shit happens: workers are exploited, coffee is farmed and harvested in unsustainable ways, and coffee’s grim legacy of colonialism continues to thrive. Peeling back that veil is vital work if the coffee industry is ever going to shed the grim legacy of colonialism.  Bean & Bean is out there doing that work, setting an important example for the coffee industry at large, and serving dope-ass coffee the whole time.

Starts at $17 per 11oz bag, ships every 1-5 weeks. 

Best for Expanding Your Palate – Partners Coffee

Partners knows its shit. The roasts are always spot-on, and the blends are so carefully curated that you’d never know they were blends if you didn’t know beforehand. Seriously, more than once I’ve had a cup of a Partners coffee blend and would’ve sworn it was a single origin.

That’s impressive because typically the more coffee beans from different regions are blended together the more samey their flavors become. It’s great for consistency, but you do sometimes lose out on the fruitier, juicier, funkier flavors that you can get from single origins.

Because of Partners’ measured hand, many of its blends (El Ramo and Bedford in particular) preserve the richer background flavors blending can often lose. On top of that, Partners offers a wide selection of actual single origin coffees in its Limited Release category. (Do yourself a favor and check out the Rwanda single origin, you won’t regret it.)

Starts at $16 per 11oz bag, ships  every 1-4 weeks.

Best Robusta Roaster – Blue Bottle Coffee

Blue Bottle makes incredible coffee of many different kinds, but the one you absolutely have to try is the result of a lot of work behind the scenes: the 17-foot Ceiling blend, a mix of Arabica and RObusta beans and one of the best espresso roasts I’ve had in years. 

A little background, in the US, the overwhelming majority of coffee we drink is Arabica, there are a lot of reasons for that but it boils down to colonialism and decisions made by early coffee importers to the US. Robusta, Arabica’s cousin, is wildly popular in the rest of the world, and doesn’t get enough attention here in the US. Blue Bottle is trying to change that. The 17-foot Ceiling Blend is rich, flavorful, and produces a luxurious head of silky crema. I could go on for hours about Robusta but I’ll leave it there for now. 

Starts at $21 per 11oz bag, ships every 1-4 weeks.

Best of the South – Grit Coffee

Virginia-based roaster Grit Coffee is a great pick for anyone looking to step outside the usual coffee centers of NYC, San Francisco, and the Pacific Northwest.

Grit’s roasts are always thoughtful and inspiring. The dark roasts feature subtle flavors often lost in dark roasts, bubbling to the surface amid velvety smoky notes. The light roasts are bold and sweet, with notes of fruit and caramel. I try to make my way through bags of Grit coffee slowly. I’m a sucker for sweet milky coffee, but with Grit I always let the coffee speak for itself, no sugar, just steamed milk, or a touch of foam. If you need to fall back in love with coffee, give Grit a try. 

Starts at $15 per 12oz bag, ships weekly, biweekly, and monthly. 

Best Small Roastery – Kuma Coffee

Kuma is a very small roaster—we’re talking four people kind of small—but Kuma’s coffee is a gift to the weary coffee-tester’s palate. The first thing you’ll notice about Kuma coffee is how aromatic it is. Seriously, sometimes I just sit and huff the bags for a little while before I do anything else.

Another huge strength of this tiny roaster is in its subscription options. Kuma offers a roaster’s choice subscription, an Omakase for your mail-order coffee. For a roaster like Kuma, it really feels like something special to let its team take you on a tour of its roasts, month-by-month. 

Starts at $18 per 12oz bag, ships every 1-4 weeks. 

Best Curators Choice Options – Verve Coffee

Now if you’re a little more particular, Verve has you covered. With comprehensive roaster’s choice subscription options, Verve lets you guide your rotating cast of coffees a little more directly. You can subscribe to just its Latin American coffees, its African coffees, blends, or just single origins.

And let’s not forget: Verve makes coffee to die for. Its single origins will make you rethink what coffee can taste like, what kind of sensory journey it can take you on. That said, Verve’s blends are nothing to sneeze at. Each one does an excellent job of surfacing all the flavors from each contributing coffee, it’s like you’re drinking the roaster’s favorite mixtape. 

Starts at $19 per 12oz bag, ships every 1-4 weeks. 

Up next: the best instant coffees (for when you can’t be bothered with the French press).