One of the better things that Corona has brought to the world is the increasing availability of fantastic, fresh roasted, coffee bean subscriptions to all those who value excellent coffee when working from home! There are so many coffee roasters that have popped up as well and they sometimes bring you true gems from the coffee world to your home.
Fresh roasted beans
A coffee subscription brings you freshly roasted coffee beans to your doorstep on a regular basis. Some let you choose the frequency at which this happens, others deliver it to you every other week or month. Often, you can choose the “profile” of the coffee, which means you can decide if you want to the coffee roasted for espresso (a little darker) or for filter (a little lighter).
Did you know that coffee loses most of its delicate flavors within 15 minutes (!) after grinding? If you have always used supermarket coffee, then you really do not know how good coffee can taste!
Tasting Table (source)
Fixed subscriptions
Most coffee subscriptions can send you a fixed set of beans of your choosing, sent to you at regular intervals. You chose the roast level (espresso or filter, dark/medium/light), the quantity and which beans. From then on, you’ll never run out of fresh coffee beans again.
You may be able to set some parameters, such as blend vs. single origin or washed vs. natural beans. A few promise to occasionally send you a surprise coffee or a special coffee as well, as a thank you for your loyalty. This means you get a reliable source of great coffee beans sent to your house.
Quality of the beans
The quality level is above and beyond what you can get from the supermarket or your local coffee store, despite the latter already offering a much better bean than the supermarket. Local coffee roasters simply chose better green beans and take more pride in their (artisan) craft. They take more time and care to roast the beans slowly, which greatly enhances the flavors in the beans (source).
A rotating coffee subscription is a subscription for fresh coffee (beans or ground to your specs) that arrives regularly, but contains different coffees each time.
No Pressure Coffee
Another benefit of getting a fixed set of beans on a rotating schedule is that you don’t need to complete redial your brew settings all over again. Each bean often has a unique recipe: the setting on the grinder, the weight of dry coffee you use for the best flavor, the temperature of the water used to brew the coffee and maybe even the number of pours used to make filter coffee. If you write down your recipe (I highly recommend you do!) then when you get a known coffee again, you can simply reach for your last recipe and use that instead of having to go through several runs to optimize the recipe for taste.
Rotating subscriptions
Some coffee subscriptions give you the option to rotate the beans regularly. Each new delivery will bring different beans than the one before. I call this a “rotating subscription“. It’s a lot of work to source new green coffee beans on a regular basis, roast them and taste/cup them, adjust roasting profile, weigh and package all the subscriptions and do it all over again a week (or so) later. That’s something that only a handful people manage.
But… if you stay on long enough, you may start seeing certain beans reoccur. Not everyone has a limitless supply of every bean out there. Even roasters buy limited quantities of green beans and these run out, eventually.
Recommended Coffee Subscriptions
Here is my list of recommended coffee subscriptions in the Netherlands:
- Uncommon, Amsterdam (rotating)
- Friedhats, Amsterdam (rotating)
- Giraffe Coffee Roaster, Rotterdam (rotating)
- Single Estate Coffee, Den Haag (rotating)
- Nordkapp, Utrecht (rotating)
- KEEN coffee, Utrecht (rotating)
NOTE: all of the above roasters now offer a choice between a fixed or a rotating coffee subscription! That’s great news for us.
the coffee vine, Amsterdam (2012), is a unique coffee subscription because they use rotating coffee roasters and ship their monthly changing beans all across Europe and world-wide! They have true gems and unique beans but the coffee is not what I’d call suitable for beginners. If you’d like to try totally different and wonderful beans each and every time, this is your go-to place!
If you are a coffee roaster and you offer a (rotating) coffee subscription as well, please get in touch with me if you’d like to be included in this list!
No Pressure Coffee
Update Jan 2024:
Boon no longer exists, filter box by Man met Bril is gone, Black and Bloom has sadly reduced their catalog and does not serve a subscription anymore, Uncommon added. Text updated and reworded.
No Pressure Coffee 