I Tried Dozens of Roasters. These Are the 10 Best Coffee Subscriptions
You never need a cup of coffee tomorrow. You need it now. An empty bag signals panic, tragedy, and a trip to the store in your pajamas. The WIRED guide to the best coffee subscriptions is designed, in part, to make sure this moment never happens.
The promise of the internet is that you can access the best coffee delivery services in the country, and therefore the best coffee, from anywhere you live. The WIRED Reviews team has been testing and recommending monthly coffee subscriptions since 2018, when online coffee ordering became the norm. I’ve been writing about coffee on both coasts for more than 15 years, and it’s not unheard of for me to go through four bags a week while testing coffee machines.
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Even though I live in the coffee mecca of Portland, Oregon, online subscriptions have been a source of constant discovery. My top coffee subscription for most people, Atlas Coffee Club, brings in flavors from all over the world in a round-robin. Trade Coffee appeals to the widest variety of palates for cold brew, espresso, or drip. Podium Coffee Club offers wild surprises for true aficionados, among prize-winning coffee.
This list represents the best and most interesting coffee bean subscriptions of 2026. Be sure to check our other java-related buying guides, including the Best Drip Coffee Machines, Best Mushroom Coffee, Best Espresso Machines, Best Cold-Brew Coffee Makers, Best Latte and Cappuccino Machines, and Best Coffee Grinders.
Updated September 2026: I’ve newly tested and added Beanz coffee subscription as a top pick, streamlined WIRED’s selections, updated prices and descriptions, rearranged and retested some subscriptions, and updated tariff information.
Jump to Section
- Frequently Asked Questions
- What Kinds of Coffee Subscriptions Are There?
- Subscription Beans vs. Locally Roasted Beans
- How We Test Coffee Subscriptions
- Are Coffee Subscriptions Worth It?
- How Does WIRED Select Coffee Subscriptions to Be Reviewed?
- How Have Tariffs Affected Coffee Prices?
- More Excellent Coffee Subscriptions
Best Coffee Subscription Overall: Atlas Coffee Roasters
Atlas Coffee Club offers a true world tour of coffee: high-quality, single-origin beans from a different far-flung part of the world each month. This includes lesser-known coffee-producing regions such as Thailand or Yunnan, China, or a truly rare, chocolaty-nutty bag from Uganda.
Each month, the Austin, Texas-based roaster offers beans from a different region—whether an Indian variety that tastes gently of marzipan, or one from Peru that brims with toffee. Those countries and farms keep changing, as Atlas forms new relationships with growers all over the world. I find the monthly switch to be an excellent rhythm for espresso in particular, since I’m dialing in a new bean for a new flavor each month.
Atlas’ roasts are excellent, the bags look pretty, and the service is outstanding. Because Atlas is the sole importer and roaster of each bean variety, you skip the middleman and save money. Each bag arrives at your doorstep at a price competitive with the premium (but far less fresh!) beans at your local supermarket. Bags are a full 12 ounces—not the diet bags that have become popular among many subscriptions and roasters.
Choose between light-to-medium or medium-to-dark roasts, remaining mostly in the fat part of the bell curve where aromas are most pronounced and easy to extract. Whatever the region or roast, I’ve also found that Atlas’ roasting profile tends to lead to a smooth character that’s common among Atlas’ beans. Then choose between classic balanced or premium “bright and expressive” bags for $2 more that’ll lean more into the distinctive agriculture and flavor notes of each region. While a medium-roast Finca Arbelia bag from Guatemala might bring out mid-palate toffee notes, the “bright” bag evinces much lighter notes, like a Southern peach tea.
Subscriptions can be monthly or bimonthly. There is no weekly option, though you can adjust order size from a half-bag to four bags. (You get the best deal if you order more bags, less often.) You can also choose whether you’d like to receive whole beans, your favorite grind for your favorite brewing method, or pods fit for Keurig or Nespresso. Atlas also offers a world tour coffee subscription box that’s excellent as a gift. Atlas’ mushroom coffee subscription also earned top billing in our guide to mushroom coffees. And newly, you can choose a wee 4-ounce bag of ultra-rare beans as a subscription add-on. A recent Atlas Rare bag from Myanmar tasted light and almost spiced, with top notes a bit like mulled cider.
During September, for National Coffee Day, the first bag is free. Or use the WIRED-exclusive code WELCOMECOFFEE to get your first month’s order at half off.
Roaster. Delivery: Every two or four weeks, anywhere from a half-bag to four bags per shipment. Coffee changes each month. Priced $15–$20 per 12-ounce bag, depending on order size. $6 shipping.
Best Coffee Subscription for Wide Selection: Trade Coffee
Trade Coffee is like a helpful ferryman, a multi-roaster retail subscription that sources beans to your door from small roasters all over the country. Choose a bag to receive over and over, or let Trade choose for you by choosing a curated subscription.
To determine your tastes, Trade will ask you a series of questions about what you want out of your daily dose of caffeine: how you brew and drink your beans (with milk, without, etc.), how dark you like your roast, and whether you like balanced flavors or bold and bright. If you’d like, you can dial this in even further to individual flavor notes, whether chocolate, nuts, fruit, or floral.
At the end, you’ll learn what bags are coming based on your responses. Perhaps this’ll be a roasty espresso blend from Feast Coffee in California, or a light-bodied Kenyan from Tennessee that tastes like citrus and berry. Right now Trade is offering new subscribers a three-bag “discovery box” with three 11-ounce bags for $34.
In my experience, Trade tends toward fairly approachable coffees, tailored to your favorite flavor notes. Their selection is huge, with well over 400 bags to choose from, and Trade is constantly adding new roasters and beans to its stable. This means you never have to repeat a bag if you don’t want to. But more importantly, this makes Trade’s subscription a great way to discover new brews, new growers, and new roasters. Last year, Trade added a cold-brew subscription with at least 90 bags specifically selected for how good they taste when brewed cold; new subscriptions come with a cold-brew device.
Retailer. Delivery: Every two or four weeks. $17 to $22 per one 11-ounce bag. Free shipping on orders $75 or more, or $8 to $12 per shipment.
Best-Curated Coffee Subscription: Podium Coffee Club
Podium Coffee Club is the best way I know to sample the best beans, from the best roasters, all over the country—primed especially for aficionados and people who think they already know everything about coffee. I’m one of these people, and yet Podium keeps surprising me by introducing me to truly excellent small roasters like Seattle’s Cozy Monster and coastal Oregon’s Kissing Rock that I would not otherwise have known existed.
Basically, you choose either the Gold or Platinum subscription, which are priced accordingly, and then you receive one—and only one—ridiculously good bag of coffee each month, roasted within 24 hours of when it’s shipped. True to Podium’s name, each roaster or bean has been awarded by a national or international competition as some of the best coffee in the world. To quote Men in Black: “The best of the best of the best, sir! With honors.”
Your bags arrive with a little card explaining why each single-origin varietal, and each roaster, is so gosh darn interesting. After testing multiple months’ worth of beans, I can say each coffee from Podium has been interesting, special, or downright unique in some way—especially a bag of beauteously floral and pine-forward beans from Colombia growing legend Elkin Guzman, roasted by Podium cofounder Sam LaRobardiere’s excellent coffee brand Theory Coffee.
Expect light-roast beans, best for lovers of drip, pour-over, and Aeropress. (Light-roast espresso lovers will also find a home here.) The Gold subscription is generally excellent, balanced, and aromatic. The Platinum tends to be adventurous, surprising, or maybe just rare: It’s coffee that tastes like other coffee doesn’t.
So far, I’ve had no misses. Consider Podium a source of discovery, and an indulgent gift to yourself (or someone you like) each month, to supplement your more usual coffee habit. It does cost what an indulgence costs, however.
Multi-roaster. Delivery: Monthly. $25 (Gold) or $20 (Platinum) per 10.5-ounce bag. Also available in 3-pound or 5-pound bags.
Best Coffee for Espresso Lovers: Bean Box
Seattle-based Bean Box was a pioneer among multi-roaster coffee subscriptions, and it still has one of the largest selections of roasters to choose from if you pick out your own bags. In particular, while a lot of the newest, trendiest coffee subscriptions lean funky and fruity and light, I’ve found that the curation for Bean Box leans toward depth, balance, and rich chocolate or toffee notes.
Bean Box’s full-flavored, rich coffee selections are perfect for lovers of the brown-sugar and coffee notes often favored by lovers of cold brew and traditional espresso. Indeed, Bean Box’s espresso-specific subscription is quite the best coffee subscription for espresso lovers that I’ve yet found. Every two to six weeks, you’ll receive a new and expertly curated bag of beans that’s good for rich, syrupy shots and full-flavored lattes.
Bean Box’s prices are often low for retail craft coffee of this caliber, the bags are big (or at least they’re the full 12 ounces), and prices can often beat direct-ordering from the roaster if you subscribe. But take note that for most options, you’ll be adding $6 to $8 for shipping on each delivery.
Bean Box isn’t just for espresso, however. Drip or pour-over lovers who favor balance and chocolatey notes over funk and fruit may find a home here. Even many of the light roasts meant for pour-over often favor balance and roundness, like a truly excellent single-origin Ethiopia by Seattle’s Middle Fork Roasters.
Retailer. Delivery: Once every two to six weeks. Priced per 12-ounce bag.
An Excellent Coffee Subscription From Breville: Beanz
Beanz is a coffee subscription service I had not encountered until quite recently, and it’s been a wonderful discovery. This is a smaller coffee subscription, but it’s also one of the best-selected subscriptions I’ve encountered if you’re looking for roasters on the forefront of both sourcing and interesting flavors.
If there’s a super-special coffee roaster that java insiders like to whisper to me about, it’s often available on Beanz. Recent drops included funky blends from Australia’s adventurous Proud Mary, a beautifully balanced light roast from Pennsylvania Amish country’s cult-popular Passenger Coffee, and a wildly distinctive blend from hipster-beloved YES PLZ out of Los Angeles.
The other surprise is that Beanz is owned by Breville, and by extension Baratza coffee grinders. This means new owners of Breville or Baratza machines get 25 percent off on coffee, with up to hundreds of dollars in savings over the course of a subscription. This is the sort of discount that inspires true loyalty: It means better prices than if I’d ordered directly from the roasters, on some of the best and most exciting coffee in America. Hot dang.
If you don’t have Breville or Baratza, prices are still quite good, and the coffee is still delicious. But take note that there’s a two-bag minimum on subscriptions—which is less flexible than most roasters if you’re a solo coffee drinker.
Retailer. Delivery: Once every two to eight weeks. $20 per 12-ounce bag.
Best Adventurous Single-Roaster Subscription: Equator Coffee
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One of my favorite bags of light-roast coffee I tried last year came from Equator Coffee. It was funky, cool, weird, and roasted feather-light, a single-origin bag from Mae Chedi in Thailand with tasting notes of raspberries and aged rum. But then one of my favorite decaf bags came from Equator, too: a lovely single-origin Ethiopian that was gently reminiscent of a chocolate blueberry muffin.
This 30-year-old Bay Area pioneer, once a maverick best known for roasting the French Laundry’s house blend from its founding partners’ Marin County garage, is now a powerhouse. Equator offers wonderfully diverse tastes, sourced from farms in 50 countries—one of few single-roaster subscriptions to rival any multi-roaster in breadth, depth, and the capacity for surprise.
Equator’s coffee bean subscriptions include wild single-origin coffees, espresso-friendly roasts, fair trade and organic beans, and balanced blends. A rotating supply of interesting decaf is also available as a subscription. These days, Equator is maybe the oldest craft roaster to still consistently taste so fresh. Just pick your style and let the coffee come.
Roaster. Delivery: One through eight weeks. Priced per bag, generally $19 to $22 for 12 ounces.
Best Decaf Subscription: Swiss Water
Decaf has come a long way, with a few new-school, more natural decaf makers that have emerged as the jitter-free darlings of the premium coffee world. Perhaps the most famous is British Columbia’s Swiss Water, the company behind the Swiss Water decaffeination process, which provides decaf to some of the best premium roasters across the United States. But Swiss Water also offers its own subscription service to bring you some of the very best decaf roasts—genuine heavy hitters that remain full-flavored, robust, and delicate without keeping you up at night.
Retailer. Delivery: Weekly, biweekly, monthly, or bimonthly. Priced per bag.
Best Fresh, Seasonal Coffee: Origin Roasted
No matter where the beans come from, nearly all coffee sold in the United States is roasted in the US, often after sitting in a warehouse for weeks or months. But Origin Roasted is truly globetrotting and truly seasonal. Each month they send a 10-ounce bag of specialty beans that are roasted, packed, and then shipped directly from the same part of the world where the coffee was harvested.
Shipping straight from the source within one to three days of roasting means the beans are not merely fresh, but roasted in season. It also means the beans will be a cosmopolitan affair, roasted according to the tastes of exotic locales. A side benefit is that more of the proceeds from sales go directly to the growers and roasters in their home countries.
WIRED reviewer Michael Calore has been drinking Origin Roasted coffee since the service launched five years ago—and anecdotally, fresh bags roasted when the fruit’s still fresh … taste fresh. They also retain floral and fruity notes you can’t find in supermarket bags. But Origin’s beans are also pretty special, and hard to find. Calore’s favorite bags (Jalapa Producers from Guatemala, Azahar from Risaralda, Colombia) are actually cheaper through the Origin subscription than if you tried to find them individually.
Roaster. Delivery: Ships on the last Friday of every month. $25 per 10-ounce bag.
Best Instant Coffee Subscription: Cometeer
Cometeer is unlike any other coffee subscription I have tried. It arrives frozen, as a little pod that you can thaw out with hot water. I was, of course, skeptical. But I couldn’t believe how aromatic and straight-up distinctive each roast was, despite being flash-frozen.
In part, that’s a function of the coffee itself. Cometeer pods contain brew from some of the finest specialty roasters in the world—Black & White, Onyx, Proud Mary, you name it—that’s been brewed and condensed with the power of science, then flash-frozen and vacuum-packed to maintain freshness. All you’ve gotta do is drop them into a cup, then thaw them with 5 ounces of boiling or near-boiling water. And then, blammo—an oddly terrific cup of coffee, miles above powdered instant or pods. It’s not quite the same as a fresh cup: The mouthfeel is different. The flavors are rounder, smushier, and less crisp. But on light roasts especially, the aromatics are big, bold, and wild. I truly enjoy it.
They don’t come cheap if you order a single box at a time, but subscription prices are reasonable—about $2 a capsule for very fancy beans. They’ll keep in the freezer for months, but you’ll need to drink them soon if you thaw them: They keep full flavor for one day at room temp or three days in a cooler or hotel fridge. The introductory box these days is a wild and woolly world tour of coffee beans with 32 capsules from 16 coffee-producing countries.
Retailer. Delivery: Variety packs or single-varietal packs arrive once every four weeks.
Best Coffee Subscription for Rare Beans: Bean & Bean
Bean & Bean sources some of the rarest and most precious coffee beans on the planet, and roasts them to delicate fruition. There are only about 400 certified Q Graders in the United States—basically, the master sommeliers of coffee. Two of them are the mother-daughter team of Rachel and Jiyoon Han at New York’s Bean & Bean. Together, they roast some of the world’s most exquisite beans, like Geshas from Taiwan and honey-milled Cup of Excellence winners from El Salvador.
You can shop these bags individually. But the more fun option is to let the Hans surprise you with their favorite ridiculously rare light roast of the moment. It’s a more expensive subscription than some, and bag size may vary depending on the expense of each rare bean. But you have probably never tried coffee like the bag that will arrive at your stoop.
Roaster. Delivery: Depending on subscription type, anywhere from weekly to monthly. Priced per bag or selection.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Kinds of Coffee Subscriptions Are There?
There are two main kinds of coffee subscription providers: roasters and retailers. Both roasters and multi-roaster retailers sell great coffee. This guide includes both.
Roasters are cafés and small-batch producers who buy raw beans from farmers all over the world and roast them to perfection. By buying from a roaster, you’re directly supporting the people who make your favorite coffees. The downside is you usually won’t have as broad a selection. Roasters usually sell only their own coffee, but that often means special blends and single origins are available from a roaster that you can’t get from a retailer. Your local roaster down the street may also have subscription offers, giving you the chance to buy local without leaving your house—and often catch a discount.
Retailers or multi-roaster subscriptions are coffee subscription providers who buy their beans from many different roasters, then ship bags of coffee to you. A multi-roaster retailer will often have a much broader selection of high-quality coffee available (from multiple brands) to ship to your doorstep—often selected and curated carefully by coffee experts. The downside of some subscriptions is that you’re not buying directly from a roaster, which means the coffee may not be as fresh. (That’s where this guide comes in. We can tell you how fresh they are because we always test each one and note the roast dates on each coffee bag.)
Subscription Beans vs. Locally Roasted Beans
Look: If you live in a big city with great coffee, the best way to try fresh roasts and new beans, and learn about them, is to go to your local roaster. Nearly every midsize city in the United States has at least a couple of excellent purveyors. Look up your local coffee roasters or visit your favorite coffee shop and ask where they get their beans. Buy the beans. Talk to people. It’s fun, if you like talking to people.
Heck, this is also true when you’re traveling. The best coffee you can find is often the cup you drink when you’re on the road, in a new place, tasting something new. Even if you don’t live on the road, it’s fun to explore different shops when you do travel.
But the wonder of the internet is that you’re not limited to only the best of what’s local. Subscriptions allow you to take the temperature of the most interesting roasters from all over the country and world, without going anywhere in particular. Heard about that one roaster in Delaware or North Carolina making crazy coffee with co-ferments and natural fermentation? A roaster in Guatemala highlighting beans from their neighbors? Are you new to the world of premium coffee, and you’d like some help from the curators at Trade Coffee or Podium Coffee Club to learn what you like? Let them inform and surprise you.
This is why you might take a subscription. The world is at your door—even the world you’ve never even visited. I’m also lazy enough to order subscriptions from roasters a 15-minute drive away, but this is between you and your local ecologist.
But also, sometimes it’s homesickness for what used to be local. For me, one of the best in this country is a tiny spot in South Jersey called Royal Mile. They used to be my favorite local coffee shop when I lived in Philly and would drive to Jersey to get the coffee. Now they aren’t local at all, because I moved. But through the magic of the internet and the US Postal Service, I can still get their truly wild, surprising, mad-scientist single-origin bags anytime I want. What a privilege.
How We Test Coffee Subscriptions
To test these subscriptions, we try a variety of beans from each service, both our own picks and any curated options. We brewed each bag in different ways to see which beans were best suited to which brewing method. Over the subscriptions he tested, Scott Gilbertson covered the spectrum of grinds with espresso, moka pot, French press, pour-over, and Turkish or cowboy coffee. Matthew Korfhage wanders through espresso, AeroPress, drip, cold brew, pour-over, and a wealth of somewhat unclassifiable devices.
It’s worth doing the same if you have access to different brewing methods, especially if you opt for a subscription that offers a lot of variety. A roast that makes a great shot of espresso does not necessarily make the best pour-over coffee, and vice versa. Some roasters, like the excellent Equator Coffee, offer one subscription specifically for espresso, one for decaf, and another for light single-origin roasts that lend themselves to drip and pour-over. It can also be rewarding to take notes on your favorites. Some of these services offer a way to do this on the site, which is handy, though a paper notebook works well enough. If you’d like some more pointers on brewing, be sure to read our guide to brewing better coffee at home.
Are Coffee Subscriptions Worth It?
A coffee subscription service often offers discounts on shipping or the base cost of each bag, compared to buying single bags for delivery. But usually, subscriptions will be premium beans, so it won’t be as cheap as the less-fresh, often pre-ground coffee from your grocery store.
But if you’re the sort who likes to try the best freshly roasted single-origin Ethiopian or Guatemalan beans from roasters all over the country? This is where coffee subscriptions shine. You’re also often getting the best specialty bags a roaster has to offer, or a curated selection from a certified Q Grader—meaning you’re a lot more likely to find new roasts and origins you wouldn’t have come across on your own.
I have no dearth of local roasters that I love to support. Portland, Oregon, where I live, is perhaps the densest home to craft coffee in the country: Heart, Coava, Stumptown, Roseline, Sterling; multiple national coffee publications; and a craft coffee festival. I’ve been writing about coffee in Portland and elsewhere for more than a decade.
But a coffee subscription gives me access to beans from all over the country and world. It’s a mix of ease and adventure, and a chance to be a barista at my own home multi-roaster café. I enjoy that I can get fresh-roasted beans from a coffee farm in Guatemala that roasts their own impossibly fresh beans onsite, alongside world-famous beans from other farmers right down the road—or taking a world tour each month with beans from my favorite globe-hopping roaster, Atlas Coffee Club.
But for others, a coffee subscription is just a way to get a steady drip of their favorite bag from their favorite roaster, guaranteed to arrive every week or every two weeks. Simple convenience is its own form of worth it.
How Does WIRED Select Coffee Subscriptions to Be Reviewed?
There’s a lot of good coffee out there, and I am always trying something new—drip, espresso, cold brew. I’ve been writing about coffee for 15 years on both coasts, and I’m always on the lookout for new and exciting growers, roasters, and beans. I keep abreast of coffee industry publications like Sprudge, haunt subreddits, consult friends and industry contacts, and take tips.
Coffee can be subjective, of course, and everyone has their preferences. I include my personal favorite roasters among this list, rotate in discoveries I think readers might be interested in, and also solicit favorites from other WIRED (and very wired) reviewers with different palates. But when deciding what subscriptions to include in our curated list, I look into what it offers that others don’t. I’m often looking for ones that best serve particular types of drinkers—a new service, a new delivery method, a clever way to cater to what you (whoever you may be) really want at your doorstep each week.
Often, a unique or uniquely useful or just kinda cool subscription model or roaster will be the first I’m in line to test. Other times, I get sent a sample bag of beans, and it sends me over the moon. Always feel free to send a note in the comments about a particularly terrific roaster or subscription.
How Have Tariffs Affected Coffee Prices?
Tariffs matter. So do fuel prices. Pretty much all coffee roasted and sold in the United States is imported. If it costs more to bring into the US, it will eventually cost more to buy.
This is one of many factors that affected coffee prices throughout last year, including extreme weather in Brazil and Vietnam, increasing demand, and relatively flat supply. All of these factors, including tariffs, have contributed to coffee prices rising dramatically in 2025. While coffee prices have dipped a bit this fall after coffee mostly escaped renewed tariff this summer, but prices are still higher than they were two years ago, and coffee roasters are still reeling from the wild spikes of 2025 and early 2026.
Subscriptions can absorb temporary high coffee commodity prices in part by selecting which beans get sent. In many cases, subscriptions are able to charge less than the individual bags you see at the supermarket because of guaranteed sales (the same way subscribing to a magazine costs less than buying at the newsstand).
But coffee subscriptions aren’t immune to price hikes, even if they’re better suited to weathering the vicissitudes of chance and the market. One service decreased the size of its bags from 12 ounces to 10 ounces last year, while others raised prices only on select bags. One way or another, I tend to see price increases on at least one or two coffee subscriptions every time I check. The volatility of US trade relationships is a key factor.
More Coffee Subscriptions WIRED Recommends
There are so many coffee subscriptions out there, and honestly, a lot of them offer very good coffee—some are even amazing. This list would need to be at least three times as long to capture every one of them. I have way more subscriptions I’ve loved than I have space to talk about them, so here I’ve gathered some past picks that we here at WIRED like. Have a favorite we haven’t tried? Drop a recommendation in the comments.
Angels’ Cup: Angels’ Cup is more like a distance-learning coffee school than a box subscription service, and the Black Box subscription is like a blind coffee tasting from afar. You will learn what you actually like and dislike about coffee, along with some education through the app, roaster’s notes, and notes from fellow tasters.
Mistobox: With more than 500 different coffees from 60-plus roasters, Mistobox makes a good gift subscription, especially if you don’t know what kind of coffee to get someone. Somewhere in those 500 choices, your coffee fanatic should find something that will make them happy. One of the most compelling and surprising offerings: Misto lets you choose the most you’re willing to pay per shipment, and your offerings will change accordingly. Delivery frequency can also be customized down to the day. We’re due for a re-test after Mistobox retooled its website.
Sightglass Coffee: San Francisco’s Sightglass Coffee is headquartered right in the middle of the city’s South of Market neighborhood, which is SF’s tech hub (and also home to WIRED). Just think of all the Github commits, UX prototypes, and vibe coding chatbot prompts that have been fueled by this roaster’s beans. The subscription service is flexible, so you can pick to have the same bag sent every time, or you can have them curate the selection so you get something different. My personal recommendation is the single-origin Seasonal Variety Subscription. You’ll get a bag of beans from different producers every month. The sourcing is all over the map: Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico. I tried one 12-ounce bag per week for two months, and everything was just outstanding, with unique and distinct flavors from each of the producers. —Michael Calore
Partners Coffee: Partners Coffee is a Brooklyn-based small-batch roaster that offers subscriptions by blend as well as a single-origin option that swaps out every two weeks. Partners roasts and ships all orders within two days, so it arrives at your door as fresh as possible. The whole bean Manhattan roast and Ghost Town decaf are great for those who like light to medium roasts. Even better, you can manage your subscription via text message.
Gento Coffee: Gento is part of a new and welcome trend: growers who roast their own coffee and ship directly from the source. In Guatemala, Gento takes this a step further, roasting beans from other local growers that rank among the most esteemed bean farms in the world. But in this case, the beans might only travel down the road to be roasted. The single-origin subscription is really the play here. Alongside roasts from Gento’s own beans from the Prentice family farm, you might find roasts from highly regarded Guatemalan growers like Genaro Juárez and Petrona Perez. If those names don’t mean anything to you yet, they will after you try them.
Camber Coffee: Bellingham, Washington, roaster Camber Coffee slipped under the radar for me for maybe too long, but amid its 10-year anniversary celebrations, I finally remedied this. Camber makes distinguished, aromatic, balanced single-origin coffees and a truly chocolaty espresso blend called Big Joy that lives up to its name: it’s like a fudge brownie in espresso form. Subscriptions net you 10 percent off list price on each bag.
Sweet Bloom Coffee: Colorado’s Sweet Bloom Coffee, unlike most roasters in America, pays attention to the growing season for each region and brings in beans when they’re at their best “seasonal sweet spot,” to use Sweet Bloom’s terminology. Sweet Bloom’s single-bag Roaster’s Choice subscription ships single-origin coffees from small producers around the world, many of which Gear team director Michael Calore had never encountered until the beans arrived, and some from coffee-growing regions that he had to bust out the map to locate. The flavors are easier to put a finger on: Sweet Bloom tends to favor fruity and floral coffees, and presents them in lighter roasts that let all those provocative flavor notes express themselves at full volume. If you prefer bright, slightly acidic, and very fragrant coffees, this is a roaster for you.
Sunday Coffee Project: Portland’s Sunday Coffee Project produces some of the most distinctive, funky, fruity, and interesting coffee I know in this country. This could be a yeast-fermented Thai light roast that tastes a whole lot like Sangria, or an Ethiopian so floral you’ll swear you got invited to a spring wedding. Plus, the coffee comes in a little art box, designed to look like a coffee-themed children’s cereal complete with games on the back and a little cartoon character on the front: maybe a sheep lifting weights or a snake playing tennis. It’s a small roaster, and they’ve dialed back their offerings from weekly new roasts to monthly. But if you like light and adventurous coffee, a box from Sunday Coffee Project may be your favorite thing you get in the mail that month.
Trücup: Are you sensitive to the acids in coffee, but you love coffee? Trücup makes unique, low-acid coffee through what it calls a natural steam process, which makes it a great option for caffeine lovers with sensitive stomachs or those who suffer from gastroesophageal reflux disease or heartburn. (Disclaimer: If you’ve been diagnosed with GERD, talk to your physician before you try any coffee.) Either way, even those with well-fortified stomachs may want to take note. WIRED operations manager Scott Gilbertson loves this coffee for a more mellow cup in the afternoon or evening.
Wonderstate Coffee: Wisconsin’s Wonderstate, previously named Kickapoo, is quite possibly the nation’s first fully solar-powered roaster. Besides being an excellent roaster, it has a long and vocal commitment to paying farmers higher wages. The most recent batch of single origins I tried had a tendency toward light, subtle, mild-mannered, and lightly tannic brews—a cosmopolitan palate that’s also Midwestern-polite.
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French Truck Coffee: French Truck Coffee got its start in New Orleans and now has a dozen of its signature yellow storefronts scattered around town. Gilbertson is a fan of the Big River blend, which has a deep, rich, and very robust flavor profile that’s especially well-suited to pour-over brewing. In fact, French Truck has some of the most detailed brewing instructions around.
Stone Creek Coffee: Milwaukee-based Stone Creek Coffee delivers its fresh, flavorful coffee in big 1-pound bags, with a variety of blends and single-origin options available. The Cream City blend in particular is a delightful medium roast with warmer flavor notes like chocolate and brown sugar, rounded out by fruity flavors—giving the coffee an almost cacao-nib flavor. Add a little milk, and it’s almost like drinking hot cocoa. A monthly subscription delivers two bags per shipment.
Fire Dept. Coffee: Fire Department Coffee was created to support injured firefighters and underfunded fire departments all over the country. The coffee is mostly medium and dark—less trendy than a classic, chocolaty profile, especially in the blends. The basic coffee club subscription is best for those who love espresso, or a strong and roasty French press or moka pot. The premium coffee-of-the-month selections veer more medium and are more suitable for those who make drip coffee or pour-over. And what’s best, each bag supports a fire department, in what’s been among the worst years for wildfires in recent memory.
Grounds and Hounds: We’ve recommended this as a top pick in the past, for its mix of feel-good donations to animal shelters and excellent roasts. Grounds and Hounds offers small-batch roasted blends and single-origin beans, with 20 percent of its profits going to benefit animal shelters. The brand has some of Gilbertson’s personal favorite coffees, especially the dark roasts. (Try the Snow Day Winter Roast when it’s available.) Subscriptions are mostly recurring, individual-bag subscriptions.
Birds & Beans Coffee: Like birds? Clear-cut coffee farms can be hard on them. But Birds & Beans is a coffee roaster devoted to making sure its coffee is grown in Smithsonian-certified, bird-friendly farms with tree cover that helps birds thrive. The dark roasts in particular are delicious and genuinely dark: Scarlet Tanager is a favorite of Gilbertson’s.
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