There are many benefits to coffee subscription services. Sometimes, getting your coffee through a subscription service is best if you’re looking to expand your palate, expand your coffee knowledge, or even just need a unique birthday gift for a loved one.
If you’ve been looking at the available coffee subscriptions out there and are really looking for one that’s easy and convenient, then look no further than Trade Coffee. We got the chance to try Trade ourselves, and you can read our full review below or check out the video!
Trade Coffee Introduction
Trade Coffee has been on a mission to provide you with a delicious variety of coffees to choose from since 2018. Uniting America’s top roasters with 400+ coffees that are roasted to order, Trade Coffee helps you easily find your favorite flavor and roast combinations to ensure that every cup is as tasty as possible.
First, skilled coffee tasters and testers at Trade Coffee, accurately named “Taste Types,” will search and test through new coffees to offer subscribers. After the coffee has been selected, it is then tested for quality and control. Trade has a designated team of professionals that tests the coffee to see if it compares to the set standards that Trade has set for all of it’s high-quality, well-made products.
In addition, Trade also takes your feedback, critiques, and recommendations seriously. For each detail you provide about your experience with Trade Coffee, they can customize and calibrate cupping notes, roasting intensities, and cultivation techniques that you prefer for your coffee.
The Tips of the Trade
When you register for a subscription with Trade Coffee, one of the first things you’ll do is discover what flavors fit your coffee palate the best. To discover which roast suits your taste buds the best, Trade Coffee provides a detailed survey to best determine which roasts you may enjoy.
Some of these questions inquire about cupping notes, roasts, your ideal brewing methods, added flavorings and creamers, taste preferences, and ground size.
Once you’ve narrowed down your first coffee to try, you can begin to decide which similar roasts and blends will best suit your liking.
You can choose how much coffee you’ll receive one or several bags at a time, as well as how often you receive them.
These shipping intervals include every week, to two weeks, or three weeks, often with the selection of whole bean or grounds.
Our Review
For our review of Trade coffee, we got the opportunity to sample some of Trade Coffee’s most beloved brands and roasts.
What We Received
Upon its arrival, our coffee from Trade was packaged in four individual packages. Our own sample of Trade Coffee includes three brands of cold brew whole bean coffee from Atomic Coffee, Blueprint Coffee, and Onyx Coffee. In addition to these delicious brews, we also received a bag of Trade Coffee cold brewing bags. Each bag of coffee was individually packaged, and the cold brew bags were shipped on their own too.
Every bag was packaged well, ensuring that the coffee stayed safe from exposure to the elements. Furthermore, each coffee bag not only has its own information labeled on it from the individual roaster, but Trade also adds its own layout of important information about the coffee.
This overdose of information can be extremely helpful to those who are interested in learning about the coffee itself, but the roaster as well.
Our Brewing Method
Since all of the bags we received were suitable for cold brewing, we ground out coffee on the medium-coarse end of the grind size scale. Using our manual grinder from Purity Coffee, we ground about to a proportion of about 1 cup of ground coffee to 4 cups of water. (Important side note: a cup of grounds can fill up an entire cold brew coffee bag).
Using three individual mason jars (which are excellent for cold-brewing on a budget), we steeped all of these coffees in the fridge for about 22 hours. After the brewing process was complete, the finished result was a total of 12 deliciously flavored cups of hearty cold brew.
All of these cold brew roasts are great by themselves, but they can also be deliciously paired with milk or creamer of your choice. For our tasting, we splashed a little vanilla almond milk coffee creamer to add a little sweetness. Voila!
Atomic Coffee Tasting
Known for their savory roasts and delicious blends, Atomic Coffee roasters have been developing delicious coffees since 1996. The roasters of Atomic coffee worked for several months to perfect their cold brew coffee recipe, perfecting the smooth notes of savory flavors like chocolate, caramel, cherry, and fruit. This medium roast cold brew coffee is full in body with a savory, crisp finish.
Trade offers Atomic Coffee in amounts of 1-3 bags at a time, with the option of receiving either whole beans or grounds. Grown at an elevation of a little under 4,000 feet, Atomic’s coffee is grown under a watchful eye, and only the best, blemish-free beans are selected to undergo the roasting process. In addition, these beans are processed through the washed method, ensuring that all of the flavors are highlighted in the beans through controlled fermentation.
Blueprint Coffee Tasting
Located in St. Louis, Missouri, Blueprint Coffee has a logo that consists of six different founders, the primary reason why the roaster sports a hexagonal logo. Part of the “Blue” series, the cold brew blend that we enjoyed from Blueprint is grown in Columbia in the Nariño/Minas Gerais region. The harvest time is usually June-August and is grown at an elevation of 3,600 feet.
Blueprint’s cold brew blend is of a medium roast and has a taste that is sweet and smooth. Unlike many other roasters of cold brew, Blueprint specifically sources and selects coffee beans that are ideal to complement the balance of sweetness and body that comes with the cold brewing process. As a result, this well-balanced blend of flavor has cupping notes of chocolate and caramel.
Onyx Coffee Tasting
Onyx Coffee roasters have a cold brew blend that consists of savory flavors like cocoa, dates, orange zest, and nutty pecan. Based out of Fayetteville, AR, Onyx Coffee embodies culture, flair, and science to roast some of their most robust roasts.
Onyx’s cold brew is processed through the washed process, ensuring that the innermost sugars and complex acids are released to enhance the flavor within the beans. It’s lower in acidity and has delicious sweet flavors of brown sugar. Grown at an elevation of up to 5,400 feet, Onyx coffee is carefully cultivated and crafted to result in some of the healthiest coffee beans you can get your hands on.
Extra Trade Tools & Toys
There are many quality products that are offered by Trade Coffee that are worth the time and investment. Not only do they offer succulent coffee, but Trade Coffee also provides brewing equipment, merchandise, and accessories for your coffee routine. Here’s the summary of all of the terrific tools that Trade Coffee offers.
Equipment
Don’t have anything to brew Trade Coffee with? No worries! There’s a variety of coffee brewing equipment offered by Trade Coffee to help you brew your coffee exactly how you like it. For example, some of the most powerful tools offered are the Baratza Encore Burr Grinder, the Technivorm Moccamaster KBT, and the Hario Buono Power Kettle. No matter what brewing method you prefer, all of these options are useful!
Accessories
Just like coffee brewing equipment, every dedicated coffee brewer will need dependable brewing accessories to make sure their brewing process goes as smoothly as possible. These accessories include Trade Cold Brew Bags, Melitta #4 Cone Filters, and Dezcal Coffee Maker Cleaner.
Drinkware
Furthermore, Trade Coffee also offers its share of drinkware! Trade offers high-quality brand designed drinkware. The top two options include Trade Yeti Rambler that can hold an impressive 20 ounces worth of coffee, keeping it at the perfect temperature for you to enjoy for hours on end, and the Trade MiiR Tumbler, capable of holding up to 16 ounces of coffee.
Things We Love
If we haven’t made is painfully obvious already–we LOVE Trade Coffee. There are many aspects of Trade Coffee that make it an easy choice for those who love coffee subscriptions, and here are our favorite qualities.
Roasting Time & Variety
When you sign up for a coffee subscription through Trade Coffee, you can rest assured knowing that each batch/bag of coffee is roasted right before it’s packaged and shipped to your front door. Trade Coffee ensures that not only will you receive the most delicious coffee on the market today, but the freshest.
Likewise, there are over 200 blends and over 200 single-origin coffees for you to choose from! The variety of coffee that you can try through Trade is too great to be disregarded, and if you’re looking for more flavor options, you can try them all through Trade.
Special Sign-Up Prices
Trade Coffee often offers specials on their coffee and subscriptions, and they are currently offering 30% off of the first bag of coffee offered to subscribers. Trade Coffee allows you to kick off your new subscription with access to as many benefits as possible.
Free Shipping
Another great quality about Trade Coffee is that you don’t have to pay for shipping! Since you’re already signing up to purchase regularly shipped coffee, Trade Coffee will go ahead and handle all of the shipping and handling prices for you. So, all you have to do is click a button, and then sit back and relax while you wait for your coffee to arrive–with no extra work or payment!
Easy-To-Read Labels
Though all of the bags of coffee sent to us by Trade are already well labeled on their own, Trade also does a fantastic job of labeling their own instructions and information that subscribers should be aware of during the brewing process. Whether that’s details about the coffee or explanations on how to use certain products, Trade coffee provides you with what you need every step of the way.
Compostable Cold Brew Bags
Made from corn-based fiber, Trade’s cold brew bags are easily compostable, allowing you to continue using them even after you’re done brewing. These bags are easy on the brewing process and are also easy on the environment.
Things To Improve
Trade has already done a pretty impressive job this far, but there are some things that could be improved to take it from great to perfect. Having a wide range of roasters can be a great benefit, but it can also cause a few problems. Here are a few things that we noticed that could be improved when it comes to Trade Coffee.
No K-Cup Option
One downside to Trade coffee is that since they source from so many different roasters, there is a variety of blends, yet not all of the brewing options are covered. Unfortunately, there is no K-Cup option for those who brew with Keurigs or single-serve machines.
The best option for those who brew with single-serve machines would be purchasing reusable pod filters to place ground coffee from Trade into. Though this problem is easy enough to solve, if you’re a diehard Keurig user you may prefer a subscription that ships out K-cups.
Variable Pricing
Though it’s great that so many roasters are easily accessible through a subscription with Trade Coffee, there’s also a gap between how expensive certain bags of coffees can be.
Ranging from $15 to $30, there are many brands that can fit into your price range, but other subscriptions go with a fixed pricing model instead so you pay the same fee every month and they send you new coffee.
Limits On Availability
Furthermore, though there are a diverse amount of brands to choose from, not all of these roasters roast certain blends on the same day. All roasters already have their own schedules for what roasts are done on which days of the week, but Trade coffee provides you with which days a brand may be roasting certain blends, helping you to decide the best time for you to order your coffee.
This is generally the nature of getting your coffee freshly roasted, so it’s worth the wait – but if you’re used to just picking up some national brand of coffee off the local grocery shelf, this might be an adjustment for you.
The Verdict
Ultimately, Trade Coffee is a great choice for those who may already have a decent knowledge of coffee, as well as the variety of roasts, blends, and brewing techniques that often come with brewing quality coffee at home. Whether you’re looking to experiment with different coffee roasters, cupping notes, or regions where coffee is grown, Trade Coffee can provide you with samples of all of these methods of experimentation.
However, if you aren’t much of a risk-taker when it comes to expanding your coffee palate and usually just prefer to make drip coffee in the comfort of your own home, then Trade Coffee may not be the best choice for you. If you’re more of the grocery-store drip-coffee type, then it honestly can be a little overwhelming.
The final verdict is this: Trade Coffee is definitely worth the try if you’re searching for an ideal coffee subscription. If you’re looking for a well-serviced coffee subscription, then Trade is a delicious option for you to try on your taste buds!
Happy caffeinating!
Trade Coffee Subscription Review: Totally Terrific or Terrible?
Trade Coffee offers a variety of some of the most delicious coffees through their efficient, simple, affordable coffee subscription! Read our review here!
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