Trade Coffee Subscription Review (Read Before You Sign Up!)

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Coffee delivered to your door? Sign. Me. Up. We are big coffee drinkers in our household. So much so that we upgraded our Nespresso machine to a Breville espresso machine this year. This was a big leap for us. But all I can think is, why didn’t we do this sooner?

One question my husband and I had was, now that we have the espresso machine (our preferred but by no means the only way to make coffee), where do we get our coffee from?

We want fresh beans and we like trying different brews. We also like supporting local (a big theme with millennials and Gen Z), so I really like that this company does that! I was thrilled to learn more about Trade Coffee and try it myself!

Trade Coffee Subscription Review

Who is Trade Coffee?

Let’s start with a little background of the company.

Trade Coffee Company offers a large assortment of ethically sourced coffees to their subscribers, giving a better product to the consumer and a fair-trade price to the growers!

Their mission is to support local communities near and far by connecting coffee drinkers to even better coffee. They want to help you discover and make better coffee at home while upholding the highest standards of ethical sourcing and quality.

If the coffees’ they source from their roasters aren’t fair-trade certified, they have to still be sourced at an above fair-trade price to be featured on their site and in their subscriptions.

They also aren’t all certified organic, however this is because coffee is a fragile crop and it is hard to raise successfully without the use of any pesticides or herbicides as well as USDA organic crops can still have some naturally sourced pesticides used in them but Trade Coffee does do their absolute best to ensure they offer their subscribers the highest quality coffees. 

So what happens after I sign up?

The subscriptions they offer are highly personalized and customizable to their each subscriber.

To begin your subscription on their website you have to take a seven question quiz which they use your responses to curate coffee selections that are tailored just for you! Their selections are made using expert backed data to bring you the best choices. 

The quiz includes these questions:

1. How do you make your coffee?

They start off by asking what your preferred method of brewing coffee is at home. They ask this because some coffee roasts will brew better in different ways!

They have options for everything from a regular drip coffee maker, a Chemex, and even refillable pods (K-cups!) The only method they do not cover and offer is a standard Keurig pods simply because none of their roasters offer coffee that way. 

2. What is your coffee experience level?

Let them know if you’re a new coffee drinker or a coffee nerd! They ask this to help gain an understanding of what your understanding of coffee is (and where you are on your coffee journey.) They use this response to help better understand your other answers!

3. Do you add anything to your coffee?

Do you take your coffee black or are you a cream and sugar person? Do you have a favorite creamer flavor? All coffees pair differently with different additives and some are best on their own! How you like to drink your coffee gives them another vector they can use to narrow down which roast is best for you!

4. What roast level do you enjoy?

To put it simply some people like different strengths and flavors of coffee! Trade uses their own “scale” to measure whether a coffee is light, medium, or dark to help tailor the coffee in your bag to fit what you want. 

5. How do you like your coffee to taste?

Whether you like a classic coffee or something surprising and unconventional, Trade has a coffee for you! Answering this question tells them more specifically what flavor you enjoy, whether it be something you’d generally expect in a cup of coffee or you want a brew that better preserves the flavor of the fruit. You can also defer to them if you’d like them to pick!

6. Do you buy ground coffee, whole bean, or both?

They ask this because if you only buy ground coffee, they don’t want to send you a roast that is only available in whole bean! They do recommend grinding your own though, the flavor is better and the work is worth it! (And they offer a chat to help you get started in grinding if you need some help on where to start!)

7. What type of coffee do you drink?

The only choices here are regular and decaf because they want you to get (or not get) what you want out of your cup! 

Once you’re responded to all of those, they have one more question to ask! They offer two different plans and you pick which one you’re interested in.

Click here to get started with the quiz!

The Plans and How It Works

The “Select” plan is the basic plan they offer, and with that you’ll get recommendations from 200+ craft blends of their most accessible roasts.

With the “Premium” plan you get more options at a slightly higher price point. The Premium plan scours 450+ of their most rare and unique blends to give you something that is truly tailored to your taste. 

Once you’ve picked your plan, they offer two flexible subscriptions to bring you your best coffee on your best schedule.

The “Hookup” gives you more of an adventurous coffee subscription, sending you different roasts based on your personal preferences with each shipment. The “classics” is a little more consistent, sending you a rotation of coffees curated to you! 

Pros and Cons

Now that we’ve gone over how the set-up works, let’s talk about the pros and cons.

Pros

• Delivered to your door: This goes without saying that it’s a huge pro to get high quality coffee sourced from all over the world delivered to your door.
• You can change your queue: Once you have a description, Trade shows you what’s upcoming in your next few orders. You’re able to switch it up from what’s been pre-curated for you. You can also view your matches and add things to your upcoming orders and switch out what is pre-selected for you. Love that!
• Compostable shipping bag: I love that they ship their coffee in a compostable bag! It’s much better for the environment than one-time use plastic.
• Support local roasters: The coffees all come from small, local roasters so you can feel good about supporting small businesses
• Fresh beans delivered: I like that everything is delivered to your door fresh so your beans aren’t sitting for weeks at a time and don’t get stale.

Cons

• Subscription required: You have to sign up with a subscription to try the coffee. Which makes sense since they are a subscription.

I’ve thought long and hard about the cons but so far after receiving Trade for several round of my subscription, this is the main con I can think of.

Pricing

Now let’s talk about the pricing. I think it’s actually pretty affordable for coffee! We used to spend hundreds of dollars every other month stocking up on Nespresso pods.

We drink most of our coffee at home since both my husband and I work from home. Trade has a few different plans available. And we can spend about $100 per month on high quality coffee. Here is a breakdown of their pricing:

In Summary: Trade Coffee Subscription Review

Overall I think Trade is doing something very right! Coffee is often high in mold, produced unethically, and stale by the time it gets to you. Trade’s model ensures that your beans are fresh, the roasters are held to Fair Trade Standards, and the coffee of the quality is top of the line.

If you want to try if for yourself, here is $25 off and free shipping!

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