Blue Bottle Coffee Review: Is it THE Specialty Coffee Subscription of Choice?

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About Blue Bottle Coffee

Since Time Immemorial

Unlike many of the other monthly coffee subscriptions, this name has a long history dated back to as far as the late 1600s.

The story of the first Blue Bottle started in Vienna. Franz George Kolshitsky, an emissary of the Viennese government who could speak both Turkish and Arabic, took on the mission to cross the Turkish borders to deliver news to the Polish troops.

Thanks to his honorable acts, Vienna was rescued and freed from the Turkish army. And, their troops left behind all of their belongings, including “strange bags of beans”.

But Kolshitsky knew exactly what they were from years of living experience in Arab. He decided to buy the coffee and open Blue Bottle, the first coffee house in Central Europe as well as Vienna, kickstarting the region’s coffee culture.

Long Story Short

A few centuries later, in the early two-thousands, a coffee aficionado established a new specialty coffee company in Oakland, California, the United States for fellow coffee enthusiasts. Those who were also sick and tired of the commercial taste of stale and poorly roasted beans. And those who were also in seek of the true rich signature flavor profiles.

To honor Kolshitsky’s heroic acts and his efforts in popularizing great coffee to the public, the founder, James Freeman, decided to name his company Blue Bottle to continue bringing better quality coffee to coffee drinkers all around the globe.

The company has come a long way and developed a coffee subscription service available in nearly a dozen countries and a network of cafes across the motherland of America, Japan, and Korea.

In addition to providing whole bean single-origin and blend coffees, Blue Bottle also sells various coffee tools, including brewing tools like the coffee dripper, filter, and Hario Cold Brew bottle, mugs, dedicated Cold Brew sets, and more.

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What Is So Special About Blue Bottle Coffee To A Coffee Lover?

So, other than its back story, what’s good at Blue Bottle?

Specialty Coffee

Since this is a coffee review, let’s start with the main dish. When buying from Blue Bottle, you can expect all of the beans to exceed specialty-grade standards.

Generally, specialty coffee is considered as coffee that’s properly grown and processed so that it’s free of primary defects and able to produce balanced and consistent coffee flavors once brewed.

To be considered specialty-grade, the beans have to go through a series of grading and cupping tests which will assign them a point on the 100-point system developed by the Specialty Coffee Association [SCA].

According to this scale, any coffee score of 80 and above in points is considered to be a specialty, while beans scoring below that threshold are just commodity coffee.

And, rest assured that every coffee you order from Blue Bottle is at least 84 in points. So you know that the company isn’t here to just meet the industry’s expectations, it’s here to go above and beyond and exceed yours.

Organic Certified & Sustainability

In addition to distributing specialty coffee, Blue Bottle is also committed to bringing organic certified coffee to the table. From growing and processing to roasting, coffee beans aren’t in contact with any harmful chemicals and unnatural additives.

From the very start, back in the early two-thousands, the company has made it a mission to only source organic certified beans and be as environmentally friendly as possible. From buying from specialty coffee importers to actively avoiding plastic and petroleum-based products, Blue Bottle has come a long way.

In 2010, its roastery in Oakland got certified USDA organic. And when sourcing single-origin coffee from regions where organic certification isn’t attainable yet, it partners with suppliers who are actively concerned about sustainability and the environment.

Blue Bottle Coffee also actively strived to innovate the traditional coffee tools such as the dripper and coffee filter and compostable packaging to reduce energy and water consumption and waste, while maximizing the convenience and ease of those tools.

Transparency

Blue Bottle Coffee claims that its coffee is highly traceable thanks to its sourcing practices. And the majority of its coffee producer partners have worked with them for at least 5 years on average.

Fair Trade Prices

What are Fair Trade prices?

Fair Trade prices are price points high and sufficient enough to support the producers’ quality of living, especially those living in developing countries where the income disparity is more severe.

And in this case, specifically, much of the world’s coffee is sourced from coffee farmers living in less developed areas of the world.

So with stress on paying fair trade prices, farmers can benefit from a more appropriate income stream to enhance coffee quality, sustain their environmentally-friendly farming practices, and improve their living conditions and the local community’s economy. All of the benefits we want to see in a sustainable world.

And to do its part of distributing coffee to everyday consumers, Blue Bottle Coffee makes sure to pay a premium, usually much higher than the common Fair Trade prices, to ensure the coffee is of the highest quality and farmers are compensated handsomely.

Q Grader Certified Sourcing Team

In addition, all of the members of the Blue Bottle Coffee sourcing team are certified Q graders. A Q grader is the highest certification for grading and scoring coffees based on the SCA’s standards, as I mentioned earlier, licensed by the Coffee Quality Institute [CQI].

So you can rest assured that be it at the source or Blue Bottle Coffee’s labs, its team has had enough experience and training to grade, source, and conduct taste-tests on every coffee, be it single-origin or a blend at every roast level. All of that efforts are to ultimately distribute only specialty coffee to you.

Roasting Process

Blue Bottle Coffee roasts to order at its roasteries all around the world. Blue Bottle Coffee also roasts in a small batch rather than in bulk to optimize freshness and shipping processes, with the maximum batch reaching 70 kg (around 2,470 oz).

Blue Bottle Coffee also creates its own custom roasting technique and scoring system designed for each coffee, be it blend or single-origin, to best draw out those naturally flavorful compounds and aroma.

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Coffee Match Quiz

If you’re new to the coffee world or just simply want to explore more options out there before settling down with one type, why not do Blue Bottle Coffee’s Match Quiz to find out which Joe should you take home?

All you have to do is answer 10 questions about your favorite coffee brewing methods, how you drink them, how often you consume, your favorite roast level, your desirable flavor profiles, and so on.

Based on how you answer the Match Quiz, Blue Bottle Coffee can offer some potential suits.

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Welcome Kit Subscription

In addition, the Welcome Kit also offers Blue Bottle’s complimentary tools, including a branded coffee dripper and filters, instructions, and a convenient cotton tote bag.

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Trial Subscription

Blue Bottle also offers a trial period where you get a 12 oz bag of your choice for free, except for shipping, but it’s still a great deal. You can try it for yourself and decide whether you want to go through with the subscription. Neat!

The subscription method is similar to the official subscription procedures, which I will explain in the following section.

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Blue Bottle Coffee Subscription Review

Let me demonstrate how you can easily subscribe to this pro-quality-and-freshness coffee subscription service and get to know its wonderful coffees.

Choose Your Whole Bean Coffee

Yes, you read that right. Blue Bottle Coffee doesn’t offer ground coffee, only whole bean coffee, as the company believes that the freshness largely affects the quality, flavor, and aroma of the brewed cup of Joe. A sad day for those relying on ground coffee for their caffeine boost.

This may also be a sign that you should put more effort into brewing specialty coffee at home. As a coffee lover and an informed customer, do yourself a favor by investing in an excellent burr grinder to make coffee great again.

Back to the topic, what kind of coffee does Blue Bottle offer? You get 12 options in total. I’ll explain some in detail later. For now, let’s say you’ve selected one option out of the bundle above. What happens next?

Choose The Number Of Bags Per Shipment

In this step, you’re given 4 options with an estimation of how long it can last so you can select the bag sizes that best match your household and office’s coffee consumption habit.

• Half Bag (6 oz – 170 g): Enough for around one week for 1 to 2 coffee drinkers.
• Standard Bag (12 oz – 340 g): Sustain a 1 to 2 coffee lover household for around 2 weeks. Also the most popular option among the subscribers of Blue Bottle Coffee.
• Double Bag (24 oz – 680 g): Half a month worth of beans for 2-3 coffee drinkers.
• Triple Bag (36 oz – 1020 g): Enough to keep bigger households and offices with around 3 to 4 coffee enthusiasts fulfilled for 2 weeks.

But of course, in the wise words of Albert Einstein, “everything is relative”. Those are mere approximations. If you’re a frequent coffee drinker, you’re probably familiar with how fast you often go through a bag of coffee. Dig up your used bag and use that as a frame of reference.

Choose The Bag Shipment Frequency

Next, pick how often you want your bag to be shipped. Again, there are 4 options available:

• Every week
• Every 2 weeks
• Every 3 weeks
• Every month (4 weeks)

Coffee is best consumed within the 1st and 2nd weeks after roasting.

And it’s still of good quality in the 3rd and 4th week, which explains the time frame available for your subscription shipment.

Of course, you can still drink your coffee after a month and it won’t taste anywhere near terrible. But, the longer the beans are left untouched, the staler they become.

So, keep that in mind and pick the bag and shipment frequency that suits you, your household, and your office’s habits the most. After making your decision, you can click “Proceed to checkout to create a personal account to manage while subscribing to Blue Bottle Coffee.

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Best Blue Bottle Coffee Beans

In this section, I will review some of the best Blue Bottle’s coffees offered in its coffee subscription.

Blue Bottle Coffee also makes sure to switch up its offerings every two weeks to keep the game interesting throughout the journey of the customer with the brand.

Some of the popular types include varieties from Colombia, featuring clear fruity notes reminiscent of the local surrounding nature, such as guava, honey, raspberry, and mango.

You can also distinctly tell the notes of wild raspberry, molasses, and dark chocolate from the brew, making it suitable for enjoying as both a drip black and together with milk and cream.

A 12 oz bag is enough for brewing 8 cups of NOLA, enough to sneak its way right into your heart and diversify your coffee consumption habits, especially in the hot summer.

A popular Blue Bottle’s espresso blend is the 17ft Ceiling Espresso, named after the location of its Mint Plaza cafe in San Francisco. You can enjoy the tasty caramel and almond undertones, highlighted by notes of dried cherry as well.

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Blue Bottle Isn’t For You? Check Out This Other Option

If you’re not satisfied Blue Bottle Coffee after reading this review, you can consider learning more about Atlas Coffee Club, another coffee subscription company you can try.

Atlas Coffee Club is a more affordable option that offers single-origin sustainably sourced coffee from all around the globe under the concept of traveling through your cup of Joe without having to leave the house.

Other than the premium taste and quality, the brand also places a strong emphasis on connecting its customers with the coffee-growing regions to treasure all of the behind-the-scene works that go into making coffee.

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Is Blue Bottle Coffee Subscription Worth It?

Here’s a summary of what you should keep in mind when considering Blue Bottle Coffee.

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