Choosing a Roaster's Choice Subscription

Travel the world of coffee without leaving your home

Certainty and surprise. Too much of one can be boring, the other nerve-wracking. But the right mixture can lead to a very pleasant experience, like being certain that you will have a pleasant surprise. These kinds of things are rare, but that’s the exact mentality we’ve tried to bring into our single origin “Roaster’s Choice” coffee subscription program. 

Is it right for you? We’ll answer that with a little riddle: What do Colombia, El Salvador, Papua New Guinea, and Rwanda have in common? Read on to find out, and see how our current customers have already had a personal tour of the coffee world!

What is a Roaster’s Choice Subscription?

We put a lot of time and passion into sourcing for our single origin specialty coffee program (single origin is any coffee that solely comes from one farm, cooperative, or producer). Each year, we get thousands of samples from around the world, then get to roasting, cupping, and scoring them as we whittle down the ones that “wow” us and have a great story to match its taste. When sourcing and selecting, we try to design our lineup so there’s a nice balance of origins, tastes, and prices. But, due to coffee harvest schedules and limited availability, the coffees that we offer come and go through the year.

Our Roaster’s Choice subscription, then, is simply a monthly selection of our current single origin lineup. Each month, subscribers receive one of the coffees that we think is tasting great and meet a few criteria. So it’s 12 different coffees a year, sent on their schedule. 

How is the selection determined?

When we decide what coffee to make Roaster’s Choice for the month, we consider:

• What coffee origins have our subscribers received recently?
• We want subscribers to experience different coffee origins from around the world
• What is freshest? 
• We want our subscribers (and all of our customers) to have coffee that is fresh and is tasting its best 
• What kind of flavors have our recent coffees had?
• We want subscribers to have a good mix of actual tastes along with origins. For example, Brazilian coffees are generally known for a nice nuttiness, while Ethiopian coffees range from fruity to floral to chocolatey. Getting this back to back provides an excellent change of pace. 

The coffee that you receive is a bit of a surprise (but you can always email us and ask!), but it’s mixed in with the certainty of knowing that your subscription is: 

• carefully curated 
• a mixture of the best coffees in the world, and
• comes to your door on your schedule without you having to do a thing!

As an added bonus, the Roaster’s Choice program is $16.49 a month, which is almost always cheaper than the bag that you receive.

Different coffees from around the world

Coffees from 2020 & 2021

Let’s take a look at the coffees we’ve launched since early 2020 to see how this plays out: 

Looking at October 2020 through January 2021 more closely, we went from a delightfully smooth and fruit El Salvadorian coffee (Central America) to a floral and citrusy washed Ethiopian (African), to our ever-popular seasonal blend of Ethiopia and Sumatra (Africa / Indonesia) and finished with a two-fer month of some punchy, sweet African coffees. 

Thus, through the year, subscribers essentially travel the coffee world.

So is it right for you?

To recap:

• Roaster’s Choice is carefully curated and changes monthly
• Roaster’s Choice comes at a discount versus normal retail price
• Roaster’s Choice is a great way to get a better understanding of the world of coffee and to keep things fresh in your coffee life

So, the Roaster’s Choice recurring (i.e. pay as you go) subscription can be a perfect way to keep your coffee fresh and your coffee life from going stale. It also makes the perfect gift to the coffee lover in your life! Mixed in with some of the tips and tricks from our previous blog, you can set yourself up with Roaster’s Choice in a variety of ways. 

For instance, you could set a subscription for 700 every 2 weeks, then interchange with Roaster’s Choice so you can have a stellar, consistent blend followed up with an always new single origin (week 1 700, week 3 Roaster's Choice, and so on).

Choosing Roaster’s Choice

Humility is a core value at Kaldi’s, but we are pretty proud of our Roaster’s Choice program. It's a fantastic representation of the passion and thoughtfulness that we put into our coffee sourcing. Many customers have found that it’s the right fit for them, and we think it has a place in every coffee lover’s life. And when paired with our set-it-and-forget-it subscription model, tasting the world of coffee is easier than ever. 

Read Next:

MAKING A COFFEE SUBSCRIPTION WORK FOR YOU

Related content:

• Much More Than A Blend: 700 | Kaldi's Coffee Blog

• Choosing Your Next Single Origin Coffee | Kaldi's Coffee Blog

• Coffee Processing & Your Cup | Kaldi's Coffee Blog