Clint Orchuk wrote:That's too much to pay for shipping a pound of coffee. The 5 lbs of coffee Red Bird sent me cost them $8 USPS Priority and arrived in two days. Reasonable shipping charges are a big part of the equation when I buy anything online.

I wouldn't want to pay $10/# for shipping either, but compare apples to apples.
Intelly will ship me 5#'s of Black Cat for $9.37 (total shipping for the order), and discount the coffee price two bucks a pound. Per pound price is thus about the original $17 per pound quoted above. I suppose it's more if you're further from their ship point than I am.

"Chocolate" blends from quality roasters tend to be cheaper than the more exotic fruit/acid-forward coffees like BC.

Just so everyone in the thread knows 16oz of coffee will typically roast down to about 12oz. The typical roaster will have to roast about 20-22oz to get 1lb out of the roaster. Now factor in the price of the roaster, usually around $5-$6k per kilogram of roasting capacity, factor in sourcing / shipping beans and employing people to do this, factor in propane / LG to roast as well as the salary of a master roaster to just name a few expenses. Yes they are obviously making money, but the cost of this coffee per pound for them per pound roasted is not cheap either (Not that I am by any means trying to justify $27 shipped. . . . )

As Jim said, minus the initial investment home roasting is a great way to save money. Roasting is a skill and even with an automated machine it takes a lot of practice to pull off good roasts. You may not be stealing business from Counter Culture or Intelli, but you slowly acquire the ability to roast great coffee. On the journey you learn a lot about different origins, growing altitudes, processing methods, growing seasons, etc. It is a lot of fun and you learn a lot!

You can even buy quite a few of these blends green from various roasters. They seem to run about $5-$8 per pound plus shipping. There are some negatives to blending greens before roasting, but you should still end up with something enjoyable.

There are some deals to be had out there, you are not going to get 5 pounds for 25 dollars. But some of my favorites are using the homebarista coupon at Metropolis to get 2 bucks off a pound of coffee and then loading up to just above 50 dollars to get free shipping. Then there is also the three pack at Counter Culture that is about 38ish shipped for 3 12 oz bags, while not a screaming deal is very reasonable. And of course Redbird Espresso and then you can even add another pound of coffee to try without paying shipping.

At Whole Foods you can normally get something that is decent and freshly roasted from their store roasted coffee for under ten bucks if you buy whatever is on sale.

Does that Home-Barista coupon work in person at Metropolis?

For anyone really bent on getting Black Cat sans exorbitant shipping charges, Intelligentsia does nationwide cafe distribution (and either the guy at the Angry Catfish in Minneapolis gave me a free double with my lb, or it was actually a quarter cheaper than Intelligentsia charges). In that instance the bag was roasted a week prior. However, when I picked up a bag from a different place in St. Paul (Bar's Bakery) the freshest bag was a month old...

Intrepid510 wrote:There are some deals to be had out there, you are not going to get 5 pounds for 25 dollars. But some of my favorites are using the homebarista coupon at Metropolis to get 2 bucks off a pound of coffee and then loading up to just above 50 dollars to get free shipping. Then there is also the three pack at Counter Culture that is about 38ish shipped for 3 12 oz bags, while not a screaming deal is very reasonable. And of course Redbird Espresso and then you can even add another pound of coffee to try without paying shipping.

At Whole Foods you can normally get something that is decent and freshly roasted from their store roasted coffee for under ten bucks if you buy whatever is on sale.

How do you get the HB/Metropolis discount?

Oh you know that was a discount they had going over the summer (2011) this is a pretty old post at this point.

I believe they still offer free shipping over 50 dollars tho, so a 5 lb bag of Redline is around 60 last time I checked, which is pretty good.

You could also buy five pound bags of Klatch at roaste.com with free shipping, and 10% off. So it makes it more resonable. Or just spending over 40 dollars for any one roaster on their site gets free shipping as well, not to mention their 19 dollars for unlimited shipping over a 6 month period.

You also may look into Deep Cello, the last time I got some beans from them which was a little more then a month ago it cost me 3.95 for a pound of coffee shipped by USPS and they have good coffee

Intrepid510 wrote:You could also buy five pound bags of Klatch at roaste.com with free shipping, and 10% off. So it makes it more resonable. Or just spending over 40 dollars for any one roaster on their site gets free shipping as well, not to mention their 19 dollars for unlimited shipping over a 6 month period.

I thought you also have to sign up for a subscription (VIP) in order to get the free shipping deal. For some of their offereings, their prices are not competitive anymore. I can just buy direct from the roasters at the same or cheaper prices. roaste's search capability is also not up to par. I usually have to use google to search for something like "French roast" as roaste would just return anything of the dark roast variety. Way too much hassle.

At least some of the roasters who are sponsors here offer discount coupons in their newsletters, if you don't mind signing up for some email. Also useful to check the Marketplace here for occasional discounts.

I find 2 pounds a good balance between price break and not too much of the same thing, if you're OK with 5 pounds I assume the deal is even better, especially when you can get free or inexpensive shipping.

I think Klatch, Compass both offer 2 and 5 pound bags,

Klatch has occasional free shipping deals,

Compass has had incredible sales here and their discount banner is still at the top of the page now, their rate for (USPS) shipping is, I believe $5.50, very good shipping rate for a big box of coffee.

Paradise has (I think) 5 pounds and a 5 X 12oz bag rate (and low cost shipping too, last I looked)

Good luck.