I've been mainly drinking Starbucks single origin coffees for a while now due to the fact that it's probably the best thing I have access to where I live. I want to have a better coffee experience with fresher roasted coffee so I'm thinking of ordering from Stumptown, Intelligentsia, La Colombe, Blue Bottle, etc.

La Colombe is probably the first one I'll try. So, what do you think? Do you suggest any roasters that ship internationally? What about the coffees do you think I should try first?

And do you think it's a good idea to start a subscription to try out different coffees and develop a palate?

Please keep in mind that I would probably have to use my forwarding shipping account for the fastest shipping (order to my US account then get it forwarded to where I live, which is costly and takes about 12 days - or go with Airmail which is cheaper but slower).

+1 for Squaremile Coffee.

I live in Singapore, and it takes 9-10 days to reach me. I suspect shipping coffee from US via a forwarder can reach me around the same time too (I think that was the case for my friends a couple of years back) but I think it will be more expensive.

I think first find a roaster or two with reliable and relatively fast shipping (test with buying a bag or two), then go ahead with subscription if you feel confident with the roaster.

Square Mile is great.

Some other high quality European roasters worth considering are (there are loads of more, but I'm not going to list every one of them):

Another UK based roaster is Hasbean. They have a huge amount of different beans and a few reasonably priced starter packs to begin with: http://www.hasbean.co.uk

The Barn from Germany have some great quality beans: http://barn.bigcartel.com

Another great German roaster is Bonanza. They don't list Middle East as a shipping destination, but you can always ask: http://bonanzacoffee.de/shop/

Coffee collective from Denmark: http://coffeecollective.dk

Drop Coffee from Sweden: http://www.dropcoffee.com

Then of course there is Tim Wendelboe himself (although you might find some of the same beans a bit moderately priced at least from Square Mile, The Barn or Drop): https://timwendelboe.no

These should get you started.
I believe all the above do international shipping.

As for which coffees you should pick, just read the descriptions of different coffees and choose the ones that sound most interesting to you.

You might also want to cut down shipping costs by ordering more coffee than you can use in a decent time. Then you might want to search this site for discussions about freezing your coffee...

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll give these roasters a try.

Nick Name, that's a really long (and useful) list; really appreciate it!

chronos wrote: Nick Name, that's a really long (and useful) list; really appreciate it!

Thanks!

One way to look for quality beans (obviously not the only one) is to look for companies that buy their beans from Nordic Approach (co-owned by Tim Wendelboe, BTW).
I've never been disappointed with any single one of of them.

I think it is well worth watching what TW told about FInca Tamana a while ago. It tells you a lot about what is important in coffee sourcing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLMP6FycHI