jpender wrote: Shipping cost. To order a single bag from a roaster often costs $6-10. On Amazon it might be free.

But the freshness issue... it's a big one in my mind.

I use several roasters that have free shipping over $25-30. That is like 2 bags!

Often order Caffe Lusso "Grand Miscela Carmo"-- on a kilo you get free shipping. Good fresh medium roast beans at a fair price. No need for Amazon for beans.

I do the same thing, order multiple bags to avoid shipping cost or at least reduce it on a per bag basis.

But if the cost per bag for just one bag were the same there would definitely be times that's what I'd do. In fact, I did do this recently when a roaster I'd never tried before had a free shipping deal. And I was really glad I only got that one bag and not a whole kilo like I did another time I tried a new roaster.

I have been using Starbucks and never getting the taste or results I wanted, So I didn't want to drive over 15 miles to get a bag. After listening to the comments of most of you guys, I've decided to go to a local roaster here in FL Calusa coffee they have excellent ratings. I truly thank everyone for their rock solid advice, I'll keep you posted I'm picking up the beans tomorrow. By the way I've decided to go with a light roast Ethiopian.

I found the perfect Local roaster of coffee beans in Fort Lauderdale, went to his shop and got an education on coffee. I picked up a bag of Ethiopian beans, Just love the flavour and smoothness of it.
https://www.thechosenbean.com/

B2uatk wrote:These guys I think sell thru both eBay and amazon - and are supposedly fresh roasted -

https://www.nicoletticoffee.com

I ordered couple of times a few years back and it was OK.

We loved Aldo's espresso and got 5 pounds every month for a long time. We ordered from him, and it was roasted the same or next day and shipped within hours. All of a sudden, we had to buy from Amazon, so I called him. He promised that nothing would change, and he was right........until one day he disappeared from Amazon and was selling on eBay. At that point, we gave up and have had a Paradise subscription ever since.

We feel terrible because Aldo Nicoletti is a good guy who's trying hard to survive in an environment hostile to small local roasters (and apparently, to all small and early stage businesses). I know from personal experience as an Amazon affiliate / associate that they do little or nothing to help the little guy. Our startup was pushed out of the program for insufficient clickthroughs despite the fact that we met their stated requirements for volume. They claimed that some of our clickthrough sales were not valid, even though they were made to people in Seattle and we're on the east coast.

Nicoletti is still AWOL from Amazon, which is a shame. His coffee is wonderful, he's a great guy, and the potential is there for him to move a lot of product on the big A. We're just too old to start chasing bags of coffee and leaving our credit card info on multiple sites because a vendor is being squeezed by one after another.