I am still debating if the coffee subscriptions are for me. I have ordered a three months prepaid filter subscription from a roaster I respect to give it a try. So far, my first and second month were bags of coffee from Uganda (first natural, second washed). Both coffees were not listed on their website, although one was listed on their special espresso roast page, but the subscription I have is for filter, hence filter roast. I think I prefer to be able to choose the type of coffee and I am not sure if the subscription is for me, the benefit of subscription seem a slight cost savings and the fact that the coffee just comes in the post without thinking too much about it.

What is your opinion on the coffee subscriptions? Do you feel it is a good value, do you trust you will be happy with the coffee you will get, or do you think it locks you in with a particular roaster who then tries to maximise their business profits by purchasing particular green coffee for subscribers to manage the lower cost they charge compared to regular bags?

I've had the La Marzocco subscription for two months and it's been great. They select a different roaster every month. So far all four bags have been lighter roasts that are good for espresso and filter coffee. I think Fellow also has a rotating roaster subscription. So that is an option, too.

Thank you, I believe this is good model for the customers in USA, not sure if the multi roaster subscription model is available elsewhere, I can take a look.

Jazzcat wrote:What is your opinion on the coffee subscriptions? Do you feel it is a good value, do you trust you will be happy with the coffee you will get, or do you think it locks you in with a particular roaster who then tries to maximise their business profits by purchasing particular green coffee for subscribers to manage the lower cost they charge compared to regular bags?

I don't think it's really possible or sensible to generalise about subscriptions, since it's not really possible or sensible to generalise about roasters. There are different business models:

You are always trusting the roasters to pick the coffees. Some are hopeless green buyers, some are excellent, just as some roasters are hopeless at roasting. When looking at a subscription, I think it's a good idea to work out what, stylistically, the roaster is trying to achieve; for example:
*Is it a blend subscription, where the idea is, say, to provide a consistent flavour profile that people don't have to think about? For example, a subscription for an espresso blend for milk based coffees for an office. Is that what you want?
*Is it a single origin subscription, with the aim of giving you a broad survey of what the world of coffee has to offer? If so, if you have opinions, you're likely to like some and hate others. If you can find a roaster whose roast style you like, this might be a nice way for people that don't know much about varieties, processing and regions to learn about them (tip: keep some in the freezer and taste each successive coffee next to the previous one to have a point of comparison).
*Is it a single origin subscription, with the aim of delivering coffees of a particular style? And do you like that style? For example, I have subs to a few roasters who roast light and buy very clean coffees, but which others might think of as bland. I can see that others might prefer darker roasts, or more intensely flavoured and fermented coffees, even if they are a bit dirtier in the cup (or they might prefer to bury their head in the sand and assert that the coffees are cleaner than they are; you do you).

The financial models also differ quite a lot. Some roasters even have sophisticated scaling models, where the price goes down the more you commit to and the further in advance you pre-pay. And you can imagine that if they finance their business with a loan facility, they could be factoring in the interest savings and passing that on to us as customers in the form of a discount. I imagine that how much roasters value the practical, if not actual, security of income this provides varies. Some roasters seem to have subscriber exclusive stuff.

The multi-roaster stuff is also a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. I mean the elephant in the room is that there's an extra profit participant in the value chain. I suspect that probably if a coffee roaster sells wholesale to cafes, then maybe that isn't going to cause a reduction in quality if the middleman is buying at wholesale prices. Equally, I have heard from some roasters that the middlemen really squeeze roasters down on price. All speculation, of course. I can imagine that roasters selling into Fellow or La Marzocco may view the exercise as a customer acquisition exercise, given that they're going to a pool of customers who have relatively expensive equipment, and probably have some geek enthusiasm, so even if Fellow or LM's cut is huge, you'd expect that the roaster would put their best foot forward. If it's a set and forget multi roaster sub where the only value add is that the person running the sub is local, or if it's part of a general grocery sub or something, you can imagine a roaster being more sceptical of the target market and putting cheaper green coffee into the sub. Still, I can see that multi-roaster subs may be a nice way for people to get exposure to a few different roasters, with a view to discontinuing the sub once they discover a roaster they really like and instead buying direct from that roaster.

Personally, I split a few subs from very experienced and established roasters who tend to have the same prejudices I have when it comes to green coffee selection, and the drawcards are all of the green buyer's expertise, the roast quality not being as bad as their compeitors, and the price breaks.