When it comes to coffee, freshness is really essential. Because of this, you purchase whole beans, ground them just before you make the coffee, and consume all of the beans within approximately a week, right?
The argument made by Blue Bottle Coffee is that there is a window of optimal taste within that timeframe – a best-of-the-best moment, comparable to the time when fruits and vegetables are at their peak maturity. In addition, they time the shipment of your coffee to ensure that it reaches just before the taste is at its greatest.
Does this seem like something you might be interested in trying out? Check out our analysis of Blue Bottle coffee to see whether or not this coffee shop is the realization of your coffee-fueled fantasies…
Blue Bottle Coffee: Who Are They?
The early years of the 21st century saw Blue Bottle Coffee making its home in Silicon Valley. James Freeman was a classical musician who had become disillusioned with the industry that surrounded classical music.
On the other hand, his passion for coffee was on the rise. He desired beans that were of a higher quality than those that were readily available on the market at the time.
Therefore, he made a move. He went out and purchased a cheap coffee roaster and began doing tests in his garage. Soon after that, he started his own coffee roasting business.
Now, over twenty years later, Blue Bottle Coffee has outlets all around the globe, including Japan, China, and Korea, amongst others.
Blue Bottle coffee is not attempting to sell its coffee at the lowest possible price on the market. In point of fact, they come out to be somewhat pricey on a per-cup basis.
There is a compelling explanation behind it. They are committed to perfection and pay close attention to detail, as well as quality and aesthetics in their work. They maintain a straightforward appearance, which allows the inherent qualities of each coffee to take center stage.
Blue Bottle Coffee is known for not dousing the beans with syrups or whipped cream as many other brands do. They don’t transform the coffee into a fancy dessert like that.
They want you to appreciate coffee, the type of carefully crafted, high-quality coffee that is so good that it is almost unethical to add sugary syrups or other flavorings to it.
They establish long-term ties with the growers by working directly with them to produce even higher-quality coffee.
They are willing to pay premiums for high-quality coffee, and their prices are comparable to or even higher than those of Fair Trade. They take great satisfaction in serving coffee that can be traced back to its origin.
The origin of a significant portion of their selection may be traced back to individual farmers or groups of farmers with whom they have maintained long-term connections.
It has not gone unnoticed as Blue Bottle places an unwavering emphasis on using only beans from a single origin that are of a very high grade.
Due to the independent company’s stellar reputation and widespread popularity, multinational conglomerate Nestle acquired a controlling interest in Blue Bottle in 2017 for an eye-popping amount of money.
But this has not altered their independent spirit in any way, and the unique atmosphere and commitment to quality that Freeman had when he first founded the firm are still there today.
Closer Look At The Blue Bottle Coffee Review
Blue Bottle Coffee Review
Quick Review
- Brand: Blue Bottle Coffee
- Item Form: Whole Bean
- Caffeine Content: Decaffeinated
- Roast Level: Medium_roast
- Specialty: Certified Organic
The baristas at Blue Bottle Coffee give each individual batch of coffee (various roasts, blends, and single-origin coffees) a blind taste test in order to determine when the coffee has reached its full flavor potential. After that, they give each kind of coffee a second tasting over the subsequent several days to evaluate how long it maintains that ideal flavor level.
When they mail your subscription, they provide tasting notes that offer an estimate of how much longer the coffee you’ve purchased will remain at its peak quality. Naturally, they urge their consumers to organize their choices in a chart of their own making.
Pros
- The freshest coffee on the market, roasted and shipped only after an order is placed.
- Blends, single-origin beans, and espresso are all part of the subscriptions.
- Perfectly Ground can be bought whole or already ground.
- Pre-ground coffee is shipped in single-serving packets that are vacuum-sealed.
- Each bean is tasted by hand once a week to make sure the quality and consistency of the coffee.
- Single-origin offerings that have a mix of the familiar and the strange
Cons
- less to choose from than some services
- Prices are a little bit more expensive, especially for pre-ground
Blue Bottle Coffee Club Subscription Service
With its subscription service, Blue Bottle Coffee tries to give you what you want in your cup, whether it’s something new or something you’re used to.
Blue Bottle’s subscription service, called “Blue Bottle at Home,” starts with the simple (and now popular) promise to send out coffee within 24 hours of being roasted.
What’s different about Blue Bottle? As we’ve already said, it’s all about the quality.
Every cup or taste of coffee that Blue Bottle Coffee sells is done by a professional. Their team of certified Q graders is in charge of finding coffee.
Yes, they are all licensed. Each coffee goes above and beyond the standards for specialty coffee, so you can expect cupping scores of 84 or higher.
Sounds great, right? It’s as close as a subscription service will get to it.
After finding the coffees they like, Blue Bottle Coffee roasts them in small batches.
Even though it’s done by a machine, this is often called “hand roasting.” Each coffee is roasted in a way that keeps the flavor of its origin and the unique qualities of the bean.
Then, they ship the beans right from the roastery. As part of this high-quality approach, the beans are put in bags that can be composted.
Given how great Blue Bottle Coffee is, it’s not surprising that it has grown. When they first started their subscription service, they just delivered a few bags of coffee to people’s doors. Oh, how much they’ve grown!
Subscription Coffee Services: How To Choose The Right One
The key to being happy is picking the right coffee subscription service for your needs. First, think about these main points:
Frequency. How much coffee do you drink in a week or month? Do you plan to use this coffee club as your main way to get beans, or is it just a nice change from how you usually make coffee? Think about this when you look at the options for joining the club.
How do you like your coffee? What do you want, a new favorite coffee to drink every day? A lot of different kinds of coffee from faraway places? Some clubs are better at getting your taste profile right and getting it right again and again. Some clubs are more like having your own personal Indiana Jones who brings you coffee from faraway places. (As far as we know, coffee clubs don’t give out cursed objects. I think that’s a good thing.)
Overall cost. If you want good specialty coffee, you should know that it will cost a little more than cheap beans in a can. But unless you can afford to fly to Guatemala or Sumatra every week (in which case, you probably don’t need a coffee club), you’re probably trying to stick to a budget of some kind. Make sure you know the total cost, including shipping, how often it will come, and how much it will cost per bag, so you don’t get any unpleasant surprises on your credit card bill each month.
Our Full Blue Bottle Coffee Review
Founded in the late 17th century, The Blue Bottle in Vienna was central Europe’s first coffee house. Currently, Blue Bottle’s focus is on freshness, flavor, and consistency.
Coffee Selection – 4.5/5
Blue Bottle Coffee tests each coffee they sell – single origins, blends, espresso, and all levels of roasting – by tasting it, and you only get it when they decide it’s at its best.
The website’s match quiz told us to go to their Giant Steps, which is named after a classic John Coltrane song. There are beans from Uganda, New Guinea, and Sumatra in this mix.
Blends can tell you a lot about a coffee company, like whether the coffee is being blended down to make it cheaper or up to make it better.
The bag of Giant Steps that came a few days later had all of the flavors listed in their match quiz. It smelled like cocoa, toasted marshmallows, and graham crackers, and it tasted like chocolate and caramel. Giant Steps was great both in a pour-over and in a Moka pot, where the fines and higher extraction really brought out the best in the African and Indonesian beans.
Like Peet’s Coffee, which we reviewed here, Blue Bottle loses a half-point because you can only order a small number of coffees. Blue Bottle currently has 19 single-serve coffees and three boxes with three or five of their most popular coffees.
Compared to some of the clubs we’ve looked at, where there were 400 or 500 coffees to choose from, there are only 19. We took away 0.5 points.
Unique Features – 4.5/5
The fine, individually tested freshness window and the taste and sophistication of their roastmasters are two things that work in Blue Bottle’s favor. Blue Bottle can’t rely on sheer volume because it only sells 19 kinds of coffee. They make up for it with their knowledge of how to roast beans and what each bean’s source is like.
Their blends, in particular, stand out because of this. They have seven blends, of which three are made for espresso. The rest are single-origin beans. Some of them come from plantations in well-known places, like Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Kenya. Three of them come from different parts of Brazil. Some of the items come from places that aren’t as popular, like Myanmar and Timor.
But their blends, like the one we liked, Giant Steps, are definitely made to a high standard and not to save money. Each of the different coffees had its own unique flavor that added to the overall flavor.
Price – 4.5/5
The price is on the high end, but you get what you pay for, especially in terms of how fresh the food is. People know that Blue Bottle Coffee isn’t cheap. There’s a reason, though.
With a subscription, the price of each bag goes down by between $1 and $3. This is the same as getting a free bag of coffee for every six to ten bags you buy.
Shipping costs about $5 per package, which is about the same as other online coffee shops. You can also sign up for a free trial subscription and only pay for shipping. After you get your package, you’ll have the chance to say “no thanks.”
If you want ground coffee, Blue Bottle has a product called “Perfectly Ground.” Not only is it finely ground to fit your brewing method (pour-over, French press, or coffee maker), but it’s also packaged in single-serve pouches that are vacuum-sealed.
What is it? At $3.50 per serving, it’s not cheap. Brewing whole bean coffee at the SCAA’s Golden Ratio of 55g/liter costs less than fifty cents a cup.
Still, if you want to splurge every once in a while (like when you go camping, travel, or have a sleepover with That Certain Special Someone who likes tea), Perfectly Ground could be a great option because of how fresh it is and how well it grinds.
Overall Experience – 5/5
The match quiz from Blue Bottle goes beyond the usual ways to describe coffee flavors and gets to the heart of what you like. It starts by asking you what kind of coffee you like best, such as French press, pour-over, espresso, and more. You can choose as many as fit.
The quiz then goes into detail about the tastes you like, such as whether they are light or juicy, bright or deep, floral or earthy. The quiz then asks you about your favorite chocolate, spices, and salad dressing, which is a bit of a surprise. Then they give you two coffees that match the picture they’ve made of your favorite tastes and smells.
It’s coffee that is so carefully sourced that buyers like Freeman, who started Blue Bottle, can tell you the names of some of the people who pick it and describe the shade trees it grows under.
Blue Bottle Coffee sends out bags in 6, 12, 24, and 36-ounce sizes on a regular basis. You can choose to have it come once, twice, three, or four times a month. You can set up a schedule that works for you no matter how much or how little you drink.
Our order was roasted on Monday and arrived on Wednesday, so it was very fresh.
To get coffee that’s closer to being made, you’d have to stand outside and wait for the doors to open.
The smell and taste both made it clear how fresh it was. Our Giant Steps beans smelled great when they arrived, and both the Hario and the Moka pot made a great cup of rich, full-flavored coffee. That’s being flexible.
Our order came in a well-known zip-lock bag that was airtight, lightproof, and sealed with a CO2 valve. One small complaint: the zip-lock seal is narrower than those used by some other shippers, and when we closed it, it didn’t always make a tight seal. One morning, we found that the bag had gotten opened. We should have used a coffee canister to store the coffee. We found a way around it by folding the bag over and putting a rubber band around it to keep air from getting in. But this doesn’t happen with some bigger bags.
Conclusion
The dedication to quality and uniformity that Blue Bottle Coffee demonstrates is unparalleled in the industry. The fact that they do weekly tastings of every bean, not only single-origin beans but also the beans that go into their one-of-a-kind mixes as well, helps to assure that each and every cup will consistently provide you with the same level of delicacy and complexity.
