Coffee Bros Review

Monday, December 2nd

2024 Coffee Club Reviews

Coffee Bros

• Pricing: around $17.99 for 12 oz bag
• Sources beans globally, including Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Kenya
• Offers about 30 different coffees
• Won prestigious Cup of Excellence award multiple times
• Detailed product descriptions including taste notes, processing, origin, and more
• Flexible delivery schedule from weekly to every 8 weeks
• Rewards program for registered account holders

Coffee Bros is a young coffee roasting company started by brothers Dan and Nick in 2019. The company sources beans from all over the world, including countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Coffee Bros wants to offer excellent coffee and help coffee farmers at the same time. They do this by partnering directly with coffee-growing communities. To make sure their coffee tastes great, they buy beans when they're in season and clearly mark the roasting date on each bag.

Your coffee is selected by you, not by an algorithm

At Coffee Bros, you have to select the coffee you want delivered, unlike some coffee clubs that surprise you each month with a new selection based on your answers to a preference quiz. There is a coffee preference quiz that can generate suggestions for you, but it's hidden under the "Learn" tab and your results don't automatically influence what you receive in your subscription. Your caffeine delivery can be scheduled to arrive from as frequently as every week to as infrequently as every 8 weeks.

Cupping scores are important to know

We liked that the quiz includes a question about what factors besides flavor would influence your purchase, such as whether the coffee is from an award-winning lot, the length of the relationship between the roaster and the producer, whether it's a well-known varietal, and whether it has a high cupping score. For those unfamiliar, a cupping score is based on aroma, flavor, body, acidity, sweetness, and balance. Commercial coffee usually scores around 79 points, while very good coffee ranges between 80-90. Each category receives a score, and then the total is calculated. The higher the score, the more complex the flavor. You'll see this scoring system referenced around the website.

30 coffees starting from $8.75

There are so many ways to browse at Coffee Bros (by roast, by origin, by flavor profile, by processing method) that it's probably less overwhelming to start by taking the quiz to find your jumping-off point. We wish it was a little easier to sort and filter all of their coffees in one place - you have to know which category you want to shop from before filtering tools become available. On the "All Coffee” tab, the categories displayed are Signature Series, New Arrivals, Single Origin, and Award-Winning Microlot Coffee. Altogether, they appear to have about 30 coffees to choose from. Many are priced around $17.99 for 12 oz, though there are some big-ticket coffees as well, like their award-winners.

"Cup of Excellence” winner

Coffee Bros has won the prestigious "Cup of Excellence” award multiple times, a rigorous competition evaluating quality among thousands of competitors judged by national and international juries. The winning coffees are auctioned at premium prices, so be aware that they fetch a pretty price on Coffee Bros' website too - between $35 and $60 for 6 or 8 oz bags.

Geek out

Each coffee's product description includes information about its taste notes, the processing, the origin, the producer, its varietal, pH, and even the altitude and its Agtron number. If you're not already as much of a nerd about coffee as to know what these things need, don't worry - they have guides upon guides to get you up to speed.

No detailed reviews to be found

One thing we couldn't find on the product pages at Coffee Bros were detailed customer reviews. There are star-ratings out of five, but no commentary available. There was not much in the way of third-party reviews of their company, either: nothing listed with the Better Business Bureau or Trustpilot. Even the "customer reviews” page that comes up for their website when you search Google with that term redirects you to their Mission page.

No free shipping

Coffee Bros ships orders within 1-3 business days if in stock. They don't ship coffee more than 5 days past its roast date. Out-of-stock orders may be held until the next roasting day (Saturdays). Some rare and limited coffees ship only once a month - check the product page for those specific shipping schedules. Unfortunately, shipping isn't free unless you order at least $50 worth of product. Shipping starts at $5 for economy (5-8 days), so make sure you factor that into the cost when comparing to other coffee clubs.

Rewards program is nice but not a selling point

Coffee Bros has a rewards program for shoppers with registered accounts. Every $1 you spend earns you 5 points, and you get 200 bonus points every year on your birthday. Every 100 points you earn amounts to $1 that you can redeem in exchange for coffee - which means, if you're purchasing one bag of coffee a month, it'll probably take you at least a year to accrue enough rewards points for one bag of coffee. It's better than nothing, but not by much.

Questionable data collection practices

One aspect of Coffee Bros' marketing strategy raised some eyebrows during our review process. We received a promotional email from the company, which wouldn't typically be cause for concern. However, we hadn't given our email address to Coffee Bros. Surprisingly, the email included our first and last name, which weren't associated with the Google account we used while browsing their site. This unexpected use of our personal information felt pretty intrusive and made us question their data collection practices. We don't think these aggressive tactics should be normalized, so we're docking half a star from their rating.

New but on a good track

To wrap it up, Coffee Bros offers a pretty solid subscription experience for coffee lovers. They've got a wide range of beans to choose from, with prices that can be competitive depending on what you're after. Coffee nerds will love the detailed info on each blend, but casual caffeinators won't feel overwhelmed. It's a bummer there's no free shipping on smaller orders and not many customer reviews to go off, but they're still relatively new to the game. If you're looking to explore some quality coffee options, Coffee Bros might be worth a shot.