Like wine, coffee’s become needlessly complicated. Temperature, brewing method, origin of bean, tasting notes … you shouldn’t need an encyclopedia to make a great cup o’ Joe.
Solution: Trade, an online curator of great coffee, launching today.
In a nutshell, Trade simplifies your morning caffeine routine, expands your java making knowledge and, after a 30-second quiz, matches you with your ideal coffee beans from one of 40+ specialty roasters.
“We wanted this to be straight-forward way to buy coffee, and take away stigma about specialty coffee being unapproachable,” says Trade’s Head of Coffee Marcus Boni (formerly of Intelligentsia, one of those 40+ roasters you’ll find on the site).
Whether you know a little or a lot about coffee, Trade has the right beans for you. For novices, they start by asking a few questions (how you like your coffee now, how you’re brewing it, preferred intensity factor). From there, they’ll use data science and their own coffee expertise to personalize three coffee bean choices — a primary choice and two worthy alternatives.
A coffee vet? You can “filter” by roaster, preferred brewing method or a number of other factors.
Unlike other “clubs,” this isn’t a subscription service. While there will be an auto-replenishment option, the idea here is to find the beans you like, learn a few ways to ideally brew that coffee and learn about America’s dozens of exceptional independent roasters.
The coffee is shipped directly from those roasters, and Trade promises to price-match them as well (basically, so you don’t peruse their site and then order elsewhere).
The ultimate goal? “We want you to make noticeably better coffee than what you’re brewing now at home,” says Boni.
File under #morninggoals.
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