Monthly Coffee Subscription

review after almost a year of subscribtion

First of all, it is a good coffee for a reasonble price. Very convinient, no need to worry about fresh beans every month. There is one BUT. When you subscribe for 3 packages - 2 of them always the same, that is a bit disspointing. Switched back to 2 packages per month.

Good concept badly executed

The coffee subscription has been a convenient but frustrating product for us. The quality of the coffee itself is unmatched and we've rarely had issues with the beans themselves. However, shipping dates are inconsistent and coffee often arrives +/- 7 days on the previous month. We still regularly run out of beats with and have to pick up an extra bag without much of any idea about how long it'll be before the next batch arrives. The most disappointing thing however is receiving the same beans multiple times. The description suggests you'll receive 2-3 bags of different beans, but on the 3 bag subscription, 2 of the 3 bags are generally the same. In fairness to Five Elephant, I think this is communicated somewhere but it's still a bit of a shame. What's very frustrating is when you receive the 2 identical bags in the same month, and then 2 of the same bag the next month. We saw discovering new regions, etc, as part of the value proposition but 4/6 bags being the same over a two month period doesn't deliver on this. Again, the coffee itself is great and worth the money, but the subscription product itself is a bit disappointing.

Good coffee but room for improvement in subscription service

I've had the subscription for almost 3 years now, I like most of the coffee. Specially the ones from Kenya and Ethiopia, those are some of my favorite coffees. When I started the subscription the pricing was on par with other roasters in Berlin and the coffee selection was decent. Over the years I haven't really seen the collection grow massively, there's some variation but I also noticed how many times I receive the same coffee over and over again for a few consecutive months. Its not the end of the world, its still good coffee just gets a bit boring for me personally. On price, I think now this subscription is a bit more pricey than some of the other roasters, and I don't completely buy the reasoning that its going towards higher price of green coffee. My biggest gripe, however, is the inconsistent shipping. Billing and roasting seem to follow a set schedule, but dispatch dates are erratic. An order might ship on the 22nd one month, while the next month it's the 28th and still unfulfilled. This defeats the whole point of a subscription, which is supposed to eliminate the stress of running out of coffee, not force me to guess if I'll have enough.