Buying better coffee sounds easy until you’re staring at a wall of bags covered in words like bright, jammy, floral, chocolatey, and stone fruit.
At some point, it starts to feel less like buying coffee and more like taking a test you forgot to study for.
That’s the problem Trade Coffee is trying to solve.
Instead of making you research dozens of roasters and guess which beans match your taste, Trade Coffee starts with a short coffee quiz. You tell it what you normally drink, how you brew it, and the kinds of flavors you tend to like.
From there, Trade recommends coffees that fit your preferences.
The idea is super simple: better coffee without having to research better coffee.
You Don’t Need to Become a Coffee Expert
There are a lot of great independent coffee roasters in the U.S., but finding them is another story.
Trade works with more than 55 independent roasters and gives members access to more than 500 coffees. That means you can try beans from roasters you might never come across at your local grocery store or coffee shop.
More importantly, you don’t have to sort through all 500 yourself.
Trade narrows things down based on your taste profile, so someone who prefers rich, darker coffee isn’t getting the same recommendations as someone who likes lighter, fruitier roasts.
And if you want to branch out later, you can.
Three Coffees Is a Pretty Good Way to Start
For new subscribers, the most interesting option is Trade’s Discovery Trial.
You get three bags from three different roasters, with the first bag free.
That gives you a chance to actually compare coffees instead of committing to one big bag based on a description and hoping for the best.
Maybe you find out you like a roast profile you’ve been ignoring for years. Or maybe you confirm that, yes, dark and chocolatey is still your thing.
Either way, you learn something about what you actually like.
Fresh Coffee Makes a Bigger Difference Than You Might Think
The other advantage is freshness.
Trade says its coffee is roasted to order and shipped within 24 hours of roasting. That’s very different from grabbing a bag that may have been sitting in a warehouse or on a store shelf for weeks.
You don’t need an expensive espresso setup to notice the difference, either. Fresher beans can improve a regular drip coffee maker, pour-over, French press, or whatever is currently doing the heavy lifting on your kitchen counter.
And If Your First Match Is Wrong?
That’s where Trade’s First Match Guarantee comes in.
If your first coffee isn’t a good fit, Trade will replace it.
That matters because coffee taste is personal. A recommendation engine can get you close, but nobody wants to be stuck working through a bag of coffee they don’t enjoy just because an algorithm thought they would.
The guarantee takes some of that risk out of trying the service.
Take Trade’s coffee quiz and see what it recommends.
New subscribers can also start with the Discovery Trial and get three bags from three different roasters, with the first bag free.
