It’s important to think about what and who you’re supporting when you invest in a coffee subscription box. Whether it be small coffee farmers directly or small local roasters, your choice of subscription can impact many different people.
That’s why we love the Atlas Coffee Club and Trade Coffee subscription services because either way, you’re supporting a smaller business through your purchase of coffee.
What is Atlas Coffee Club?
Atlas Coffee Club
A coffee of the month club that curates amazing micro-lot coffees from around the world. Tanzania, Kenya, Colombia & beyond.
The Atlas Coffee Club subscription service is one that develops relationships with small coffee farms located in many different countries and brings their business to the US through their own roastery.
Because of this, they guarantee they are only sending subscribers premium single-origin coffee beans that are in the top one percent. These beans are picked out for you based on your coffee preferences and are switched out every month.
Not only that, but in every delivery from Atlas, you’ll get postcards from those countries of origin that will tell you more information.
Along with tasting notes and brewing tips, you’ll also get access to an online coffee passport so that you can keep up with all the countries that you try.
What is Trade Coffee?
Trade Coffee
With Trade Coffee’s subscription box, you get access to a selection of coffees, from over 400 different blends! Every bag of beans is roasted to order from small, local roasters across America.
Through this, Trade acts as a sort of middle-man, getting you great coffee from small businesses throughout the country.
All you have to do is take a short quiz at the start of your subscription so that they can suggest which coffee bags should be sent to you based on your roast preferences, whether it be for cold brew, espresso, or more.
Trade also offers brewing equipment, merch, and accessories on its website!
Atlas Coffee Club vs Trade Coffee: How Are They Similar?
In the most simple way, Atlas Coffee Club and Trade Coffee are similar in that they both support small businesses, both in farming and roasting.
They also make sure your coffee is as fresh as possible when it’s delivered to your door. Both companies guarantee that your bag of coffee is roasted right before it’s sent out to you.
How Are They Different?
Of course, these subscription services are also vastly different. In the most important way, Atlas Coffee Club supports local farmers directly by bringing their beans to America, where they roast them themselves.
However, Trade Coffee supports small local roasters across America by including their coffee in their subscription. Trade even offers some of Atlas’ roasted coffee in their options!
Because of this, Atlas can roast on their own schedule, but Trade suggests certain blends that roasters are roasting near the time that you need your coffee.
There’s also the matter of cost comparison, and we’d like to state that these are the prices at the time of writing this article. Since these are always subject to change, we recommend checking out their websites for accuracy.
Atlas Coffee Club Pricing
When looking at Atlas Coffee Club’s costs, you have an option of sizes to choose from. If you want a 6-ounce bag of coffee, the pricing would start out at $10. A 12-ounce bag would start at $16 and two of the 12-ounce bags would start at $32.
You also get the option of changing your delivery frequency from every two weeks to every four weeks, but you should keep in mind that the type of coffee they send you only changes each month.
Trade Coffee Pricing
With Trade Coffee, their pricing depends on the type of subscription you buy. If you were to pick their Fan Favorites subscription, which includes some popular, delicious beans, the cost would start out at $15.75.
If you wanted the Trade’s Top Shelf subscription instead, which has more of the select choices for adventurous coffee drinkers, the cost would start out at $19.50.
Whichever one you pick, you do have the option to tell Trade how many cups of coffee you drink every day so that they can suggest the shipping frequencies of a new bag.
Of course, you can always pick directly which coffee you’d like to buy from Trade which, in that case, would range anywhere from $15-$30 depending on the roasters. The best part though is that you get free shipping on your subscriptions!
Support Small Coffee Businesses With Your Coffee Subscription
We know it’s hard to pick which subscription option is right for you, but we really recommend these two because of their efforts to support small businesses in the coffee field.
To make it a little bit easier, we’ve narrowed down the specs into a table for you.
| Atlas Coffee Club | Trade Coffee | |
|---|---|---|
| Blends or Single-Origin | Premium single-origin | Blends and single-origin |
| Small Business Support | Supports small international coffee farmers directly | Supports small local roasters around the country |
| Customization | They choose what coffee to send to you based on roast preferences | They suggest what coffee you should have delivered based on roast preferences |
| Roasting | Freshly roasted in their own roastery | Freshly roasted from local roasters around the country |
| Pricing | $10-$32 | $16-$20 plus free shipping |
Whether it’s supporting small international coffee farmers directly through the Atlas Coffee Club subscription, or it’s supporting small local coffee roasters from around the country through the Trade Coffee subscription, you’re going to love the coffee that’s delivered to you.
We appreciate the support of small businesses that these subscription services allow for so, instead of going to the grocery store, we highly suggest choosing one of these boxes as your next coffee delivery!
Happy Caffeinating!
