Our Favorite Coffee Subscriptions | Reviews by Wirecutter

Top pick

Taste different coffees from across the globe without getting into the weeds about specific growers and bean processes.

If you’re curious about different beans from all around the world, Atlas Coffee Club has your back. And it’s one of the more affordable subscriptions in this guide.

When it comes to sourcing, most roasters stick to the same few ultra-popular regions: Ethiopia, Colombia, and maybe Sumatra. Atlas is different, since its whole ethos is about exploring the entire world of coffee.

Each month’s coffee comes from a different country, including destinations as diverse as India, Nicaragua, and Peru. Coffee is about terroir as much as wine is, so it’s fascinating to compare the beans that come from different regions, especially from places whose coffee you may not have tasted before.

When you sign up, Atlas lets you choose whether to receive light-, medium-, or dark-roast beans. And each shipment includes a card with facts about that country’s coffee industry.

One editor on Wirecutter’s kitchen team, Marilyn Ong, received the medium-roast Atlas subscription as part of our tests, and though she typically enjoys lighter roasts, she appreciated the range and intrigue of the beans she tried. One bag, from Burundi, was a medium-dark roast and produced coffee with a beautifully earthy, savory quality.

We think Atlas is more for the burgeoning coffee lover, one who wants to experience coffees from lesser-known growing regions around the world and is invested in the thrill of that education. Since the point of Atlas is to broaden your sense of what “good” coffee is, that does mean that many bags don’t taste quite as refined or balanced as those from some of our other picks.

Although Atlas touts roasting to order, we think it would be nice to see some roast dates on the packaging, for that extra bit of transparency. And sometimes, like when we were tasting that intriguing Burundi cup, we wished we could learn more about the processing methods that gave rise to those flavors. The materials that Atlas provided were more zoomed-out national coffee histories, less rhapsodizing in new-wave coffee lingo.

That simplicity can be refreshingly unfussy, even a little freeing. But if you’re looking for more extensive information on the beans you get each time, maybe opt for a subscription from Black & White or Onyx. Or, if you want to dial in your preferences so that you get coffee that most closely aligns with your palate, Trade Coffee’s Create a Subscription plan is a better choice.

Frequency: every two or four weeks
Size options: 6-ounce or 12-ounce bags
Decaf option: medium roast only, no pods
Option for ground: yes; also available in K-Cups and Nespresso pods