Angels' Cup is a coffee subscription box that sends blind shipments of freshly roasted coffee bean samples, but it’s more than just a coffee subscription — it’s a tasting experience!
Angels' Cup labels their coffee samples with only a roast date and a unique code. They encourage subscribers to blind taste the coffee, and to try and pick out its notes and flavors. Using either the Angels’ Cup app or the included tasting cards, you can compare your tasting notes with the experts. Over time, this can help you develop the ability to pick out subtle flavors in coffee with only a sniff or a sip!
Freshness is a top priority for Angels' Cup, and they ensure a 24 hour turnaround time between receiving freshly roasted beans, packing them, and shipping them out to subscribers.
Subscribers can choose to have their beans sent whole, coarsely ground (for French press coffee), or finely ground (for drip coffee).
Angels' Cup ships every week, but subscribers can adjust their preferences online to receive boxes less frequently.
This box was sent to us for review purposes. (Check out the subscription review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
The Subscription Box: Angels' Cup
The Cost: Three different plans are offered:
-The Black Box includes 4 larger samples (11 oz. total) for $21.99
-Cupping Flight includes 4 smaller samples (4 oz. total) for $8.99.
-All Stars includes 1 bag of coffee (12 oz.) for $19.99.
The Products: Freshly roasted, single-origin coffee from top US roasters.
Ships to: Ships free to the US. Shipping to Canada is $6.
And check out of Drinks Subscription Box Directory!
Included in the box is a welcome card explaining the subscription. From the card: “Angels’ Cup is like a game you play with coffee. Every sample is a chance to test your tasting skills.”
On the reverse, there are instructions for how to use the Angels’ Cup app to help guide your tasting.
The app was really simple and fun to use.
It would definitely be possible to do the blind tasting without it, but I thought it added a lot to the experience.
Angels' Cup also includes individual tasting cards that match up with each of the coffees. These can be used in addition to or in lieu of the app.
Here’s a shot of all of the beans alongside their corresponding tasting cards.
My husband is the resident coffee snob in our family, so I enlisted his help for the brewing and tasting. To make the coffee, he used an immersion brewer, but it’s possible to use any single-cup brewing method. Angels' Cup suggests Hario V60, Chemex, Aeropress, or the $3 “Ready Set Joe.”
We had a lot of fun with the tasting! We brewed all four coffees side-by-side and recorded our tasting notes in the app.
For each sample, we were guided through the process of choosing the color of the beans, picking out tastes and flavors, and ranking the coffee.
At the end of the tasting, the app reveals the coffee’s roaster and single-origin.
We were then able to compare our tasting notes with the Angels’ Cup community and an expert taster. You can see that we got 1 or 2 of the same flavors as the expert with this one (yay!) but not nearly as many.
Here’s the tasting chart we came up with for another of the coffees. We got this one pretty much spot on! (I can’t say the same for some of the others, though.)
If you decide not to use the app, much of the same information can be found on the back of the tasting cards that are included in the box.
Here’s a list of the coffees that were included in this shipment:
-Commonwealth Coffee Guatemala Huehuetentango ($16.50 for 12 oz. + $5 shipping)
-Commonwealth Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Kochere ($19 for 12 oz. + $5 shipping)
-Lofted Coffee Kivu Kanzu, Rwanda ($16 for 12 oz. + $5.75 shipping)
-Lofted Coffee Colombia, Narino- La Union ($15 for 12 oz. + $5.75 shipping)
Angels’ Cup sends coffee with a light or medium roast (which is my preference), and I love that they source from top “third wave” roasters. While each of the coffees exhibited its own unique flavor profile, I greatly enjoyed them all.
(Note: each of the 2.75 oz. samples included in The Black Box provided enough beans to make a cup for the tasting, plus an additional small pot.)
The Verdict: I had so much fun doing a guided coffee tasting with Angels' Cup! It was a lot of fun to test my coffee knowledge (verdict: I still need some work), and I’m really impressed by the quality of the samples they sent. It’s difficult to determine value for a subscription like this, but I definitely think the $21.99 cost is fair. I can easily see how a regular subscription could help improve my coffee tasting skills, and I think this is a great way to discover incredible new roasters and beans!
Are you a coffee lover? Are you tempted to give Angels' Cup a try?
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