17 ms·

Show HN: Kaffee Bitte, specialty coffee delivery for Germany

105 points by hannes2000 12y ago

andor 12y ago
Mmmh, coffee. * "Versand innerhalb einer Woche nach Röstung" -- but how long after I order? I'm a spoiled Amazon Prime customer, and I can buy specialty coffee locally at a cafe, and so-so fresh roasted coffee at one of several roasters in my city of ~300k. * The mandatory subscription is more of a hassle for me. I like to buy fresh groceries (and coffee) when I need them. One more thing to worry about when I go traveling: how many weeks of coffee can my mailbox fit? On the other hand, subscriptions are great for offices, but which company orders specialty grade coffee? I wouldn't waste it on the typical fully automatic Jura. * It doesn't say "specialty coffee" on the page, just "frisch geröstet" and "großartig" (everybody can claim that). I was very confused at first, but spent some time to look closer only because you explicitly said so in the submission title. Since there are several roasters in my city, "fresh" is where I start at, it's not interesting by itself. I don't think you should completely rebrand the beans. Bonanza Coffee is well-known among your target audience, whereas you are some new guys that I don't know if I can trust yet. I'd try to build more on the credibility of the established roasters. A Bonanza bag in the hero image would have been an instant signal. * The espresso in the hero image has zero crema. Not every coffee gives lots of crema, but for the title image I'd pick one that does, and extract it properly: http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/lets-see-your-tiger-stripes-t23996-10.html http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/lets-see-your-tiger-str... * As others have already stated, the registration step is too early in the order flow. I don't want to register before I know that a) I want your stuff, b) the product is on stock and c) I'm okay with all the terms and conditions. Maybe the one coffee that I wanted is sold out, maybe you ship with Hermes or require Paypal. I'd like to know as much of this as possible before handing out my data. * Phoenix Coffee from Dresden is pretty good
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Hey Andor, great points, thanks for the feedback! 1. Yeah, we should make that clearer. We ship every Thursday, I think that's only mentioned in the FAQ currently. 2. You can actually pause your account on your profile page. We're still adding features there, but will add a section explaining the possibilities on the home page soon. We're also not primarily targeting offices, but optimize for ordering coffee to your home. 3. Good catch about the specialty coffee. I'm not sure "Spezialitätenkaffee" is a thing in German though. We tried to use it in a blog post, but people didn't really seem to understand what it's about when asked. Will try to sprinkle it in anyway, I wasn't aware that it's not mentioned on the homepage. The branding is tricky, indeed. It's probably easier to catch the attention of enthusiasts with the original bags – I do think though that the amount of people that know the specific roasteries is not super big, especially outside of Berlin. On the other side, we really believe that consistency and ubiquity of our brand is important. We might explore that a bit more when adding more roasters. 4. It's a cup of filter coffee :) Maybe it would help to have a Chemex standing next to it to make it clearer. Or instead, a nice flat white with latte art. 5. Yeah, that was a common feedback. We'll experiment with that. 6. They are! And they're great people. Thanks again! We got some really good feedback on HN today, much appreciated.
- quinndupont 12y ago
  I hope they provide roast-on dates, otherwise you can basically assume it isn't fresh. With fast logistics and shipping you can get 1-week old roasted coffee from roaster to subscription service to doorstep though (Craft Coffee does this).
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    Yep, all our packages have the roasting date on the label. The German post delivers over night in the vicinity of Berlin and in 1-2days elsewhere in Germany. We usually send the coffee out on the same day it arrives from the roasters.
Semaphor 12y ago
Trying this out with some Ayichesh :) I'll actually have to check my mailbox now, usually anything important is sent via DHL and they usually come by twice daily ;)
quinndupont 12y ago
Their website is disturbing close to the excellent North America premium coffee service I use, Craft Coffee (@craftcoffee ; https://www.craftcoffee.com/ https://www.craftcoffee.com/). Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's just the red logo and brown vac bags, but this kind of smacks of that crappy "just different enough to not be infringement" move. Besides that (and Germans need coffee too!), getting premium coffee delivered is such an amazing thing. I now live in a smaller Canadian city and my fresh roasted, premium coffee options have declined. I've been enjoying Craft Coffee for several months now and not only is the product excellent (I do regular reviews on Twitter, @quinndupont), they are a really great group of people who are always willing to reach out and help or just take suggestions. A start up that actually listens and cares; it's the main reason why I like to support new businesses. [Edit: one of the best things about Craft Coffee is that they source their fresh-roasted beans from all over North America, so you get the cream of the crop from roasters you'd never be able to enjoy otherwise; you get three different roasters each month.] And, if you happen to sign up for Craft Coffee (I totally recommend it!), they offer a 15% off coupon code. Look around for a friend's code (they get a free month if you sign up), or (trying not to spam here...) use mine: quinn1922.
- jebus989 12y ago
  See also the UK service Pact: https://www.pactcoffee.com/ https://www.pactcoffee.com/ This is just another "me too" business, scoop a few beans into a brown paper bag and post it out with a huge margin.
  - quinndupont 12y ago
    FWIW: Craft Coffee is pricey, but not ridiculously so (considering the price that premium coffee fetches anyway). And, I'm actually pretty amazed at the whole process, not at all a "scoop a few beans into a brown paper bag and post" situation. Each month they ship different coffee sourced from all over North America, and tailored (to some extent) on your preferred brewing method and your ratings history. They only ship super-fresh coffee, so you they must coordinate with the roaster to day-of fedex the coffee to them, where they must scramble to 1-2 day fulfill orders and then get them in the mail. You can get your coffee delivered to your doorstep within 7-10 days of the ROAST date. Crazy fast. (again: just happy customer, not trying to astro-turf here)
sushimako 12y ago
I love coffee with a passion! When buying coffee, i usually want to choose the quality/origin, the darkness of the roast and the grind (whole bean or freshly fine-ground). If i go to $healthfoodstore around the corner i have a variety of high quality, dark roasted whole bean espresso from different regions. I would be tempted to say that the store's prices are almost always lower than your offering and i can smell the 250g bag of bliss before i spend 12eu on it. How do you compete with that? (given that you consider people with my level of coffee-affection your target audience) Fresh roasted needs to be more than "roasted sometime before we ship it" for me to make a difference. Offer a subscription, where you put a coffee roaster in my kitchen. Every week you send me $amount of high-quality, well sourced green coffee beans from different regions. I put some of them them in my KBRoaster(tm), push the "dark roast" button, kitchen starts smelling like heaven and only 7 minutes later i enjoy my fresh cup of fresh roasted, fresh ground espresso, directly from a farm on the volcanoes of the guatemalan central highlands! Thanks for the little bag with fermented cacao beans you put into this weeks package together with a note that espresso and pure cacao go well together. If you roast it at your place and ship it dark to me, my kitchen does not smell like heaven in the morning. Lastly, the grinding process is (imo) where most of the freshness gets lost.[0] Fresh ground is way more important than fresh roasted. Freshl-roasted is only a selling point if you show me that you are actually fresher than $healthfoodstore. Example: provide very fast delivery for the region around your roaster, offering "it's still warm when it arrives" quality. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_roasting#Packaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_roasting#Packaging Roasted coffee has an optimal typical shelf life of 2 weeks, and ground coffee about 15 minutes.
- andor 12y ago
  If i go to $healthfoodstore around the corner i have a variety of high quality, dark roasted espresso from different regions. I would be tempted to say that the store's prices are almost always lower than your offering Good point. The coffee they sell is much more upmarket than what you can get at $healthfoodstore, but the site doesn't make it clear. The beans they use are more expensive, and they are probably roasted more carefully. Grocery store brands typically use an industrial high-volume and high-temperature roasting process, instead of small batches and lower temperatures. If you need 2 tons, would you rather do 100 batches of 20kgs for 20 minutes each, or one large batch in only 10 minutes? Phoenix Coffee Roasters are transparent about their costs [0], they pay up to 4 times of the regular exchange price for green beans: We purchased this coffee for USD 10,60 /kg through Nordic Approach. At the same time the stock exchange price for green coffee was 2,50 EUR/kg, for Faire Trade certificated coffee 3,00 EUR/kg. Our production costs (taxes, transportation, packaging, etc.) mount up to 7,50 EUR/kg roasted coffee. Our overall costs are 15,80 EUR/kg, plus labour costs and VAT. (These beans sell for 35.30 EUR/kg) Maybe a line like "coffee from Germany's best roasters" would make some people interested. I put some of them them in my KBRoaster(tm), push the "dark roast" button, kitchen starts smelling like heaven and only 7 minutes later i enjoy my fresh cup of fresh roasted, fresh ground espresso Have you done this before? Your kitchen will smell like hell and your fire alarm might go off ;-) Also, you should wait a few days for the beans to release all the CO2 from roasting. Roasted coffee has an optimal typical shelf life of 2 weeks Citation needed :-) I'd say it's best between the second and eight week. [0] http://www.phoenix-coffeeroasters.com/en/red.html http://www.phoenix-coffeeroasters.com/en/red.html
underlines 12y ago
Business model: 1. Find something people need to buy regularly anyways 2. Buy a 20$ one page design from themeforrest and modify it 3. Let people subscribe to the service to send them the item on a regular basis 4. Hope that enough people are too lazy to just buy things like normal people would do 5. Repeat the whole business model with every item you normally buy when you do your groceries, like: blacksocks (overpriced socks), mymusli (overpriced cerials) etc.
- brackin 12y ago
  What's wrong with this? If they're delivering coffee German's can't get otherwise, at a fair price for the connivence then it works for everyone. People complain on HN about startups with vague, long term, lofty business models but this is the opposite. Coffee is different to socks because people that like good coffee won't buy it from anywhere.
jglauche 12y ago
I stumbled on the link yesterday and decided not to get the subscription. I'm basically okay with having stuff sent to me in regular distances. I also like to try new stuff! What I dislike is making a subscription to something that I haven't tried yet. So in case I dislike the product, I have to remember to cancel it in order to not get any more of the product that I dislike. That adds a lot of burden in advance to ordering it. Furthermore, on the page "Jetzt starten" I'd like to select the product(s) first, before entering my personal information.
mlent 12y ago
I will definitely look into this more when I'm back from holiday. Has anyone else found that getting good coffee in Germany is quite difficult? Or is it just that my city (Leipzig) is a bit of a coffee desert? Anyways. Best wishes, and you will probably find a customer in me!
weitzj 12y ago
for good tea I really like https://www.teekampagne.de/en https://www.teekampagne.de/en
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Yeah, they have some good stuff!
- doczoidberg 12y ago
  There is a book about this founding. The founder is the first professor of entrepeneurship (Faltin) in germany.
- Tomte 12y ago
  Since cooking and foodstuff seems to be right on topic here at HN, can someone give me a short overview what the differences (practically drinking) between Darjeeling and Assam are? Beside the obvious geographical difference, of course.
  - xhedley 12y ago
    Darjeeling is more aromatic and (for a fermented black tea) tastes quite close to a green tea. Assam tastes stronger and is more astringent on the mouth when drunk without milk. I always imagined that the difference in flavours reflected the different geographies - delicate growth in the Darjeeling hills versus robust growth in the warmer Assam plains. It might also be differences in the way the teas are fermented.
    - Tomte 12y ago
      Thank you!
hannes2000 12y ago
If you'd like to try it, you'll get 20% off your first three bags with the code 'hackernews'!
- dignati 12y ago
  I signed up and ordered a 2-weeks delivery but must have missed to enter the code. Can I do that after my registration?
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    Hey dignati, sure thing, can you write me an email at hannes@kaffeebitte.com?
- bornabox 12y ago
  Will you guys start sending to Switzerland? We're soo close :)
  - mikenyc 12y ago
    Craft Coffee ships to Switzerland now. http://www.craftcoffee.com/international http://www.craftcoffee.com/international
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    We're working on it, yeah! You can follow us on Twitter for updates: @KaffeeBitteNews
ntaso 12y ago
Really great explanations of how to make coffee and how to store it. Thanks!
- weitzj 12y ago
  The explanations inspired me to find out more how to make a good espresso. And I found this site, which has some nice articles. http://www.home-barista.com/ http://www.home-barista.com/
- hannes2000 12y ago
  You're welcome :)
dazu 12y ago
Reminds me of Pact (www.pactcoffee.com) which is a subscription-based-specialty-coffee-delivery company serving the UK (or at least London). I've used them and liked the service. I see how people that are really serious about their coffee could use a service like this.
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Indeed! We actually know the Pact guys – they're doing a terrific job in the UK.
  - etherealG 12y ago
    Any chance you or them know of a similar service in France? I've just discovered Pact in the UK and am about to move :(
    - mikenyc 12y ago
      Craft Coffee ships to France now. http://www.craftcoffee.com/international http://www.craftcoffee.com/international
    - hannes2000 12y ago
      Unfortunately, no :( But we'll be shipping outside of Germany soon, so stay tuned! For updates, you can follow us on Twitter @KaffeeBitteNews.
CookWithMe 12y ago
What is your USP compared to Coffee Circle (except for the subscription part)?
- hannes2000 12y ago
  We offer coffees from a couple of German specialty roasters (currently Bonanza/Berlin and JB/Schwabhausen with a couple more coming soon), so we have a much greater variety. Apart from that, our focus really lies on convenience for the customer. That means letterbox-friendly packages, outstanding customer support and additional value through recommendations. For example, we can advise you a coffee based on your brew method.
  - mariusblaesing 12y ago
    We are a Coffee Circle customer at our startup and your only real differentiation from CC are the letterbox-friendly packages. I assume this means 350g or less? Nevertheless, good idea, but it will be expensive for you ;)
    - hannes2000 12y ago
      Hey Marius, yeah, we ship 250g packages!
aluhut 12y ago
I wish we wouldn't have a deal with the coffe machine reseller where we have to take their coffe... This would have been great. Gute Idee! Werde es weitersagen :)
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Nice, thanks und danke :)
terhechte 12y ago
There's also sonntagmorgen.com, who have been in this space since 2007. I know the founder and he's a really great guy, pulled this of while he was studying. Also, over Christmas, they always offer a coffee "Advent Calendar" with a small bag of a different type of coffee for every day up to the 24th. That's always a small christmas highlight for me, and I enjoy it much more than the chocolate stuff that other calendars tend to offer. I tend to consume a lot of coffee and I'm always happy to find new deliverers with new coffees, so I'll give this a try. Best of luck!
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Thanks! I only know the Sonntagmorgen guys from their videos, but they seem to be really nice.
- Tomte 12y ago
  Cool. I've never heard of them, but they are just a few kilometers away from me.
spindritf 12y ago
It's all in German for me. Is there a language switch somewhere?
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Hi Spindritf, sorry, we don't have an English site yet, as we currently only deliver within Germany. I'd be glad to help you with any questions though, just ask here or send me an email to hannes@kaffeebitte.com.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    There are people in Germany who are more comfortable with English, you know ;) Maybe you could detect the user's system language and switch to English for any other system language than German?
  - Entalpi 12y ago
    You guys would do _great_ in Sweden. We consume loads of coffee and there is a large following of coffee - we even have a national time for coffee and bakeries called 'fika'. :-)
    - hannes2000 12y ago
      That's great to hear :) I love coffee from Sweden, some of the swedish roasters/cafés are very high on my to do list for my next short trip.
- penetrarthur 12y ago
  Chrome translate is really good with this site.
ginko 12y ago
That seems rather pricey even for specialty coffee. I usually buy at a great small roastery here in Vienna and 500g of coffee usually go for 10-15€.
- andor 12y ago
  40 EUR/kg nothing unusual for "specialty coffee" as understood by the SCAA. Specialty means the best possible quality, without any defects in smell or taste.
webhat 12y ago
A friend does something similar in the Netherlands. He's interviews people on their preferences and sending them coffee based on their preferences.
- jschulenklopper 12y ago
  (Also to other descendant posters:) Not sure if this is your friend, but recently I tried out a sample from Moyee Coffee, shipping from and to The Netherlands: http://www.moyeecoffee.com/ http://www.moyeecoffee.com/. Also, The Golden Coffee Box / Boot Koffie has subscription specialty coffees: http://www.bootkoffie.nl/Koffie/Koffie-abonnementen/ http://www.bootkoffie.nl/Koffie/Koffie-abonnementen/.
- st0p 12y ago
  As a Dutchie and a coffee addict, could you post the link?
  - webhat 12y ago
    http://www.caffedolcealchemia.com http://www.caffedolcealchemia.com
- hannes2000 12y ago
  That sounds cool, could you point me to the site?
  - webhat 12y ago
    Posted the link above, don't want to spam the board. :)
- radicalbyte 12y ago
  Hmm, I might have been a customer of his. It's worth shopping before someone fills the machine with something disgusting like Aroma Rood.. ;)
  - webhat 12y ago
kriro 12y ago
I've been a customer of Green Cup Coffee. Do you know them? I have no subscription (don't think they offer that) and just order whenever I need some new coffee though.
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Yeah, I know them! Their roast is quite different from what our roasters usually do. You should give us a try :) You can cancel your subscription anytime without notice. You'll get 20% off your first three packs with the code 'hackernews'.
gingerlime 12y ago
Looks great. This is a kind of "stole my idea" sites that I'm very happy to see. When I lived in the UK, I ordered coffee from hasbean[0], which is totally great. It's still available from Germany, but delivery cost and time makes it less appealing. Was looking for something similar when I moved to Berlin, but couldn't find anything like that so far[1]. It does seem a bit pricey at a first glance (although it includes postage, right?), and selection is a bit limited... Couldn't work out the frequency and whether or not it's a subscription or you just order online when you want? my German + Google translate are not enough to figure this out. Keep at it and hope you enjoy the Burgers at BBI near your office :) [0] hasbean.co.uk [1] I'm currently ordering online from solvino.de and they offer quite a wide selection from a nice roasters in Hamburg.
- gingerlime 12y ago
  A small suggestion: let people choose the coffee first, and only register or pay later. I think it will be a more engaging experience. I would encourage to remove registration completely or make it optional and let people pay by credit card / paypal for a quick and easy ordering experience.
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    Thanks, that's great feedback! In the beginning we thought, that the German word for subscription has a negative connotation, so we tried to rather call it "continuous delivery". But I agree, it's a lot better to just be really clear about everything. We're working on improving the messaging in that regard. It is pricey, but it's also really great coffee, that is imported and roasted in small batches with lots of love :) The compensation is passed through to the producer, so everybody gets a fair amount of money – the prices the farmers get are a multiple of the normal fair trade prices, and decoupled from the world market prices because of the higher quality. I do enjoy the burgers, whenever I can handle standing in line for a while, haha :)
    - gingerlime 12y ago
      Thanks for clarifying. Yes, I heard that people in Germany are scared of long 'Abos' that they can't cancel. It makes any subscription-based business harder to build here. Even if you offer complete flexibility to cancel any time, people are worried there must be a 'catch'.
tckr 12y ago
Fair pricing and two thumbs up for your shipping concept.
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Thanks tckr!
thesimon 12y ago
Don't you have to list the base price like price per 100 gram or 1 kilo?
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Good point, I'll find that out. Thanks!
guico 12y ago
Hey! In the end of last year I created something like what your doing here (www.hotcoffeeclub.com), also with customers in Germany and also posted it to HN just as you did (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818369), not sure if you saw it at the time. About 8 months in I've definitely learned a bunch and I ultimately decided to stop doing it couple of months ago (the website is not run by me anymore). If you'd like to have a chat my email is on my profile.
- hannes2000 12y ago
  actually, the email address I found doesn't seem to work anymore – would you mind writing me at hannes@kaffeebitte.com? Thanks!
- endlessvoid94 12y ago
  Hi guico, I'd love to chat if you'd be willing. I'm doing something very, very similar and would love to pick your brain! I'm dpaola2 [at] gmail if you'd be willing to email me :-)
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Hey, no, I didn't see it! I'll get in touch via email, exciting :)
ohjeez 12y ago
You had me at "coffee."

105 points by hannes2000 12y ago

andor 12y ago

Mmmh, coffee. * "Versand innerhalb einer Woche nach Röstung" -- but how long after I order? I'm a spoiled Amazon Prime customer, and I can buy specialty coffee locally at a cafe, and so-so fresh roasted coffee at one of several roasters in my city of ~300k. * The mandatory subscription is more of a hassle for me. I like to buy fresh groceries (and coffee) when I need them. One more thing to worry about when I go traveling: how many weeks of coffee can my mailbox fit? On the other hand, subscriptions are great for offices, but which company orders specialty grade coffee? I wouldn't waste it on the typical fully automatic Jura. * It doesn't say "specialty coffee" on the page, just "frisch geröstet" and "großartig" (everybody can claim that). I was very confused at first, but spent some time to look closer only because you explicitly said so in the submission title. Since there are several roasters in my city, "fresh" is where I start at, it's not interesting by itself. I don't think you should completely rebrand the beans. Bonanza Coffee is well-known among your target audience, whereas you are some new guys that I don't know if I can trust yet. I'd try to build more on the credibility of the established roasters. A Bonanza bag in the hero image would have been an instant signal. * The espresso in the hero image has zero crema. Not every coffee gives lots of crema, but for the title image I'd pick one that does, and extract it properly: http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/lets-see-your-tiger-stripes-t23996-10.html http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/lets-see-your-tiger-str... * As others have already stated, the registration step is too early in the order flow. I don't want to register before I know that a) I want your stuff, b) the product is on stock and c) I'm okay with all the terms and conditions. Maybe the one coffee that I wanted is sold out, maybe you ship with Hermes or require Paypal. I'd like to know as much of this as possible before handing out my data. * Phoenix Coffee from Dresden is pretty good

hannes2000 12y ago
Hey Andor, great points, thanks for the feedback! 1. Yeah, we should make that clearer. We ship every Thursday, I think that's only mentioned in the FAQ currently. 2. You can actually pause your account on your profile page. We're still adding features there, but will add a section explaining the possibilities on the home page soon. We're also not primarily targeting offices, but optimize for ordering coffee to your home. 3. Good catch about the specialty coffee. I'm not sure "Spezialitätenkaffee" is a thing in German though. We tried to use it in a blog post, but people didn't really seem to understand what it's about when asked. Will try to sprinkle it in anyway, I wasn't aware that it's not mentioned on the homepage. The branding is tricky, indeed. It's probably easier to catch the attention of enthusiasts with the original bags – I do think though that the amount of people that know the specific roasteries is not super big, especially outside of Berlin. On the other side, we really believe that consistency and ubiquity of our brand is important. We might explore that a bit more when adding more roasters. 4. It's a cup of filter coffee :) Maybe it would help to have a Chemex standing next to it to make it clearer. Or instead, a nice flat white with latte art. 5. Yeah, that was a common feedback. We'll experiment with that. 6. They are! And they're great people. Thanks again! We got some really good feedback on HN today, much appreciated.
quinndupont 12y ago
I hope they provide roast-on dates, otherwise you can basically assume it isn't fresh. With fast logistics and shipping you can get 1-week old roasted coffee from roaster to subscription service to doorstep though (Craft Coffee does this).
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Yep, all our packages have the roasting date on the label. The German post delivers over night in the vicinity of Berlin and in 1-2days elsewhere in Germany. We usually send the coffee out on the same day it arrives from the roasters.

Semaphor 12y ago

Trying this out with some Ayichesh :) I'll actually have to check my mailbox now, usually anything important is sent via DHL and they usually come by twice daily ;)

quinndupont 12y ago

Their website is disturbing close to the excellent North America premium coffee service I use, Craft Coffee (@craftcoffee ; https://www.craftcoffee.com/ https://www.craftcoffee.com/). Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's just the red logo and brown vac bags, but this kind of smacks of that crappy "just different enough to not be infringement" move. Besides that (and Germans need coffee too!), getting premium coffee delivered is such an amazing thing. I now live in a smaller Canadian city and my fresh roasted, premium coffee options have declined. I've been enjoying Craft Coffee for several months now and not only is the product excellent (I do regular reviews on Twitter, @quinndupont), they are a really great group of people who are always willing to reach out and help or just take suggestions. A start up that actually listens and cares; it's the main reason why I like to support new businesses. [Edit: one of the best things about Craft Coffee is that they source their fresh-roasted beans from all over North America, so you get the cream of the crop from roasters you'd never be able to enjoy otherwise; you get three different roasters each month.] And, if you happen to sign up for Craft Coffee (I totally recommend it!), they offer a 15% off coupon code. Look around for a friend's code (they get a free month if you sign up), or (trying not to spam here...) use mine: quinn1922.

jebus989 12y ago
See also the UK service Pact: https://www.pactcoffee.com/ https://www.pactcoffee.com/ This is just another "me too" business, scoop a few beans into a brown paper bag and post it out with a huge margin.
- quinndupont 12y ago
  FWIW: Craft Coffee is pricey, but not ridiculously so (considering the price that premium coffee fetches anyway). And, I'm actually pretty amazed at the whole process, not at all a "scoop a few beans into a brown paper bag and post" situation. Each month they ship different coffee sourced from all over North America, and tailored (to some extent) on your preferred brewing method and your ratings history. They only ship super-fresh coffee, so you they must coordinate with the roaster to day-of fedex the coffee to them, where they must scramble to 1-2 day fulfill orders and then get them in the mail. You can get your coffee delivered to your doorstep within 7-10 days of the ROAST date. Crazy fast. (again: just happy customer, not trying to astro-turf here)

sushimako 12y ago

I love coffee with a passion! When buying coffee, i usually want to choose the quality/origin, the darkness of the roast and the grind (whole bean or freshly fine-ground). If i go to $healthfoodstore around the corner i have a variety of high quality, dark roasted whole bean espresso from different regions. I would be tempted to say that the store's prices are almost always lower than your offering and i can smell the 250g bag of bliss before i spend 12eu on it. How do you compete with that? (given that you consider people with my level of coffee-affection your target audience) Fresh roasted needs to be more than "roasted sometime before we ship it" for me to make a difference. Offer a subscription, where you put a coffee roaster in my kitchen. Every week you send me $amount of high-quality, well sourced green coffee beans from different regions. I put some of them them in my KBRoaster(tm), push the "dark roast" button, kitchen starts smelling like heaven and only 7 minutes later i enjoy my fresh cup of fresh roasted, fresh ground espresso, directly from a farm on the volcanoes of the guatemalan central highlands! Thanks for the little bag with fermented cacao beans you put into this weeks package together with a note that espresso and pure cacao go well together. If you roast it at your place and ship it dark to me, my kitchen does not smell like heaven in the morning. Lastly, the grinding process is (imo) where most of the freshness gets lost.[0] Fresh ground is way more important than fresh roasted. Freshl-roasted is only a selling point if you show me that you are actually fresher than $healthfoodstore. Example: provide very fast delivery for the region around your roaster, offering "it's still warm when it arrives" quality. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_roasting#Packaging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_roasting#Packaging Roasted coffee has an optimal typical shelf life of 2 weeks, and ground coffee about 15 minutes.

andor 12y ago
If i go to $healthfoodstore around the corner i have a variety of high quality, dark roasted espresso from different regions. I would be tempted to say that the store's prices are almost always lower than your offering Good point. The coffee they sell is much more upmarket than what you can get at $healthfoodstore, but the site doesn't make it clear. The beans they use are more expensive, and they are probably roasted more carefully. Grocery store brands typically use an industrial high-volume and high-temperature roasting process, instead of small batches and lower temperatures. If you need 2 tons, would you rather do 100 batches of 20kgs for 20 minutes each, or one large batch in only 10 minutes? Phoenix Coffee Roasters are transparent about their costs [0], they pay up to 4 times of the regular exchange price for green beans: We purchased this coffee for USD 10,60 /kg through Nordic Approach. At the same time the stock exchange price for green coffee was 2,50 EUR/kg, for Faire Trade certificated coffee 3,00 EUR/kg. Our production costs (taxes, transportation, packaging, etc.) mount up to 7,50 EUR/kg roasted coffee. Our overall costs are 15,80 EUR/kg, plus labour costs and VAT. (These beans sell for 35.30 EUR/kg) Maybe a line like "coffee from Germany's best roasters" would make some people interested. I put some of them them in my KBRoaster(tm), push the "dark roast" button, kitchen starts smelling like heaven and only 7 minutes later i enjoy my fresh cup of fresh roasted, fresh ground espresso Have you done this before? Your kitchen will smell like hell and your fire alarm might go off ;-) Also, you should wait a few days for the beans to release all the CO2 from roasting. Roasted coffee has an optimal typical shelf life of 2 weeks Citation needed :-) I'd say it's best between the second and eight week. [0] http://www.phoenix-coffeeroasters.com/en/red.html http://www.phoenix-coffeeroasters.com/en/red.html

underlines 12y ago

Business model: 1. Find something people need to buy regularly anyways 2. Buy a 20$ one page design from themeforrest and modify it 3. Let people subscribe to the service to send them the item on a regular basis 4. Hope that enough people are too lazy to just buy things like normal people would do 5. Repeat the whole business model with every item you normally buy when you do your groceries, like: blacksocks (overpriced socks), mymusli (overpriced cerials) etc.

brackin 12y ago
What's wrong with this? If they're delivering coffee German's can't get otherwise, at a fair price for the connivence then it works for everyone. People complain on HN about startups with vague, long term, lofty business models but this is the opposite. Coffee is different to socks because people that like good coffee won't buy it from anywhere.

jglauche 12y ago

I stumbled on the link yesterday and decided not to get the subscription. I'm basically okay with having stuff sent to me in regular distances. I also like to try new stuff! What I dislike is making a subscription to something that I haven't tried yet. So in case I dislike the product, I have to remember to cancel it in order to not get any more of the product that I dislike. That adds a lot of burden in advance to ordering it. Furthermore, on the page "Jetzt starten" I'd like to select the product(s) first, before entering my personal information.

mlent 12y ago

I will definitely look into this more when I'm back from holiday. Has anyone else found that getting good coffee in Germany is quite difficult? Or is it just that my city (Leipzig) is a bit of a coffee desert? Anyways. Best wishes, and you will probably find a customer in me!

weitzj 12y ago

for good tea I really like https://www.teekampagne.de/en https://www.teekampagne.de/en

hannes2000 12y ago
Yeah, they have some good stuff!
doczoidberg 12y ago
There is a book about this founding. The founder is the first professor of entrepeneurship (Faltin) in germany.
Tomte 12y ago
Since cooking and foodstuff seems to be right on topic here at HN, can someone give me a short overview what the differences (practically drinking) between Darjeeling and Assam are? Beside the obvious geographical difference, of course.
- xhedley 12y ago
  Darjeeling is more aromatic and (for a fermented black tea) tastes quite close to a green tea. Assam tastes stronger and is more astringent on the mouth when drunk without milk. I always imagined that the difference in flavours reflected the different geographies - delicate growth in the Darjeeling hills versus robust growth in the warmer Assam plains. It might also be differences in the way the teas are fermented.
  - Tomte 12y ago
    Thank you!

hannes2000 12y ago

If you'd like to try it, you'll get 20% off your first three bags with the code 'hackernews'!

dignati 12y ago
I signed up and ordered a 2-weeks delivery but must have missed to enter the code. Can I do that after my registration?
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Hey dignati, sure thing, can you write me an email at hannes@kaffeebitte.com?
bornabox 12y ago
Will you guys start sending to Switzerland? We're soo close :)
- mikenyc 12y ago
  Craft Coffee ships to Switzerland now. http://www.craftcoffee.com/international http://www.craftcoffee.com/international
- hannes2000 12y ago
  We're working on it, yeah! You can follow us on Twitter for updates: @KaffeeBitteNews

ntaso 12y ago

Really great explanations of how to make coffee and how to store it. Thanks!

weitzj 12y ago
The explanations inspired me to find out more how to make a good espresso. And I found this site, which has some nice articles. http://www.home-barista.com/ http://www.home-barista.com/
hannes2000 12y ago
You're welcome :)

dazu 12y ago

Reminds me of Pact (www.pactcoffee.com) which is a subscription-based-specialty-coffee-delivery company serving the UK (or at least London). I've used them and liked the service. I see how people that are really serious about their coffee could use a service like this.

hannes2000 12y ago
Indeed! We actually know the Pact guys – they're doing a terrific job in the UK.
- etherealG 12y ago
  Any chance you or them know of a similar service in France? I've just discovered Pact in the UK and am about to move :(
  - mikenyc 12y ago
    Craft Coffee ships to France now. http://www.craftcoffee.com/international http://www.craftcoffee.com/international
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    Unfortunately, no :( But we'll be shipping outside of Germany soon, so stay tuned! For updates, you can follow us on Twitter @KaffeeBitteNews.

CookWithMe 12y ago

What is your USP compared to Coffee Circle (except for the subscription part)?

hannes2000 12y ago
We offer coffees from a couple of German specialty roasters (currently Bonanza/Berlin and JB/Schwabhausen with a couple more coming soon), so we have a much greater variety. Apart from that, our focus really lies on convenience for the customer. That means letterbox-friendly packages, outstanding customer support and additional value through recommendations. For example, we can advise you a coffee based on your brew method.
- mariusblaesing 12y ago
  We are a Coffee Circle customer at our startup and your only real differentiation from CC are the letterbox-friendly packages. I assume this means 350g or less? Nevertheless, good idea, but it will be expensive for you ;)
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    Hey Marius, yeah, we ship 250g packages!

aluhut 12y ago

I wish we wouldn't have a deal with the coffe machine reseller where we have to take their coffe... This would have been great. Gute Idee! Werde es weitersagen :)

hannes2000 12y ago
Nice, thanks und danke :)

terhechte 12y ago

There's also sonntagmorgen.com, who have been in this space since 2007. I know the founder and he's a really great guy, pulled this of while he was studying. Also, over Christmas, they always offer a coffee "Advent Calendar" with a small bag of a different type of coffee for every day up to the 24th. That's always a small christmas highlight for me, and I enjoy it much more than the chocolate stuff that other calendars tend to offer. I tend to consume a lot of coffee and I'm always happy to find new deliverers with new coffees, so I'll give this a try. Best of luck!

hannes2000 12y ago
Thanks! I only know the Sonntagmorgen guys from their videos, but they seem to be really nice.
Tomte 12y ago
Cool. I've never heard of them, but they are just a few kilometers away from me.

spindritf 12y ago

It's all in German for me. Is there a language switch somewhere?

hannes2000 12y ago
Hi Spindritf, sorry, we don't have an English site yet, as we currently only deliver within Germany. I'd be glad to help you with any questions though, just ask here or send me an email to hannes@kaffeebitte.com.
- tormeh 12y ago
  There are people in Germany who are more comfortable with English, you know ;) Maybe you could detect the user's system language and switch to English for any other system language than German?
- Entalpi 12y ago
  You guys would do _great_ in Sweden. We consume loads of coffee and there is a large following of coffee - we even have a national time for coffee and bakeries called 'fika'. :-)
  - hannes2000 12y ago
    That's great to hear :) I love coffee from Sweden, some of the swedish roasters/cafés are very high on my to do list for my next short trip.
penetrarthur 12y ago
Chrome translate is really good with this site.

ginko 12y ago

That seems rather pricey even for specialty coffee. I usually buy at a great small roastery here in Vienna and 500g of coffee usually go for 10-15€.

andor 12y ago
40 EUR/kg nothing unusual for "specialty coffee" as understood by the SCAA. Specialty means the best possible quality, without any defects in smell or taste.

webhat 12y ago

A friend does something similar in the Netherlands. He's interviews people on their preferences and sending them coffee based on their preferences.

jschulenklopper 12y ago
(Also to other descendant posters:) Not sure if this is your friend, but recently I tried out a sample from Moyee Coffee, shipping from and to The Netherlands: http://www.moyeecoffee.com/ http://www.moyeecoffee.com/. Also, The Golden Coffee Box / Boot Koffie has subscription specialty coffees: http://www.bootkoffie.nl/Koffie/Koffie-abonnementen/ http://www.bootkoffie.nl/Koffie/Koffie-abonnementen/.
st0p 12y ago
As a Dutchie and a coffee addict, could you post the link?
- webhat 12y ago
  http://www.caffedolcealchemia.com http://www.caffedolcealchemia.com
hannes2000 12y ago
That sounds cool, could you point me to the site?
- webhat 12y ago
  Posted the link above, don't want to spam the board. :)
radicalbyte 12y ago
Hmm, I might have been a customer of his. It's worth shopping before someone fills the machine with something disgusting like Aroma Rood.. ;)
- webhat 12y ago

kriro 12y ago

I've been a customer of Green Cup Coffee. Do you know them? I have no subscription (don't think they offer that) and just order whenever I need some new coffee though.

hannes2000 12y ago
Yeah, I know them! Their roast is quite different from what our roasters usually do. You should give us a try :) You can cancel your subscription anytime without notice. You'll get 20% off your first three packs with the code 'hackernews'.

gingerlime 12y ago

Looks great. This is a kind of "stole my idea" sites that I'm very happy to see. When I lived in the UK, I ordered coffee from hasbean[0], which is totally great. It's still available from Germany, but delivery cost and time makes it less appealing. Was looking for something similar when I moved to Berlin, but couldn't find anything like that so far[1]. It does seem a bit pricey at a first glance (although it includes postage, right?), and selection is a bit limited... Couldn't work out the frequency and whether or not it's a subscription or you just order online when you want? my German + Google translate are not enough to figure this out. Keep at it and hope you enjoy the Burgers at BBI near your office :) [0] hasbean.co.uk [1] I'm currently ordering online from solvino.de and they offer quite a wide selection from a nice roasters in Hamburg.

gingerlime 12y ago
A small suggestion: let people choose the coffee first, and only register or pay later. I think it will be a more engaging experience. I would encourage to remove registration completely or make it optional and let people pay by credit card / paypal for a quick and easy ordering experience.
- hannes2000 12y ago
  Thanks, that's great feedback! In the beginning we thought, that the German word for subscription has a negative connotation, so we tried to rather call it "continuous delivery". But I agree, it's a lot better to just be really clear about everything. We're working on improving the messaging in that regard. It is pricey, but it's also really great coffee, that is imported and roasted in small batches with lots of love :) The compensation is passed through to the producer, so everybody gets a fair amount of money – the prices the farmers get are a multiple of the normal fair trade prices, and decoupled from the world market prices because of the higher quality. I do enjoy the burgers, whenever I can handle standing in line for a while, haha :)
  - gingerlime 12y ago
    Thanks for clarifying. Yes, I heard that people in Germany are scared of long 'Abos' that they can't cancel. It makes any subscription-based business harder to build here. Even if you offer complete flexibility to cancel any time, people are worried there must be a 'catch'.

tckr 12y ago

Fair pricing and two thumbs up for your shipping concept.

hannes2000 12y ago
Thanks tckr!

thesimon 12y ago

Don't you have to list the base price like price per 100 gram or 1 kilo?

hannes2000 12y ago
Good point, I'll find that out. Thanks!

guico 12y ago

Hey! In the end of last year I created something like what your doing here (www.hotcoffeeclub.com), also with customers in Germany and also posted it to HN just as you did (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6818369), not sure if you saw it at the time. About 8 months in I've definitely learned a bunch and I ultimately decided to stop doing it couple of months ago (the website is not run by me anymore). If you'd like to have a chat my email is on my profile.

hannes2000 12y ago
actually, the email address I found doesn't seem to work anymore – would you mind writing me at hannes@kaffeebitte.com? Thanks!
endlessvoid94 12y ago
Hi guico, I'd love to chat if you'd be willing. I'm doing something very, very similar and would love to pick your brain! I'm dpaola2 [at] gmail if you'd be willing to email me :-)
hannes2000 12y ago
Hey, no, I didn't see it! I'll get in touch via email, exciting :)

ohjeez 12y ago

You had me at "coffee."