Kopi is a new coffee subscription service which delivers a new gourmet coffee to your door every month. They asked me to try out their January blend, and of course I was happy to oblige.
The coffee comes nicely packaged in a resealable bag alongside a beautifully-designed booklet explaining the origins and tasting notes of the month’s blend. This month’s is a Geisha tree coffee from Malawi which is supposed to have notes of jasmine, lemon and lavender.
Brewing up in the cafetière, it certainly smells good – floral and acidic.
The tasting notes suggested it goes well with chocolate, as the acidity cuts through the richness, but I had it with my Saturday breakfast. I’m no coffee expert, but the sharp lemony-ness was very clear and it had a roasted fruitiness that reminded me of Square Mile‘s signature blend. Personally I found it a little too sour – my taste is more for chocolatey caramel notes like some of Monmouth‘s blends. It gave me a pleasing jolt of morning wake-up feeling though, and I also think it’d be nice as an after-dinner drink with a square of chocolate.
Is Kopi for me? Probably not, because I have a certain ‘type’ of coffee that I know I like, and I also don’t brew an awful lot of coffee at home so wouldn’t get through the 250g bag in a month. But I loved the whole experience of getting a blend from a specific area and learning about the origins, and it’s clear that a lot of expertise and care has gone into selecting and packaging the coffee. I’d definitely recommend Kopi‘s service if you’re interested in trying lots of different high quality coffees and learning about where they all come from. Membership starts at £9/month, going down to £7 if you buy a year in advance.
Thanks for the review and the great photos. If we’d known you like the chocolatey ones we would have sent you our Mexican Terruno Nayarita Reserva: http://www.kopi.co.uk/dec2011
Now THAT was spiced chocolate and orange :-)
This sounds amazing – my housemate is a huge coffee fan – I might get him a subscription x