Photo courtesy of Angels’ Cup
Story by Delaney Dickey / Contributing Writer
Since its origin in 2014, Angels’ Cup has changed the game for not only coffee roasters but drinkers as well. This unique company, based in Brooklyn, New York, provides consumers a way to blindly taste-test coffee through their carefully curated subscription boxes. If you are wondering How to start a coffee business from home, this could be a great way to try many different coffees so that you can narrow down what items that you want to stock.
“I like trying different coffees, but I always felt biased by knowing the origin and seeing the roaster’s tasting notes on the bag,” said co-founder Jeffery Borack. “So I decided to test the idea of blind coffee tastings where subscribers to our service could try coffees before knowing what they are.”
There are three different subscriptions consumers can choose from: The Cupping Flight, Angels’ Cup All Stars and The Black Box. The Cupping Flight includes four small samples of roasts, while The Black Box includes four larger samples. The newest subscription, Angels’ Cup All Stars, which debuted in early 2017, includes one bag of coffee within its box.
Working with 150 roasters across the nation, and sampling over 1,000 coffees in the last year, Angels’ Cup maintains a variety of roasts and blends to suit the needs of their subscribers.
“We vary our coffee every week actually,” Borack said. “We ship four new light roast coffees every week, four medium roast coffees every other week and we never ship the same coffee twice.”
Not only does Angels’ Cup carefully pick which roasts will be included within each subscription box, but they also like to showcase different origins and processes throughout the boxes.
“Usually our goal is simply to showcase a variety of origins and processing techniques so that everyone can find something they love and nobody gets something they don’t want to drink,” Borack said.
However, on rare occasions a box designated to showcase a specific origin or process will be sent to subscribers.
Borack explained, “Costa Rica is famous for experimenting with different grades of natural processing, which they call black, yellow and white honey processing. We might showcase four different grades of Costa Rican honey processing.”
Due to providing a blind taste-testing experience for subscribers, Angels’ Cup actively works toward receiving feedback on not only the services provided to their consumers, but to also receive feedback on the different roasts within each subscription box.
According to Borack, “We also built an app to record and share tasting notes because I was curious to see what other people were saying about each coffee.”
“Roasters sometimes romance the flavor notes, whereas other consumers are more honest about what they think,” Borack said. “The tasting app and the community really gives you a chance to share your experience and calibrate with others.”
The company utilizes the app, which is offered to Apple and Android devices, to also track the score people give the coffees and use those scores to determine which coffees they ship within the Angels’ Cup All Stars subscription.
“All Stars is a really great subscription option for that reason, the coffee selections have been vetted by a large community and people really do love them,” Borack said.
While Angels’ Cup may provide a unique way for coffee drinking, their ultimate mission for their consumers is “to help you develop a superhuman sense of taste by building your vocabulary and exposing you to all the hues, tints, tones and shades of coffee.”
To visit Angels’ Cup’s website, click here.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Tayhlor Stephenson, email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
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