MOUSTACHE COFFEE CLUB REVIEW: UNIQUE MICROLOT SUBSCRIPTION

In this review, I’ll tell you why I love my Moustache Coffee subscription and why I think you’ll love it too!

Moustache Coffee Club fills a distinct niche in the coffee subscription market. They specialize in sourcing and roasting rare microlot specialty coffee and delivering it to your doorstep at peak freshness.

Moustache Coffee was created for coffee lovers who value the subtle and complex flavors that characterize premium coffee beans from a particular region. In short, it’s for coffee geeks – not those just looking for an easy and cheap caffeine hit. If that sounds right up your alley, keep reading for the important details of joining the club.

The Moustache Coffee Club Review

There are so many coffee subscription boxes available these days that I understand how impossible it can feel trying to choose the right one. In this review, I’ll discuss my experience with the Moustache Coffee Club and what makes it unique so you can decide if it’s the best coffee subscription box for you.

How I Rated It

• Coffee Quality
• Coffee Variety
• Membership Options
• Value For Money
• Overall Experience

4

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What Is The Moustache Coffee Club?

In short, the Moustache Coffee Club is a coffee subscription box featuring freshly roasted single origin beans. But as always, it’s the details that make it interesting. 

My overall impression of Moustache was that it was a club by coffee lovers for coffee lovers. It felt like the sort of thing I might design if I sat down with my geekiest coffee friends, and I love that about it. It’s not trying to cater to everyone. It’s trying to do a specific thing very well, and it’s definitely succeeding. 

Whether that makes it the right coffee club for you remains to be seen, so let’s get into the details—starting with Moustache’s two key tenets.

Microlot Coffee

The definition of a single-origin coffee can be as broad as “all beans from the same country,” which in many cases is as diverse as a blend. Moustache coffees are microlot, which means they come from a specific lot on a given farm; it’s about as “single” as an origin can get (1).

Sourcing beans from a single lot fosters close relationships between Moustache and coffee farmers, to the benefit of both. It ensures impeccable quality control and seasonality. And it’s the best way to truly taste the impact of origin and bean varietal on a coffee’s flavor profile.

Freshness Is Paramount

Moustache roasts coffee in small batches every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, and they ship it the same day it’s roasted. In fact, my Moustache coffee arrived labeled with a “Best After” date rather than a “Best Before” date because it was so fresh roasted that it would benefit from another day of off-gassing (2).

Plenty of other great subscriptions deliver freshly roasted single origin coffee, but I haven’t encountered any as committed as Moustache to making sure every coffee is on your doorstep at or before its flavor peak. To me, this shows that they really care about the specialty coffee they source and want to do it justice.

How Does It Work?

Signing up for my Moustache Coffee subscription service was quick and easy. Their limited options simplified the process.

All you decide is the amount of coffee you want per shipment (6oz or 12oz) and how often you want it to arrive (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly). That’s it. Then you can browse their list of current coffees and start adding selections to your list. If you’re not sure where to start, they’ll just send you their favorite. Easy.

One Of The Best Uses Of AI

A few days after your coffee arrives, Moustache emails you asking you to rate it. That rating is fed into a custom-built AI, which uses machine learning to gradually understand your preferences. The more coffees you taste and review, the better it gets to know you (3). 

You are always free to select your own coffee from Moustache’s selection of upcoming coffees, but if you’re not sure which one you’ll like most, the AI does an impressive job of making recommendations tailored to your taste.

No Pre-Ground Coffee

Moustache will not grind your coffee. Understandably, this will be a deal-breaker for anyone without a burr grinder. But this policy speaks to the commitment to only offer fresh coffee at its peak. The coffee lovers behind this subscription simply can’t bear to think of you enjoying these specialty coffees in any condition other than their very best.

As I said earlier, this is a subscription that isn’t trying to cater to everyone. It was designed to deliver super high-end coffee to serious coffee lovers – a demographic very likely to own a burr grinder. 

What Kinds Of Coffees Can You Expect?

Moustache exclusively offers extremely high-end single-origin coffee. Its selection rotates weekly to ensure that each coffee is harvested, roasted, and shipped at its seasonal peak. This distinguishes it from other single-origin subscriptions like Atlas Coffee Club, which only offer one new coffee every month.

The company founders endeavor to showcase a diversity of flavors and origins in each selection. Right now, there are eight different coffees available, one of which is decaf.

They don’t advertise as a light roast subscription, but each coffee is carefully roasted to showcase its unique origin and flavor profile, which typically necessitates a light hand with the caramelization. You won’t find any dark roasts here, though some stray close to medium. The coffee experts at Moustache want to make sure you’re tasting the farmer’s hard work, not the roast.

My first shipment was a vibrant fruit bomb of a brew from Kenya. I brewed it as a pour over, which yielded a great cup of coffee with pronounced berry sweetness perfectly balanced by a punchy rhubarb acidity. The coffee arrived with a handy information card informing me of the varietals (SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, Batian), processing method (washed), producer (Ndaroini washing station), altitude (1600 – 1800 m), tasting notes, and much more.

The Tasting Series: For Serious Coffee Geeks

Learning about the Tasting Series really helped me understand the ethos of this company. The idea of the series is that some coffees are too delicious to miss but too rare and expensive to include as part of the normal subscription. 

Signing up for the Tasting Series gives you access to these coffees for $24 per bag of coffee. The catch is that the size of the bag varies depending on the coffee’s exclusivity. The delivery frequency varies, too. You only get a coffee when the team at Moustache encounters something truly special that they’re dying to share. 

It’s exactly the sort of ad hoc scheme that a true coffee lover would create; loving great coffee means wanting to share it with like-minded enthusiasts.

What Does A Moustache Subscription Cost?

A Moustache subscription costs $24/shipment for a 12-ounce bag or $14/shipment for 6 ounces, and shipping is free within the US. 

It is definitely one of the more expensive subscriptions, but that goes hand-in-hand with offering such special microlot coffee. Like I said, this isn’t a subscription for everyone.

The price is on par with what you would pay for this quality of coffee anywhere, and in this case, you get nice perks like roasting to order, free shipping, and tailored recommendations.

No More Free Trial

Moustache used to offer a free trial coffee to anyone in the US, but they’ve adjusted that to a $1 coffee. This seems silly to me. It adds an unnecessary complication, and I can’t imagine it does much for their bottom line. But perhaps adding a small fee weeds out the folks with no intention of signing up. 

Regardless, it’s a fantastic deal. You get 6 ounces of amazing coffee for $1. It requires that you sign up for a subscription, but you can easily cancel before it starts. Moustache even sends you a reminder email to cancel your subscription if you don’t want to get billed.

The Starbucks Gift Card Exchange

Here’s yet another example of (what I can only assume is) a bunch of coffee geeks sitting around brainstorming fun ideas. If you’ve been gifted a Starbucks card by a well-meaning friend who knows you love coffee but doesn’t know your high-brow coffee taste, you can trade it in for an equal amount of money towards your Moustache subscription.

Don’t Join The Moustache Coffee Club If…

• You prefer darker roasts or blends: When it comes to blends, it’s hard to beat Peet’s Coffee, which has risen to become one of the biggest coffee companies in the world on the strength of its delicious signature blends. Another great option is the Craft Coffee subscription, which offers a small but very affordable selection of crowd-pleasers.

• You want a bigger coffee selection: If you want to browse hundreds or thousands of excellent coffees in the quest for your next favorite, choose one of the subscriptions that source from many roasters rather than coffee roasting in-house. Trade, Mistobox, and Crema are all great options with a diverse selection of beans.

• You want a coffee-tasting experience: A blind coffee tasting is a fun (and tasty) way to learn more about coffee flavor profiles. If you want more from your coffee subscription than just a bag of beans, check out Angels’ Cup or Driftaway Coffee, both of which offer their own takes on the coffee-tasting experience.

The Verdict

It would not be an exaggeration to say that some of the coffee I’ve received from Moustache is among the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. The quality is consistently outstanding, and the beans always arrive impeccably fresh.

Admittedly, the Moustache Coffee Club is not for everyone. It’s for lovers of light roasts and unique single origins—and those who understand that getting the best coffee sometimes means paying a little more. Personally, I respect this decision to specialize. Because Moustache is only focused on one thing, it does it exceptionally well.

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