Citizen Bean: Organic, Fair-Trade Coffee-of-the-Month Club
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 10.15.07
Keep yourself or the coffee snob/caffeine enthusiast in your life rolling in gourmet java beans with Citizen Bean, an online subscription coffee-roaster-of the-month club that offers the "best sustainable and complex roasts" from small-batch specialty roasters across the United States.
For $79.99 for four months, $119.99 for six months, or $199.99 for a whole year (includes various coffee-making accoutrements, as well), the Citizen Bean subscriber will receive an exclusive organic, fair-trade, and shade-grown coffee selection, delivered days after the beans have been roasted.
With the tagline "Coffee with a Conscience," the San Francisco, Calif. company—which, oddly enough, has co-opted the Statue of Liberty in its logo—wants to use the niche marketing of specialty roasts to enable subsistence coffee growers to improve their livelihoods and emerge from poverty.
A portion of Citizen Bean's profits will be donated to a charity of each roaster's choice; the company also says it uses post-consumer recycled materials in its packaging, shipping, and collateral. ::Citizen Bean
...blends from all over the country. Okay, coffee doesn't grow in the 48, so why truck it all over the country just to wrap it up, mark it up, and ship it off again? Price is steep(est) even for triple cert. coffee. Food miles being one of the concerns coffee consumption wears, I find shipping coffee across the country - just to be repackaged and reshipped - is a step in the wrong direction and hardly a gift at all.
Generally, coffee snobs / enthusiasts roast their own, since "days after being roasted" is generally too late to enjoy coffee at its flavor peak.
Anonymous/Chris is totally uninformed. It is pretty easy to understand by reading the company website that they select the best roasters from all over the country. You can't compare green coffee roasted in a toaster oven with award-winning single origin/signature blends honored by international jurors either. Chris/Anonymous have no idea what lengths theses guys go to ensure their customers get an outstanding value and meaningful adventure. Makes me think is just out to simply slander this company.