Cooper’s Cask Coffee vs Intelligentsia Coffee

Coffee drinkers seeking barrel-aged and single-origin specialty beans with a unique whiskey or rum flavor influence

Drinkers who want a named farm, a published process and a roaster that has been doing direct trade since before it was a marketing word

• +Ten named origin countries across five roast levels is one of the widest combinations in this price bracket.
• +A barrel-aged processing line is offered without artificial flavoring, a genuine point of difference at $33 to $61 per kilo.
• +Swiss Water decaf is sold as a named-origin coffee, not a stripped blend.
• +Four grind options plus whole bean let a buyer match the coffee to their brew method at checkout.

• −The roaster prints no roast date, so a buyer cannot tell from the packaging how recently a bag was roasted.
• −Ground and whole bean are the only formats available, so pod brewers have no compatible option.
• −The barrel-aged and specialty lots reach $61.71 per kilo, a significant step up from the entry price.

• +Nineteen coffees reviewed, the deepest range on this site, plus two gift sets
• +Twelve origins named including Brazil, Ethiopia, Kenya, Costa Rica and Guatemala
• +Three roast levels from medium-light to medium-dark, in ground and whole bean, with a subscription
• +A published price per kilo from $42.55, so the range can be compared

• −No roast date is printed, which is unusual for a specialty roaster at this level
• −$42.55 to $126.26 a kilo is a wide spread with little to explain it on the listings
• −Six of its instant and single-origin coffees publish no tasting notes at all