Where do I start?

Sometimes specialty coffee can seem intimidating. There are so many little details to learn, but the secret is you only need to learn the details you’re interested in. Do you drink your coffee with cream and sugar? Maybe you like to reheat your coffee in the microwave throughout the day? Or maybe you just aren’t looking to drop a fortune on a bag of coffee. Our blend clubs are a great place to start. We blend vibrant and tasty coffees together to create unique flavors that will be sure to satisfy your needs. Our blends generally contain naturally process coffees from Brazil to both add body and sweetness while maintaining an affordable price. Our blends are a great place to get started in coffee or to find a reliable coffee you can come back to again and again. FIND BLEND CLUBS HERE

Do you like bright, exciting, and exotic flavors in your coffee? If I told you the tasting notes of one of our offerings were, “blueberry, hibiscus, and red wine” would you just have to try it? Our single origin club is for you! We have selections from all over the world, focusing on small farms and farmers who produce big flavor. With these coffees we focus on flavor development and generally roast them light to medium to allow them to maintain the exciting flavors and acidity inherent to their origin. FIND SINGLE ORIGIN CLUB HERE

What grind size should I pick?

The grind size you select should be based on how you brew your coffee. Do you brew your morning cup in an automatic, electric coffee maker? Medium grind would be the best place to start, for you. Are you using your coffee to brew cold brew overnight? You will definitely want to start with course grind. Are you joining the espresso coffee club to make espresso at home? Espresso should always be set at fine grind. Are you using a pour over device, such as a v60 or kalitta? Medium grind would be your choice.

We will be up front here. Grinding coffee yourself right before you brew will almost always produce better coffee, but we understand not everyone has or wants to buy a coffee grinder. If you are ordering coffee pre-ground some basic rules of thumb are:

1. Fine grind is used in Turkish and espresso brewing methods. This grind size can also be used in Aeropress, depending on your Aeropress recipe.

2. Medium grind is the most common selection. If you brew via percolation method, where water is passing through the coffee grounds such as in an electric drip coffee brewer or in hand brewed pour over devices, medium grind is almost certainly your best choice. One caveat, Chemex brewers sometimes do better with course grind, as the tend to get choked up when the paper filter forms a seal around the edges of the carafe and air has a hard time escaping as water flows in. If you aren’t quite sure which grind size is right for you, medium grind is probably the safest bet.

3. Course grind is used for brewing methods where water soaks or steeps the grounds. Examples of this include overnight cold brew and french press. One thing to note, french press can definitely be brewed and taste great with medium grind coffee as well, it just depends on your preparation. As noted above, course grind might also be selected for Chemex, depending on your preparation.

If you have any questions about this you can reach out to our head roaster and founder at alex@hammerhand.coffee.

Which coffee is best for me?

Everyone has different preferences, but over the years we have gotten pretty good at helping people figure out which coffee on our menu they will like best.

• Everyman medium roast club is our most popular club. The Everyman is a perfect middle-of-the-road coffee. We use Central and South American coffees to create a mellow and sweet profile that is great when taken black or when served with cream and sugar. Use it for drip coffee, french press, cold brew, or even as espresso. This is a versatile coffee just about everyone will be able to enjoy.

• Wanderer dark roast club is the perfect club if you love darker coffees. The full bodied, full flavors of the Wanderer come through very nicely when mixed with cream, sweeteners, and flavors and also provides that bold wake-me-up flavor that dark roast, black coffee drinkers love. This coffee makes a great morning coffee and also a good cold brew.

• Roaster’s choice blend club is for you if you thought both of the above blends sounded great. If you like variety in your coffee and prefer our value driven blends, join this club and you won’t be disappointed. We will not only send you the Everyman and Wanderer blends, we will also rotate in our light roast blend, espresso blend (which is good for drip coffee, cold brew, and espresso), and occasionally our seasonal blends!

• Roaster’s choice single origin club is made for those who love coffee in all its forms. If you want to experience the best single origins and small lots we have to offer, this is your club. We will send you coffees from all around the world. These coffees will be roasted light to medium and will focus on highlighting flavors inherent to the origin of each coffee.

How long does coffee stay fresh and how should I store it?

Three things will affect the freshness of your roasted coffee: moisture, oxygen, and light. There is no real set time that coffee stays fresh as it all depends on storage. If you leave it open on the counter it will probably taste stale in a week or two. If you leave it in a sealed bag with a valve (like our bags), it will stay fresh for months. We pack our coffee in airtight, opaque, valved bags that allow gasses out but do not allow oxygen in. If left in these bags our coffee will stay fresh for about 3 months. Once opened, the coffee should be consumed within a couple weeks. If you have a way to store coffee away from light and oxygen, such as an AirScape canister or something similar, your coffee will stay fresh much longer. Keeping it in the bag and folding over the top is a pretty good method but it isn’t fully airtight so you’ll still want to consume the coffee within a few weeks. Ground coffee goes stale much faster and there isn’t a great way to avoid that. You can still use an airtight container to prolong it’s freshness but once you open the bag you’ll want to consume the coffee pretty quickly. Espresso actually benefits from being a few weeks older before you start using it. So freshness matters a lot, but it’s a bit more complicated than “fresher is always better”. In a nutshell, make sure your coffee is in a sealed, valved bag, check that there is a roast date (not a “best by” date), and store it in as airtight a container as you can after you open it.

Where do you get your coffees from?

We get our coffees through a small variety of importers. Some direct, some indirect, but we trust all of our importers in terms of quality and ethics. Many of our Brazilian coffees are imported directly through the vertically integrated Brazilian company Our Coffees. Most of our high end single origin coffees are sourced through Crop to Cup Importers or Ally Importers. Crop to Cup has done some great work in Uganda and is the source of all our Ugandan coffees sold as single origin (the Bulaago, for those who remember that stellar coffee) and found in our Light of Earendil espresso blend. We get our blend selections from both Crop to Cup and Anthem Importers, a local KC partner. Many of our Guatemalan single origin coffees are directly sourced through another great vertically integrated company, Onyx Coffee Importers. All these companies are great and we encourage you to read about them. Onyx and Our Coffees especially are really cool companies doing great things in their communities. Their vertically integrated models provide unmatched transparency and quality.

How do the coffee clubs work?

We get it. There are a lot of options and it may look confusing at first glance, however, we assure you it is actually pretty simple. You browse our coffee club options, read the descriptions and the available quantities, and select the one that works for you. The sign up form allows you to select the number of 12oz bags you would like to receive (1 through 5) and whether or not you would like it ground (whole bean, course grind, medium grind, or fine grind). If you aren’t sure about what grind size, check our handy breakdown here. Once you have made your selections you simply enter payment information and finish your checkout. We will receive your order and set you up with recurring payments and shipments based on your specifications. We ship subscription club coffees once a month. If you go through a bag of coffee each week, you would select 5 bags and open one every week. The sealed bags will keep the rest of your coffee fresh until you’re ready to use it. If everything stays the same, you will continue receiving coffee each month for as long as you want. If something changes, say you move and need to change addresses or you are drinking less coffee and don’t need as much, you can log on to your account using your email any time and adjust any time. As always our founder, Alex, is available to help with any questions that arise. Just email alex@hammerhand.coffee.

Is there any commitment? How do I cancel if I want shipments to stop?

One of the best parts about our clubs is that there is zero risk, zero commitment. If you are unhappy with a coffee we will ship you something different our refund 100% of your purchase. If you want to change your orders, pause them for a while, change the payment method, or cancel your subscription you can do so at any time with just a few clicks. The customer portal can be found here and, using the email you subscribed with, you can log on and have full control of your club membership right from your phone or computer.