Driftaway with this personalized coffee

“Driftaway Coffee was started to fulfill our desire to create, do work we were passionate about, as well as our need for and interest in great coffee.”– Suyog & Anu, Co-founders of Driftaway

Driftaway Coffee is a small-batch coffee roaster, offering subscriptions focused on connecting people to their coffee farmers and supporting sustainable lives for them. Driftaway was started in 2014 in Brooklyn by Suyog and Anu who hail from my hometown, Mumbai. This is what first got me interested in their coffee and once I read the story behind it, I was hooked.

The story behind the coffee

Anu and Suyog met at Georgia Tech and bonded over their love of coffee. The idea for starting their own gourmet coffee company came from Michaele Weissman’s book, God in a Cup: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee. They launched Driftaway Coffee in 2014, a year after they moved to
Brooklyn. They roasted their first batches of coffee in a modified popcorn popper, moving on from there to electric ovens, then a
gas-powered Huky roaster.

“We loved the name ‘Driftaway’ because it conveys two meanings. The emotional part of it is how coffee allows you to Driftaway to a far-away land and the rational side is where coffee travels from really far away to get to us. Even the closest coffee-producing countries are thousands of miles away. We wanted the name to acknowledge that this delicious, necessary beverage has come to us from really far away and pay our respect to everyone who makes it possible.”

What I like about Driftaway…

Aside from the meet-cute of two coffee lovers and their journey to starting a gourmet coffee company together, Driftaway emphasizes the importance of the people at the origin of the coffee. They connect you with the producers and even allow you to provide farmer feedback, which they collect and share with their partners. They believe in sustainable coffee and they offer 100% compostable, form-fitting and waste-free packaging.

Moreover, this is a good place to start for coffee beginners, as Driftaway provides you with a Coffee Explorer Box. This allows you to sample five coffees from around the world, with the information of the coffee hidden. This blind taste test lets you taste coffee without any preconceptions.

Drink your coffee, the way YOU like it

Customization is now an essential part of the coffee experience — a fundamental or basic need and no longer an enhanced need, as confirmed by research from S&D Coffee & Tea and Datassential.

According to their survey of regular coffee drinkers that purchase coffee away from home from a commercial operator or convenience store, the ability to customize is the third most important factor when consumers choose a venue from which to buy coffee.

Driftaway’s subscription takes into account this trend by providing highly personalized coffee service. They let the coffee take the center stage while sending you freshly roasted beans from small farms around the world.

• First, based on the explorer kit, Driftaway makes sure you realize what roast you favor. These choices vary from light to dark roast.
• After you know what type of coffee you like, you can choose the frequency of your subscription and the amount of coffee you want to receive
• There is an option to prepay for your subscription or pay as you go along too
• Personalized recommendations will be offered based off what you ordered previously. There is an option to rate the coffee you received on the website.
• In the Taste Profile section of your account, you can record flavor notes as well as your overall satisfaction level with the coffee. In addition to the tasting notes available, you add flavors and provide additional notes, to help driftaway determine what to send you next.
• It’s a great way to ensure that you can try new varieties of coffee that are aligned to your tastes.
• The same process can be used to personalize gifts for loved ones.

Driftaway also provides expert guided virtual tastings, private and public tasting parties and a weekly coffee tasting for subscribers on zoom. I believe this encourages interaction with the brand and provides a new experience to tasting coffee.

End-to-End journey

While there are plenty of coffee services available, not all of them offer the fast shipping, fresh coffee experience that Driftaway Coffee does. For someone still determining what they want in a great cup of coffee, Driftaway provides personalization while keeping you connected to the origin story of your brew.

Their packaging is 100% compostable packaging. Every single component of the Driftaway package you receive can become soil through composting.The corrugated boxes used for their tasting kit are made from recycled paper, and are recyclable.

Moreover with each delivery of your coffee, Driftaway provides you with postcards that depict the coffee farmers and farms who produced the coffee you are drinking. On the back is the story of each coffee, where it’s from, who is picking it, and why that coffee is special.

Reviews online, on their website, and in the WallStreet journal and other magazines confirm that more and more individuals are giving in to this personalized trend.

Driftaway brings you that much closer to your coffee. It’s not just a source of caffeine in the morning, but it’s a story that you’ll want to be a part of.