As a self confessed caffeine addict I am rarely without a cup of coffee at my side. Making a cup is the first thing I do when I wake up and I depend on several more cups to get me through the work day. Although I am no coffee aficionado – the stronger the better is usually my preference – I’m often disappointed by the coffee I purchase and wish I could tweak it to my own personal taste. While the coffee available in the supermarkets may claim to be ‘hand-roasted’ and ‘artisan’ it is still mass produced and designed for a long shelf life meaning that it will often be months old before it reaches your cup. That’s why I was extremely intrigued when a colleague of mine introduced me to the newest addition to the UK coffee scene - London based personalised coffee service Eight Point Nine.
Eight Point Nine believe that fresh coffee tastes better and wanted to provide a service where people could design a coffee made specially for them and have it delivered fresh and straight to their door every week. At the click of a mouse they offer tailor-made, hand-blended, freshly ground coffee delivered weekly to your door. All their coffee is fair trade and small-batch roasted in the UK by roast-masters with over 20 years experience and long-term relationships with coffee growing communities around the world. They offer two subscription options: You can either subscribe to the grandCRU service to receive a surprise coffee delivered to your door every week (Eightpointnine will select and hand-blend a world-class roast every week to showcase the best coffees from around the world) or for a truely personal recipe you can design your very own blend. Simply use the online flavour profiling tool on the website to create your own unique blend which can be given a name of your choice and is then sent to you in a postbox-friendly parcel. Whether you like your coffee fresh, sweet, spicy, light, mellow or rich use the flavour mapping tool to describe your perfect cup. Once you’ve chosen the flavour and body you can then choose your preferred grind (espresso, filter, cafetiere or just beans) and how many deliveries you need a week (to give you an idea each bag contains over 16 cups). You can then tweak your personal blend whenever you like to suit your mood or preference.
Order your Eightpointnine coffee blend from their website here.