Coffee Pals

A few years ago, I discovered something magical on Reddit: a community of coffee enthusiasts from around the world who'd gather once a year to exchange bags of coffee with complete strangers. The rules were simple but specific - it had to be fresh, locally roasted, whole bean, single origin coffee. No supermarket stuff, no pods, no pre-ground. Real coffee, from real roasters, sent with care.

I participated a few times, and honestly, it became one of my favourite things. There was something special about opening your letterbox to find a carefully wrapped package from someone in Portugal or Australia or Japan, complete with a handwritten note about the local roaster they'd discovered, maybe a postcard from their city, sometimes a regional snack thrown in for good measure. People would include their Instagram handles, and I ended up keeping in touch with several of them - actual pen pals, connected through coffee.

But like many good things on the internet, it eventually faded away. The organisers moved on, the subreddit went quiet, and suddenly there was this gap where something genuinely lovely used to be.

So I thought, why not bring it back? But this time, make it better. Make it monthly instead of annual, so you're not waiting a whole year for the next exchange. Give people control over whether they want to send nationally or internationally, because let's be honest - international postage can be eye-watering and not everyone budgeted for it. Build in a reputation system so the people who consistently send great coffee get recognised, and the folks who ghost get filtered out. Create a space where this community can actually thrive rather than hoping a volunteer moderator has time to wrangle spreadsheets.

That's what Coffee Pals is. It's a platform for monthly coffee exchanges between people who genuinely care about coffee - not just drinking it, but discovering it, sharing it, talking about it. Every month, you can opt in to send a bag of coffee from a local roaster to someone else in the community, and you'll receive one back from a different member. It's random, it's personal, and if you're lucky, you might make some connections that last beyond a single bag of beans.

We're not trying to be a subscription service. You're not buying coffee from us - you're buying it from your local roaster and sending it to another human being. We're just here to make the connections, keep things fair, and build the kind of community where people actually want to participate month after month.

The site's still being built as I write this, and honestly, I'm figuring out a lot as I go. But the core idea is solid: connect people who love coffee, make it easy to exchange with others around the world (or just down the road), and create something that feels a bit more real than just clicking 'add to cart' on another website.

If this sounds like your kind of thing, stick around. I'll be sharing updates as we build this, and when we're ready to launch, you'll be the first to know. In the meantime, go support your local roaster - you're going to need some excellent coffee to send when we open our first exchange.

Here's to good coffee and the people who share it.