Coffee makes the world go round. Anyone with a sufficiently developed caffeine addiction understands the vital role coffee plays in a functioning society. Coffee battles with tea for the number one spot on the list of the world’s most popular drinks. Such a widely consumed beverage naturally has developed a wide variety of types, styles, and producers.
The internet runs thick with coffee distributors trying to carve out their niche in a competitive market. Bones Coffee has become a significant player thanks to its innovative approach to roasting and flavoring.
In this review, we’ll talk about what makes Bones Coffee special and where it has room for improvement. If you’re looking to give them a try, read on to learn more!
Long Story Short
Bones Coffee aims to provide something for every type of coffee lover. From traditional roasts to bold flavors to extra caffeine, to decaf, they offer a variety of coffees designed to please any palate.
What Is Bones Coffee?
Bones Coffee is an online coffee company, specializing in flavored coffees and specialty roasts. They use 100% Arabica beans in their flavored coffees, and also have an espresso blend and a “High Voltage” blend with twice the amount of caffeine as a normal cup of coffee.
Bones coffee roasts their coffee in small batches, roasting-to-order so that their coffee arrives with maximum freshness. They have options for both a la carte and subscription orders, so you can sample a few batches and then set up a subscription if you like what you taste.
Bones Coffee has an impressive array of coffee flavors and styles, available in either whole bean or pre-ground bags. With such a diverse suite of offerings, they make the wise choice to offer sample packs so you can get a little taste of everything.
Bones Coffee products come in several different packages. Traditional 12-ounce bags of whole bean or ground coffee come in high-quality, opaque bags with delightful cover art. They also have single-serve K-Cups for many of their flavors.
Despite the lack of a traditional brick-and-mortar operation, Bones coffee enjoys widespread popularity. Their products have featured in subscription boxes like Owlcrate, magazines like Food & Wine and Women’s Health, and websites like Bustle and Chowhound.
The Flavors
This is where things get genuinely wild. Bones Coffee experiments with an eclectic, but somehow appropriate mix of flavors in their coffees. All flavoring comes from natural ingredients and no sugar, so despite their intense aroma, they have no more calories than a typical cup of black coffee, which is a far cry from coffee syrups.
Bestsellers include flavors like the jelly doughnut-flavored “From Dusk Till Donuts,” the pumpkin spice-flavored “Jacked-O-Lantern,” the mint ice cream-flavored “Mint Invaders,” the cinnamon-flavored “Sinn-O-Bunn’ and the spiced, buttered rum-flavored “Shark Bite.”
A little further down their popularity list lies a dizzying array of bizarre yet somehow alluring flavors. Other blends taste like bananas foster, a White Russian, or even fruity cereal in the case of “Electric Unicorn.”
They also have flavors like bourbon barrel-aged coffee. To craft it, they use real bourbon barrels to age the arabica beans, infusing the beans with a bourbon-y flavor. Depending on the potency of your coffee breath, this one might raise a few eyebrows at work, but it has no alcohol and speaks to the innovation Bones Coffee exhibits with their blends.
Bones coffee has several offerings for the decaf crowd also. Maple bacon, vanilla caramel, butterscotch caramel, strawberry cheesecake, and s’more-flavored coffees complement their original flavored “Rest-In-Peace” decaf blend.
Beyond unique flavor profiles, Bones coffee has a couple of other tricks up their sleeve. Their “High Voltage” coffee comes with double the caffeine and none of the added bitterness – a pretty neat trick, especially for those of us who normally need a few extra cups to operate safely.
Of course, if you just want a typical cup of joe, Bones can provide that too. They have an assortment of single-origin coffees from Sumatra, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Kenya, and Columbia. They also have a typical espresso roast, also available in a specialized espresso grind for those who need an extra shot of energy.
Bones Coffee Bestsellers
Bones Coffee Strawberry Cheesecake
Bones Coffee Sinn-O-Bunn
Bones Coffee S’morey Time
Bones Coffee High Voltage
Bones Coffee Maple Bacon
The Quality
Bones coffee claims to produce the world’s freshest small-batch coffee. With no easy way to prove or disprove that statement, we will leave it to you to decide, but it does speak to Bones Coffee’s commitment to providing a fresh, quality roast. They roast each batch to order, which means your order gets roasted right before it gets sent out in the mail.
You can certainly smell the freshness from the moment you open the bag. Both flavored and unflavored coffees have a delightful, rich aroma. The flavored coffees especially provide quite the sensory experience while brewing, filling your home with the scent of warm strawberry cheesecake, orange cream, or whatever exotic delight you have chosen for your order.
Bones coffees all have a wonderfully smooth taste and texture. However, the flavored coffees have a much more muted flavor than their aroma would suggest. Since they use no sweeteners or artificial ingredients, most of the taste occurs in the nostrils rather than on the tongue.
If you want to heighten the flavor a little, cold brewing seems to bring the flavors forward more than a traditional hot brew. If you have never tried a cold brew at home, check out this tutorial for a great, simple way to get a refreshing cold coffee fix.
Some coffee aficionados may appreciate the more subtle taste compared to the aroma, but those expecting a flavor bomb might experience a little disappointment. Just the same, Bones Coffee does present a quality roast with unique flavor presentations diverse enough to please most palates.
Fair Trade/Keto/Vegan
Information on the origin of Bones Coffee’s beans is scant, but they have expressed a goal to get fair trade certification.
Thanks to the lack of sugars or other additives, Bones Coffee meets the standards of the keto diet. They do not yet have certified vegan status, but their process includes no animal products of any kind.
Bones Coffee Review
If you want to try something new, Bones Coffee has you covered. Whether you just want a little something extra like vanilla in your flavoring, or something exotic like a key lime pie coffee (what?), their product line has a fantastic variety.
But the flavors do not seem gimmicky. The coffee itself has an excellent bloom in a pour-over or french press, highlighting the quality and freshness of the beans. The taste and texture stand up against any other high-end coffee, even in neutral flavors. Overall, Bones Coffee deserves a chance from anyone with a refined palate in search of a high-quality cup of joe.
If you are unsure of what flavors to start with we recommend giving the sampler packs a go! Their Favorite Flavors sampler pack has 5 of their most popular coffees for you to try: Maple Bacon, Strawberry Cheesecake, S’morey Time, Highland Grog, and Sinn-O-Bunn.
As always, if you have tried Bones Coffee we would love to hear from you! What is your favorite Bones coffee flavor?
Happy Buying!
