Want to join the NPR Coffee Club?
Counter Culture Coffee is very excited to partner with NPR to bring you NPR Coffee Club subscriptions! We’re thrilled to grow our coffee community virtually, and share our values—a dedication to real environmental, social, and fiscal sustainability that come to light through our education programs. Our Virtual Tastings are not just geared for baristas or our wholesale partners, but coffee enthusiasts as well.
It was in 2003 when our Training Center doors first opened to the public on Friday morning cuppings. This was a way for Counter Culture to build a coffee community through talking about and tasting coffees, learning about our producer partnerships, and why relationships across the value stream are imperative for quality and sustainably-sourced coffee. Our Tasting at Ten events were the beginning of what felt like a little coffee club in Durham, N.C. at our Headquarters and Roastery.
At the start of 2020, Counter Culture was leading Tasting at Ten events every Friday morning (at 10 a.m.) in 13 different Training Centers stretched across the United States—from Washington D.C. to the Bay Area. Each Training Center has an in-house coffee educator leading a discussion and tasting a different coffee each week. Our audience was always a packed crowd of eager coffee enthusiasts who were excited to gain a new understanding of the coffees presented and how to perceive flavors through slurping coffee with spoons from cupping bowls.
For now, our ritual of getting together every Friday morning looks a lot different—more virtual, screen-forward, if you will. Growing this NPR Coffee Club community allows us to continue to learn together over a love of good coffee and a more informed public. This club will be a way for those wanting to have more knowledge of topics from the history of coffee and how it is affecting our producing-partners, to the science behind brewing and making the perfect manual brew.
NPR Coffee Club Virtual Events will be similar to our well-loved Tasting at Ten experience, but go even further! There will be interesting articles on current topics in coffee, Live Q&A’s with members of our Coffee Department (oh yes, we have a coffee department) and some of our partners along the supply chain, Saturday Virtual Tastings, and time to connect with our team of educators if you have any questions as they come up. Join our mailing list here to stay connected on upcoming tastings and events.
