Supermarket coffee is roasted months before you open it. By then most of what makes good coffee taste good has gone. A subscription fixes that. Fresh beans arrive before you run out, and you never have to think about it.

But not every subscription is the same. Here's what to look for, from people who roast it.

1. Roasted to order, not roasted to stock

Coffee is at its best roughly a week to a month after roasting. Ask when your beans were roasted, not just when they were packed. If a roaster can't tell you, that tells you something.

At OHCO we roast in small batches every week at Hursley Park, near Winchester. Your bag is roasted to order and posted straight to your door.

2. Choice over a lucky dip

Some subscriptions send whatever the roaster picks. That's fun until a bag you don't like turns up. Look for one that lets you choose your coffee, and change it whenever you fancy something new.

Our Coffee Club works with any bean in our range. Start with something familiar, like our Casa OHCO House Blend (chocolate, rich, clean finish). Then branch out to a bright Kenya Rung'eto Kiangoi AA or a fruity Ethiopia Guji Hambella.

3. A schedule that fits how much you drink

A 250g bag makes around 15 to 20 cups, depending on how you brew. As a rough guide:

Every 2 weeks: daily drinkers, or two of you sharing a pot
Monthly: a cup or two most days
Every 6 weeks: weekend brewers

Get it wrong and you'll have a stale backlog or an empty cupboard. Pick a subscription that lets you change frequency easily.

4. Whole bean or ground for your brewer

Whole beans stay fresh longest. Grind just before brewing and you'll taste the difference. If you don't have a grinder yet, choose a subscription that grinds for your method: espresso, filter, cafetière or AeroPress. You can always pick up a grinder later. We stock Comandante and Wilfa.

5. No lock-in

Life changes. Holidays happen. A good subscription lets you pause, skip or cancel without a phone call or a minimum term. If the small print says otherwise, keep looking.

6. Know where it comes from

Speciality coffee should come with a story you can check. We buy from producers we know by name: the Forest Collective in Colombia, the Rung'eto co-operative in Kenya, the Dutra family in Brazil. It's the same coffee we serve in our café.