“I purchase both single origin coffee, 03 and 04 which are clearly stated that is “light” roast and that’s the reason why I order that for my V60 filter coffee. Sadly, it comes to the medium roast and definitely they both are not matching to what it is stated and make my coffee in bitter taste as they are over roasted for filtering coffee. So disappointing!”
“Omg oh wow what a fantastic coffee. This smells wonderful you can actually smell this before opening the bag and the taste is so smooth, this is fabulous I loved every bit of this coffee. The box it came in was a lovely little box. I totally recommend this coffee.”
“I bought the Taste of Bridge collection for a friend's birthday who absolutely loves coffee, and it's safe to say they were extremely impressed with everything. From the beautiful gift box to the incredible packaging and of course the delicious beans. Now they're just deciding which beans to subscribe to!”
“Firstly, the coffee is pretty good (and probably better than I give it credit for) and the packaging is breathtakingly gorgeous!
Now on to the experience.
I was after some coffee from a local(ish) roaster as a change from my usual local(ish) roaster, and I had about 5 days of beans left in stock.
After a couple of unfinished orders with other roasters (due to poor availability & sketchy websites), coming to bridgecoffeeroasters.co.uk felt like coming home - it was a huge relief.
Everything is beautiful, well laid out and works.
Availability wasn't an issue and I opted to give House Blends 02 & 04 a punt.
Later that day (Tuesday), I got confirmation that my order had been dispatched, along with UPS tracking - excellent!
1 day later (Wednesday) I checked in on my order.
It was sat in Cardiff, had been since the previous day and had a cryptic 'more information required' (or similar) message on it.
I thought, "they can't have failed to deliver it yet, it only got dispatched yesterday afternoon. It'll probably arrive today".
It did not arrive that day.
On Thursday, I also mistakenly assumed that delivery would either be attempted or someone would be in touch, as there was no guidance on the tracking of how to give more information, nor what information was not correct.
On the following day (Friday), I checked again.
Still in Cardiff; still needs more info.
I double-checked my email and junk for any communication from UPS or Bridge - nought but the dispatch confirmation.
A little more digging, app downloading, finicky registration and service desk ticket raising with UPS yielded that the address on my package didn't exist (my house number is 57 & the parcel had 9 in its place).
Another email was required to request a change, which was sent on Friday night, with a hope that maybe it would arrive late Saturday.
Monday...the last day of beans.
I hoped that this would be the day that my package would arrive and save me from the ever-more-likely need to purchase supermarket coffee (Heaven forbid!!).
At lunchtime I got an email from UPS informing me that my package would arrive at number 57 the next day.
Alas, I put the kettle on and made a cup of tea.
Tuesday. THE day.
Following a morning cup of char the fabled package arrived.
With excited grin and relieved tear, I opened it up and found 2 stunning boxes which smelled divine.
I decided to make a cup of nectar immediately.
Based on the milder aroma, I opted to start with No 2.
I prised open the vacuum-snug box and felt the absence of the sound and feel of beans moving around.
So close.
My beans were ground coffee.
This was a true first-world tragedy.
I would not be blessed with the additional task of grinding my own beans.
A quick check of my order confirmed, of course, that this was my error (I have form for excitedly ordering the wrond thing).
Nevermind - I'll do better next time.
The next morning, I decided to give No 4 a try and discovered that the 'resealable' pouch was not actually 'unsealable'.
Unfortunately, the clever plastic partners were fused together, so, like a Neanderthal, I cut open the bag with scissors and have been left sealing it with intricate folds (to create a vacuum, whilst leaving the valve exposed) and binder clips.
These things happen.
All in all, I don't feel like I can properly judge the coffee quality, due to my mis-ordering and the cognitive bias that the struggles will have created.
The 2-star loss in my rating is absolutely down to the issues with delivery.
I hope that this was an isolated incident but does make me wonder how '57' becomes '9' - I do hope that you guys aren't manually typing addresses for deliveries(!).
The fact that no communication was received from Bridge or UPS suggests that either: UPS don't notify senders of issues, or Bridge failed to act on the notification received.
In either case, it's poor form for the customer to have to find, diagnose & fix the issue - I also wonder how much longer it would have taken had I not spent over an hour on getting it sorted.
I'm coming to the end of stock again and am weighing up my options.
Perhaps my next review will be 5 stars.
Or maybe this will be my last for Bridge.
I'm not sure yet.
Maybe I'll make a cuppa and mull it over.”
