Frequently Asked Questions

Lucienne operates like a winery/cellar—carefully tasting, packaging, cataloguing, and preserving each [coffee] on your behalf right here in Colorado. This is a major understatement and honestly sounds much easier than it actually is.

Partner coffees are rested for 7-14 days, individually vacuum packed in 100g increments, catalogued, then placed in a deep freeze (-18°F) until ordered by you.

All coffees are delivered in freezer-safe, flat vacuum bags with integrated, resealable zippers.

We taste every single bag of coffee we purchase blind before listing them for sale to ensure quality remains high. We do not discount or sell rejected coffees. (Sorry. These end up being my husband and I’s morning cups.)

We specialize in forgiving, un-finicky, stunning coffees meant for special occasions, coffee nerds, or just treating yourself.

Over time, we hope to build quite the catalogue of both new and legacy offerings no longer available anywhere else.

We have a wholesale relationship with roasters we love.

We purchase large quantities of their best coffees. (…and spend a shit load of money to have them imported to us here in the USA.)

We taste every single one of these coffees to make sure they’re delicious.

We split these large quantities into small quantities for individual consumption.

We package and store these coffees in a manner that keeps them fresh for ultra-extended periods of time.

You purchase these coffees at your leisure.

We make a little bit of money.

If all goes well, you end up liking the coffee and come back to buy more.

Lucienne survives another day.

We restock and release new coffees every month on the 15th @ 12PM Mountain Time! (That’s 2pm Eastern, and 11am Pacific)

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All of our coffees are roasted 7-14 days before being vacuum packed and frozen for long-term storage.

That being said, you will find the following info for each coffee on the bag label:

Roasted: [Date]
Vacuum Packed/Frozen: [Date]
Thawed: [Date]

At the moment, we are on a roasting hiatus as we expand our multiroaster program.

We will always offer coffees from our partner roasters, to include Glitch (Tokyo), Red Poison (Kanagawa), Lilo Coffee Factory (Osaka), Apollon’s Gold (Tokyo), and many others!

Before you read on, we do offer espresso-specific roasts, if that is what you’re looking for!

Most Lucienne offerings are roasted with filter preparation in mind, unless noted otherwise. This is the easiest, most forgiving, most reliable method to taste these coffees with minimal fuss and waste on your end.

A skilled barista can certainly dial these in for espresso with amazing results as well. We see it all the time.

However, for most customers, we generally don’t recommend this due to the size of our bags at 100g each. We believe most baristas need at a minimum 3-4 pulls to approach a decent shot, and by then you may or may not have enough for a 5th. Because the quantity is low and the price is high, it just doesn’t make economic sense, and we’d hate for you to end up wasting so much coffee.

Of course, this is the case with any coffee, and can easily be solved by purchasing more than one bag... In other words, like most things, this problem can be solved with money. But this economy is tough.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, I know there are a bunch of you espresso maniacs out there who will do it anyway. I won’t stop you from your fun. :)

In short, not really! Everyone’s brewer, grinder, and water is different, so the best advice I can give for brewing is to try the same brew methodology that you normally use, then adjust from there.
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If you have a Clever Dripper (what we recommend):

Here is how I brew every coffee for the first time on the Clever Dripper:

Coffee Dose: 20g
Water: 300g
Grind: Medium (~15 on EK43, ~4.5 on R-220; similar to store bought citric acid. Please reference our grind size aid included with your box.)
Water temp: ~208-210F (or, just off boiling)
Total time: 3 minutes

1. Pre-rinse paper filter and discard water.

2. Grind coffee dose and pour into dripper, leveling the coffee bed and tapping the side to remove any air pockets.

3. Pour brewing water in concentric circles onto the coffee bed, slowly increasing the flow rate until you reach 300g. (The flow rate should end up being strong enough to agitate the grounds thoroughly.)

4. Cover the dripper to keep heat in.

5. Let coffee sit for 3 minutes.

6. At 3 minutes, swirl the dripper lightly and then plunge.

7. Drawdown should be around 1-1:30 minute(s).

This recipe works as a great baseline for most coffees. From here, I may make adjustments.

If you’re using a V60:
I recommend starting with Tetsu Kasuya’s 4:6 method as a baseline. This will take you very far!

We don't have an official recommendation on whether or not you rest your coffees, but know these two things:

First, the notes we taste (that you see on every coffee’s product page) were probably extracted from coffees that had not been rested for any appreciable amount of time, usually within 7 days of roasting. (We’re on a tight schedule here.)

Second, we already let our coffees rest for 7-14 days before vacuum packing and freezing them for long-term storage. This is to give the coffees a few days to de-gas immediately after roasting, and to take some of that post-roast edginess off. This also helps with preventing our vacuum bags from getting too puffy.

When you place your order, the vacuum packed coffee bags are thawed completely at room temperature (with help from some Noctua fans) before being shipped to you. Generally by the time you receive your coffee, it should be good to go, and rested well enough. Brewing them within 14-21 days after opening the bag/breaking the seal is a reasonable time frame, unless stated otherwise. If a coffee calls for longer rest times, we will note it on the product page.

Anecdotally, many report that letting our coffees rest 2-3ish week(s) after receiving them is ideal, but YMMV, and we don’t want to give a blanket recommendation for every coffee.

Every coffee is different. There's no way for us (currently) to accurately predict when each coffee is "peaking.” Certainly not objectively. Storage methods, ambient conditions, light, etc, can all change how a coffee develops (or degrades) over time, and those variables alone are enough to make it highly unpredictable.

In short, the coffee probably already tastes great when it gets to you, but a little extra rest never hurt anything! You do you!

We vacuum pack coffees 7-14 days post-roast in individual packets, pre-weighed with their bag weight (100g).

The vacuum bags we use are 3 mil thickness. Specifically, we use “VacPak-It” bags, model 186EVBZ610. Bags are vacuumed using a Weston Model 65-0420-W. This vacuum sealer is capable of 28 Hg (Inches of Mercury. This equals roughly 95% vacuum, ~14 PSIA, or ~.95 bar)

These coffees are then placed in a deep freezer kept at -18F (-27C) until it is time to thaw, which is done at room temperature with the help of some Noctua fans.

Sure! We have not had any problems ourselves with refreezing coffee that has been previously frozen, so long as you keep it in unopened in the vacuum packaging it and make sure there are no leaks.

We have also completed a study that you can read about here that actually indicates this might be the best thing to do.

We do feel the beans become more brittle when refrozen. So keep that in mind. This can be a benefit to grind consistency, but might change how your grinder reacts.

Not yet! But until then you can experience our idea of fine coffee and hospitality at pop-ups held regularly around New York City and Denver, and through our online store. Follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter to never miss an event, product drop, or announcement!

Of course! If your order is a gift, please place your order as normal. On check out, you will be presented with gift options. You may also contact us with your order number, explaining what you need. I absolutely love to do gift orders.

We tend to only select incredibly clean coffees with exceptional clarity of flavor. Coffees like this tend to cost more. In addition, we only work with boutique roasters that we absolutely trust to roast high end coffees like these. (There's not much point in buying exceptional green if the roaster's skill is inconsistent or lacking.) This of course also commands a premium.

In specialty coffee and at Lucienne, cost does not always necessarily equate linearly with quality. Sometimes a coffee is expensive simply because it is rare, or because demand is incredibly high, or both. In any case, we are not exactly looking for "value" driven coffee at Lucienne (even though great value is always a huge plus!). Instead, we focus our energy on utmost clarity of flavor, and/or exceptional examples of rare offerings. More often than not, it ends up costing whatever it costs. It’s not about ripping you off, it’s just sometimes the ugly reality.

We also believe that specialty coffee is not a commodity product. It is closer to a luxury product that should be treated and priced as such. Given the sheer quantity of labor and humanity involved to bring you a coffee that tastes like peaches or strawberries, it's a wonder that we pay as little as we do. Just try and grow, sort, process, and roast your own GOOD coffee in your continental USA backyard. I’ll wait! Years even!

(If it actually ends up good, contact me IMMEDIATELY!)

Anyway, this is an entirely different problem/topic altogether that I don't want to get into here. The point is, we want to compensate people in the supply chain fairly, and will pay whatever it costs.

Lastly, shipping overseas to the USA. Even tarrifs sometimes. It's expensive, but we do our best to keep it reasonable.

Aside from free shipping, not really. I do this so you never have to wonder if "now is the best time" to buy something. Occasionally I may offer damaged goods a discount.

Yes….but no. We will do it if you ask (just let us know how you are brewing it), but we don’t recommend this. This greatly compromises a coffee’s quality in a very short amount of time, and we feel your experience would also by extension, be greatly compromised. There is also no way for me to dial in your coffee remotely. (yet.)

These coffees deserve better than that!

Conveniently, I have an entire blog post you can read about this here!

Possibly! If demand is high enough, I make the effort to continue to purchase the same coffee as long as it’s available.

You can also get notified via email when a product is back in stock by entering your email address at the bottom of out-of-stock product pages. This also really helps me gauge continued interest and informs future purchasing decisions.

As always feel free to shoot me an email to ask about anything specific!

Maybe! Shoot us an email and we'll look into it!

Oh my goodness of course! Feel free to contact me and I'll give you the rundown. :)

That's Lucy! He is a possum from near-future New York City. He was born from the following concept early in Lucienne's conception:

"Humans have abandoned Old New York City to nature. Slowly, the animals have begun to claim the ruins as their own. One day a lone possum named Lucy finds an abandoned Kissaten called Lucienne. He soon makes it his home, and begins to serve the local fauna specialty coffee.

Over time, Lucy creates a small community of regulars, to include Racoon, Badger, Deer, Rabbit, Skunk, Fox, Sparrow, Pigeon, Cat, and Rat. They all frequent Lucienne to try his coffees while reading ancient human literature, toying with abandoned mechanica, playing retro video games, and watching found human media together on TV."

(Largely inspired by Alan Weisman's "The World Without Us," but cute.)

The first versions of Lucy were conceived+drawn with help from Taylor Naoko. Later versions of Lucy are conceived+drawn completely by Josh.

“Lucienne” is the French origin of the English “Lucy.” It also translates to “light.”

I just really like the name. It's nothing deeper than that. Sorry!

Isn’t it sexy though?

The primary font family we use is “HD Microbic” by the lovely Laura Garcia Mut @ HARD® TYPE FOUNDRY.

The secondary font family we use is “Restart Soft” by Vojtěch Říha @ Superior Type.

The Ludvi coffee project had to be abandoned many years ago due to military service. I'm glad you're here though!