u/thirdgoldgeneral

▲ 37 r/IndianSpecialtyCoffee+2 crossposts

Ultimate Coffee Beans Tier List Done Correctly !!!(Please add your votes so others can experience the best India has to offer too)!!!

Hi I saw similar posts and tier lists done before but it is sometimes just brands and I’d really wanna know which exact coffee from the brand’s catalog is actually the favourite of most people.

Please add your top favourites mentioning brand plus which exact coffee. So please don’t say Blue Tokai be specific ex Blue Tokai French Roast

Please add a comment in the following format :

<how many years you’ve been buying specialty coffee beans>
<Top 5 or less coffees comma separated so 1,2,3,4,5 (you can add upto 5 or less. Order them best to worst)>

Example comment to vote:
1
Araku Micro Climate, Blue Tokai French Roast

Aside from the top two lines of the comment feel free to add more light on your reasoning

I will probably accumulate the data and try to update somewhere once we get enough comments.

Please do upvote so this reaches enough people - I don’t care for karma only to compile a list that I can personally try out for my pour over and cold brew setup. I am into data analytics and would add the results later if we get enough traction on this post.

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u/thirdgoldgeneral — 19 hours ago

Fuji and Himmel's favourite flowers at Lake Kawaguchiko

Hi - I went to Japan through Zotrip in their April 2026 batch. Since there were no reviews when I was planning this trip, I felt it is worth adding here for those who come after. https://www.zostel.com/zo-trip/TR-V9855PVV/J5JPRH2J?batch=2026-06-13_TR-V9855PVV-0001

TLDR; Do not go with Zostel Trip to Japan. Terrible guide and planning in my case. Book on your own - you can make itinerary less hectic also.

A bit of background - I booked this trip hoping this will ease off the logistics and planing for me and also planned a few days extra by myself with a few friends. I got my visa from VFS Bangalore (took ~5 working days).

Now to the story with Zotrip - They had outsourced the trip logistics to a trip organizer "Panchi Club" (which has 4.9 out of 5 on google maps probably because they delete any non 4 or 5 star review). They did give the itinerary and discuss it over a group call a week before the trip. The itinerary is still the same on zotrip for future Japan trips as of me writing this on 29th April and is good enough aside from being slightly too hectic.

Now the trip starts and we get to know that our guide is a 19 year old girl who has hardly travelled in Japan and is chosen as the guide because she can speak some Japanese and has stayed in Japan because her parents are settled there. This person has never been in any previous calls and doesn't have enough experience being a guide. So day 1 she gets subway passes for all of us and then gets us stuck inside a station where the passes are not valid by taking the wrong train. Let that sink in - she did not even understand what went wrong and was just confused for 15 minutes straight while the gate was not letting us out. People had to take matter on their own hands and navigate back to an earlier station and switch trains. So we missed the first spot as the time of closing for the shrine was too close. She kept panicking during all this and one person in the group got missed in a different station because she was hardly communicating about where to switch trains.

Day 2 they missed Shibuya Sky tickets and pivoted to Tokyo Skytree changing the original itinerary. Every single location we went to, the guide kept reading things off her phone and tried to talk about the history - incorrectly in every single case because her English comprehension and speaking is not exactly fluent. Also anyone can read things on their phone, so why pretend as if you know something.

Day 3 they gave us a "freebie" to appease the backlash and complaining which was dinner at a club in Shinjuku, while that might sound fun there was no clarity by our 19 year old on what is included in the "freebie" and there were some hidden charges like storing your bags in a locker and possibly on the food also because it seemed like just an entry ticket - no one went because of the confusion in the end.

From Day 4 onwards the group took matter on their own hands. There were moments where the guide was stuck in a metro station or even a different city because she was not able to understand how the train tickets work and was really struggling with navigation. While this all might sound a bit too harsh, I do understand the majority of the blame is on the organizers Panchi Club and Zotrip for letting this happen and not necessary on the guide. There was continued backlash by the group because which was understandable. When people raised issues to Panchi Club or Zostel the replies were always empty words and they did not bother changing the guide midway or offering any sort of recompense.

Rest of the trip was people taking charge and making things work, aside from the first 3 days no major ordeal. Unless you count the highly incorrect and uneducated commentary on the shrines of Japan but I have heard they make really good ANC earphones nowadays ;)

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u/thirdgoldgeneral — 14 days ago