Everything You Need To Know About Chamberlain Coffee
Let's take it back to 2014: Popular YouTubers like Zoella, Dan and Phil, and Grace Helbig, are coming out with products like books, makeup, clothes, jewelry, calendars, and more that align with their content. And while we all love merchandise you can buy and use from your favorite creators, the world of YouTube merch has since expanded dramatically.
Nearly every content creator nowadays has some form of merchandise for purchase. But, sometimes creators take it to the next level by putting their logo on a T-shirt, then going ahead and creating an entire company. Do we hear about these companies? Sometimes. But, easily one of the most prominent companies founded by an internet creator is Chamberlain Coffee.
We'd go so far as to argue that Chamberlain Coffee is its own brand outside of Emma Chamberlain, the internet sensation who started the eponymous company. Since Chamberlain Coffee was founded in 2020, the brand has expanded its range of products, completely rebranded its look, and gained a massive following. It's shaking up the coffee space, and whether you're an Emma Chamberlain fan or a coffee lover curious to learn more about this company, we've got all the answers for you.
Emma Chamberlain makes coffee easy
Let's start with the founder, shall we? Emma Chamberlain, if you're somehow unfamiliar, has been making popular YouTube videos since about 2017 and has grown into a beloved celebrity. She hosts a podcast called "Everything Goes," has a foot in the door in fashion, regularly attends the Met Gala, and often works with Louis Vuitton. Emma also still uploads YouTube videos, has an episode of "Hot Ones," and her new home was recently featured in Architectural Digest (and it's obviously beautiful, by the way). She's a busy one, but one of the core tenets of her brand has always been her love for coffee, which is why she started Chamberlain Coffee.
The company had a simple but effective idea at the start: It should be easy to make your favorite brew. The brand decided to make coffee bags modeled after tea bags, where you can place one in (hot or cold) water and steep the coffee. Chamerlain's coffee brand has exploded since that original idea, but she's still just as beloved as she was when she started the company.
Each Chamberlain coffee blend has its own animal character
Coffee should be fun, right? We think Chamberlain Coffee's idea to make each coffee blend and product have its own adorable cartoon animal character is kind of genius. The staple coffee blends include Social Dog (medium roast, velvety, and sweet), Early Bird (light roast), Careless Cat (medium roast, smooth, and warm), Night Owl (dark roast), and Fancy Mouse (espresso blend). But, since creating the original blends, the brand has kept on expanding to include flavored blends, decaf, and even cold-brew bag blends, all with different animal characters corresponding to the blend. Other characters include Sweet Otter (cake batter-flavored blend), Fluffy Lamb (vanilla blend), Witty Fox (hazelnut blend), and Sleepy Sloth (decaf blend).
It's not just the coffee that gets characters, oh no. The green tea's mascot is a praying mantis, the matcha gets an alligator, the chai tea gets a hummingbird, and the hot chocolate gets a grizzly bear. You can even choose some merch (like the tote bags) with your favorite animal character on it.
Chamberlain Coffee is pretty sustainable
While many companies can adhere to greenwashing (which is when a brand uses terms or phrases to make it seem like the products are sustainable or eco-friendly, when they're actually not), Chamberlain Coffee is not one of those brands. The brand's website details that it works with Food4Farmers, an organization that works to help the communities and farmers in the coffee beans are grown, rather than to exploit them. The coffee from Chamberlain Coffe is also certified organic, which means it's not grown using pesticides.
One of our favorite sustainability features, though, of Chamberlain Coffee is that the single-serve coffee and tea bags are actually compostable, which is pretty unheard of in the coffee and tea scene, though it is thankfully getting more popular. And we can confirm that the single-serve coffee bags are actually compostable, as we've tested them out ourselves. Pretty neat, huh?
The featured artist of the month is a big deal
Officially titled the "Artist Series Blend," this coffee blend offers a unique concept where in order to try the coffee, you have to subscribe to get a new bag of it every month (of course, you could always unsubscribe). The Artist Series Blend features a new original piece of art from a different artist every month, and the website notes the artist is always selected by the founder, Emma Chamberlain.
As of this publication, the featured artist is Sandy Cruz. She has actually had a few of her videos go viral on TikTok where she painted an art piece featuring Chamberlain, so this collaboration makes sense. If you're wondering why this Artist Series Blend came to be in the first place, longtime fans will know that Chamberlain's dad is actually an artist, and she's always been a supporter of artists.
We think this business concept is a clever way to uplift artists and help put their artwork in people's homes in a different way, as well as to provide something new for coffee subscription customers to look at each month. You can get this bag of coffee either ground or whole bean.
The brand made its prices way more reasonable
Every brand has a journey and has to make pivots along the way, and Chamberlain Coffee is no different. Even though we clearly have a ton of positive things to say about the company, we can't leave out some of the feedback the brand was getting at the start. When the company launched in 2020, it offered a limited number of products, including mugs, tumbler cups with the Chamberlain Coffee logo, and single-serve coffee bags.
Originally, a box of 30 single-serve coffee bags retailed for $60 (that's not including shipping), so it came out to about $2 per bag. However, if you wanted a stronger brew, you would have to use multiple bags to get the strength you wanted. The main criticism around the price at the time was that the quality of the coffee wasn't worth the price.
However, since the company's complete re-brand (more on that later), Chamberlain Coffee has pivoted not only on the coffee's quality but also its prices and products offered. A variety box of all the single-serve coffee bag flavors comes in at $16 for 10 bags, and there is always a discount code you can apply to your order, too, whether you get 10% off for signing up for emails, a holiday discount, or the "Anything Goes" podcast discount.
Single-serve coffee bags are its staple
If you love to enjoy your daily cup of tea, whether its peppermint or Earl grey, you know the ritual of opening the box, selecting your tea bag, brewing the hot water, and placing the tea bag to steep and let out all the comforting flavors you crave. Being Chamberlain Coffee's original product, it took the simple yet effective concept of tea bags and applied it to coffee. And it seriously works.
If you're a hot coffee drinker, you can perform the same ritual as you would with tea, and you would just steep the coffee bag in the cup of hot water. However, if you're more of an iced coffee aficionado, you can fill a mason jar with cold water, put the coffee bag in there, close the lid, and let it steep overnight. And in the morning, you'd have your coffee all ready to go.
Chamberlain Coffee had a major rebrand
When the Youtube star first launched Chamberlain Coffee, the coffee brand was definitely an extension of her personal brand. It had a focus on being "real" and not caring about getting a little messy, and the color palette seen on the website, the brand's social media pages, and the products themselves were a variety of beiges. It was your standard coffee company with a good idea for a unique product that had a ways to go in terms of blossoming into its own.
And just like Chamerlain's podcast used to be called "Stupid Genius" but is now "Anything Goes," the founder clearly took a step away from the self-deprecating brand and leaned into her confidence. If you scroll back far enough (like, really far) you can so distinctly see the visual change in Chamberlain Coffee's Instagram. It's drastic.
The branding was completely reinvented with the use of many primary colors, the coffee blend characters, and a reimagined website and social media pages. We think that rebranding made all the difference in the current success of the company, as the brand now stands out on its own, as opposed to simply depending on the cult of celebrity to draw in customers.
You can get more than just coffee
Yes, the name is Chamberlain Coffee, but it's much more than that. Aside from the variety of coffee blends and ways to order them (as bags of coffee beans or in single-serve coffee bags), the brand has really expanded beyond coffee (and we can tell it's not done coming up with new inventions just yet). Do you like tea? Well, we'd recommend the matcha, which you can get in one of three flavors: original, mango, or vanilla. Are you more of a chocolate person? You can try the brand's hot chocolate, chocolate-covered espresso beans, or chocolate bar.
Out of all the non-coffee items to choose from, we're personal fans of the matcha, chai, and tote bags. And, yes, the brand also sold a vegan pancake mix and glitter syrup for a limited time, and we're crossing our fingers that these items return soon.
The TikTok account offers many drink ideas
If you've looked into buying products from Chamberlain Coffee before, chances are that you're no stranger to social media. While the brand's Instagram features genuinely stunning pictures of the products and drinks you can make with them, along with photoshoots of Chamberlain posed with the coffee products, the brand's TikTok offers a variety of recipe ideas for what to make using its products.
If you often find yourself in a rut with your daily cup of coffee, and you're making the same drink over and over like "Groundhog Day," it's time to switch it up. Some of the ideas the company's TikTok offers include a matcha chai hot chocolate (literally combines three of our favorite drinks into one), a matcha espresso latte, and a salted vanilla shaken espresso. The brand also will repost Chamberlain Coffee fans making drinks using the products, so if you're itching to get one of your coffee recipes out there, that's one way to do it.