Dropping a bag you love

A bag of beans at home means two weeks on the same coffee. With BeansDrop you drop a sealed bag you love at a café instead. The café serves it as its guest coffee, and every gram it uses earns you points to spend there, including on the bags other people dropped.

1. 1Buy sealed bags from any roaster.
2. 2Offer them to a café and drop them off.
3. 3Watch your bag go on the bar and its grams get used.
4. 4Spend the points it earns at that café.

Register to drop a bag with your name and an email to sign in with. Two things are optional.

• A nickname for the menu. It's shown next to the coffee you found. Without one, the menu just says "a regular".
• A phone number. Only you and the BeansDrop team can see it. Cafés can't.

You can change both later on My bags.

We then email you a link to confirm that address. Open it and press Confirm my email to sign in.

On Account you can change your email or password, download everything we keep about you, or delete your account. Spend your points first, since nobody can once it's deleted.

We email you when a café accepts or declines your bag, when it records points you used, and in the evening on days a café brews your beans, with the points they earned. You'll also hear when your account signs in on a new browser. The emails come in the language you last used the site in.

• Sealed and unopened, with the roaster's printed roast date. Opened or repacked bags can't be accepted.
• Roasted 3–21 days before you drop them off.
• As much per drop as the café asks for (it's on the café's page), in bags of 200g or more. Two 250g bags of different coffees are fine.

1. 1Sign in, open My bags and choose Offer a bag. Or press Drop a bag here on a café's page.
2. 2Pick the café and fill in the coffee, roaster, bag size and your value per gram. Add 1 to 3 photos of the bag, or a screenshot of its shop listing if you haven't bought it yet. Only that café sees them. Tasting notes, the roaster's buy link and a message for the café are nice to add.
3. 3Wait for the café's answer under My offers. It approves the bag, or declines it, sometimes with a message.
4. 4Once it's approved, buy the bag and bring it in within 14 days, roasted within the window the café set. The café checks the seal and roast date and accepts it into its queue at your value.

Ask before you buy. Once the café approves a bag, it can only turn it away if the seal is broken, the roast date is outside its window, or it isn't the coffee it approved. If you can't make it in 14 days, the approval runs out. Withdraw it before then so the café knows.

You can withdraw an offer until the café accepts or refuses it. Cafés that aren't taking drops right now don't appear in the list.

At the café, open My bags and choose Show my code. The barista scans the QR code to open your balance at their café. They use it to add a bag you've brought in or to take payment in points.

No code to hand? The café can still add your bag by typing the email you registered with.

• It lasts about two minutes and works only once.
• Closing it, or leaving the page, cancels it.
• Showing a new code cancels the old one.

You set your bag's value per gram when you offer it, and the café accepts it at that value or declines. Every gram used earns you points at 120% of that value at that café, including grams used to dial in and any grams sold by weight.

Bag value

~1,000 THB (~2 THB/g)

Points you earn

~1,200 points

What that buys

About ~10 guest coffees

An example 500g drop, fully used. Each café decides which values it accepts.

Spend it on anything that café sells, at its normal prices. Try the guest coffee from a bag someone else dropped, or have one of the café's own coffees. Points buy food, other drinks and beans by weight too.

Want a guest bean to brew at home? Ask the café to weigh out about 50g and pay for it, with points if you like. That's two or three days of home brewing, then something new.

To pay with points, show your counter code, or the café can find you in its list of contributors. It records the points you used, and your balance on My bags goes down to match.

My bags shows every bag you've dropped at every café, with the grams used so far, what you've earned and what's left to spend. Open Daily weigh-ins under a bag to see what it lost on the café's scale each day.

Waiting for the café

You've offered it and the café hasn't decided yet.

Approved, bring it in

The café wants it. Bring it in by the date shown.

Queued

Accepted and waiting for a slot.

On bar

Being served as the guest coffee.

Finished

Used up or taken off the bar.

Press Follow on a café's page to hear when it puts a new coffee on its bar. Each new coffee shows up under the bell at the top of the page and in Notifications. Open one to go to the café's page. You don't need to drop a bag to follow.

Notifications work like email. Mark them read or unread, archive the ones you're done with, and move them back if you change your mind. Each one says whether the coffee is still on bar or has finished, since a guest coffee is only on bar until its bag runs out.

For now they only show inside BeansDrop, with no email or phone alert. When you're wondering what to drink, check the bell.

A bag comes off the bar 45 days after its roast date. If some is left, the café can buy the rest with points, at 50% of its value. If it doesn't, you have 14 days from when the café tells you to take the beans home. Beans not collected by then stay with the café.

The cafés you drop at see your name, nickname, the bags you dropped there and your balance there. The public only sees your nickname, and only if you chose one. Only you see which cafés you follow. A café sees how many people follow it, never who. The privacy notice explains the rest in plain words.