Originally posted by Kylene (City Girl, City Stories) on 16 October 2023. A non-sponsored Kopi Date review. Her opinions are her original views and thoughts.

Kopi Date Review: First Dates Over Coffee
by Kylene From City Girl, City Stories

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Sign Up & On-boarding Process

Pricing

Personal Experience

Kopi Date Review

This is not a paid post. All opinions are my own.

In my nine years of posting on this blog, I’ve shared quite a lot of my stories and adventures online! This blog has followed me from living in Hong Kong, to moving back to Singapore and has been a space for me to share the fun stuff along the way. :) If there’s one topic I thought I’ll never touch upon online, it’s something as personal as dating.

Life is full of surprises, isn’t it? Because here I am, sharing a post about my personal experience going on several first dates with dating service Kopi Date. Here’s the whole story: how it works, what the process is like, how much it costs and what my experience was like.

First things first, what is Kopi Date? Kopi Date is a young start-up from Singapore (established 2019), a dating service that arranges dates over coffee for their community of members. They shared with me that to date, they have arranged almost 30,000 dates in Singapore!

Second thing, in case you’re wondering, no I am not being paid to share about Kopi Date! Nor do I have any affiliate links/commission etc if you sign up after reading this haha. However, I was invited by Kopi Date to join their community, and my experience was gifted to me. Back to the story!

—— THE SIGNING UP & ONBOARDING PROCESS

Even though I was invited, I went through the entire process of joining Kopi Date just like everyone else and everything I shared on my profile with Kopi Date and with my dates was real! So here’s how it went.
The first step is registration, where I filled in some of my personal details. After registering, I was placed on a waitlist, while the Kopi Date team processed my registration, to determine if I would be a right fit for their community.

Upon confirmation, I got an email informing me that I am now part of the Kopi Date community! Please note that right after this step, I am required to put in my credit card details (although the charge is made only after completing an onboarding call with Kopi Date).

Next, I made an appointment for my onboarding call, and then proceeded to fill in a questionnaire about myself! I found this really interesting, especially the section where you choose 5 adjectives to describe yourself (note: these selection of words will be shared with your dates).

The onboarding call is a 20 minute getting to know you virtual call, and this is compulsory. It was really easygoing and fun, and I chatted away with friendly Jing, who asked simple and thoughtful questions the whole time as she tried to get a sense of who I am as a person. The first part of the call was basically a “getting to know you”, focusing on getting an idea of who you are and your interests. The second part of the call was sharing more about the Kopi Date experience, the pricing and the process going forward.

After the onboarding call is done, you will be charged the default 12 credit membership, which brings you 12 dates (the schedule is around 1 date per month). In the instance that you prefer the 3 or 6 credit membership, please be sure to inform Kopi Date within 2 days from your onboarding call! (More on the different membership tiers below!)

Once the call is done, your selected membership is done, then it’s time to download the Kopi Date members app and wait for your first date! :)

—— PRICING

Let’s talk pricing, how much does Kopi Date cost? It depends on the membership plan selected and there is a slight difference in pricing for ladies and gentlemen. FYI: there are three membership plans and each comes with different perks.

I’ve included the full list of membership details below from Kopi Date, to share what each plan offers. I think it’s helpful to have options, as we each may have our own dating preferences, personal budgets and schedules! (Please note that everything I share in this post is part of the default Adventurer plan.)

Image courtesy of Kopi Date

—— MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

And now, here we go, my actual personal experience going on three first dates arranged by Kopi Date! I thought I’ll start with some overview comments on the whole experience.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here as I’m not familiar with matchmaking agencies, but perhaps because they are not a matchmaking agency, Kopi Date did not ask any questions about what my “type” is or qualities I was looking for, but rather dates are paired based on interests we have in common. Regarding religion (which can be an important factor for some of us when it comes to dating), I did inform Kopi Date during our onboarding call that I am a Christian and it was important to me to meet dates who were as well, and I appreciated that the team understood and respected that. If age is an important factor to you, the dates I met were in my age group, either slightly younger or older than I am (plus/minus 1 to 4 years).

Note: Parts of this screenshot have been redacted!

Jumping over to date logistics, and what happens when I was paired with a date! I received an email (and a notification on the app as well) that I have a date scheduled for next week. It’s about 9-10 days advance notice, with a set date and time. I was also shown five adjectives of my date (selected by themselves in the questionnaire).

Both parties are given 2 days to confirm the date. Once it’s confirmed, the date location is revealed, I get shown the first initial from my date’s name (yes just an initial, no first name, no age, no photo, literally a blind date haha!). One day before date day, I was sent another email with a reminder of the date details, a digital Kopi Date “experience kit” (a set of questions/activities to encourage conversation) and a short description of my date (written by him).

On date day itself, a chat system in the app opens up, so that we can contact each other, just to say hello or to let them know if either party is running late or something! This was especially useful when I got lost in the shopping mall and one of my dates was kindly giving me directions via the chat system haha!

The date locations are all in central Singapore and dates could be scheduled for morning/afternoon/evening (I experienced all three.) Two coffees for both of us is included free (there is also a non-caffeine option if you don’t drink coffee like me!), but if you order additional items, then you and/or your date will have to settle the bill.

The main objective with Kopi Date is that they encourage everyone to meet their dates with a focus on genuine conversation. Their team will pair you up, but whether you proceed to a second date, or stay friends or lose contact completely is entirely up to you and your date! Personally, I think this is a great way to approach a first date experience, knowing that how things goes would depend on both of us.

I think and have been told I’m a people person, so meeting new people is something I quite enjoy doing! But going on a first date with someone I’ve never met or spoken to before and carrying a conversation? I wasn’t quite sure what to expect at first! I believe that every conversation (whatever type it may be) should aim to be a two-way communication and I’m happy to share that I went on 3 Kopi Dates, and they were all good experiences in different ways! In fact, I felt incredibly lucky, because I genuinely had good to great conversations with the three dates I met. :)

One of my brunch dates started by the waitress putting us at different tables (haha) so we started laughing over this the moment we met. It was a pleasant two hours which went by quickly, but I thought we were simply very different people with different lifestyles!

I also had a dinner date that had laughter and open conversation, which I appreciated. My date was late, but to his credit, he apologised and explained the reason behind it and insisted right away that dinner was on him. Conversation was great, but I think we are at different stages in our lives.

Another date started uncertainly for me, but it ended up being the most genuine and mature conversation I had of the three. An afternoon date turned into dinner and we decided to stay in touch as friends. :)

I don’t know if any of my dates will actually read this post, but if you are here, then thank you for your kindness and sincerity. I enjoyed the genuine conversations and appreciated the time taken. Even though it was just for a moment, glad our paths crossed!

After each date ends, both myself and my date will be asked to “conclude the date” (I recommend using the app because it works much better than the website). You can leave a nice message for your date, rate your conversation with them, share any feedback with the Kopi Date team, and reflect on yourself too! I found this a thoughtful way to end a date, as it encourages self-reflection along the dating journey.

If you’re interested, Kopi Date has a feature where they will reach out after a few days to check in with you to see if you’re interested to go on a second date with your recent date, and you can use one of the credits in your membership to do so!

—— KOPI DATE REVIEW

I’m very blessed that my experience with Kopi Date was a great one, but please keep in mind that there’s no perfect service out there! Here are what I thought are some of the best features from Kopi Date and some areas for improvement.

What worked well for me from the whole Kopi Date experience was that every single date starts with an in person meeting, where both parties are encouraged to focus on having a genuine conversation and seeing where that leads.

Having said that, Kopi Date offers a “personalised feedback” feature (available after 3 dates, only for members on the 12 credit membership plan). I personally found this a very useful feature where I could request for Kopi Date to share with me a compiled list of comments about me that were shared by my dates (all anonymous)! This can include both compliments and room for improvement. I think that if you’re open to accepting feedback, this is a great way to understand yourself better as a date and how others might see you.

Throughout the dating journey, the Kopi Date team will also send videos and guides to encourage us to understand more about relationships and dating. Whether you choose to use these features or not is up to you of course, but I appreciated the dedicated effort the team puts into encouraging me along the way.

Some issues I’ve experienced that I thought were important to share! Okay, so the biggest issue I experienced was scheduling. This is very important as some of us do not have flexible schedules or work shifts or may have to work overtime etc. I went on three dates and two had scheduling problems.

One date was scheduled on a day where I had indicated that I was unavailable (I did feedback and was informed that this was due to an admin error and was offered a free rescheduling to resolve the issue). For another date, I was informed of the date literally the day before. As in, I received the notification on Friday morning, for a date on Saturday afternoon. Somehow, both myself and my date managed to make it, but both of us had to adjust our schedules to make it.

There were two times I was seated at different tables from my dates haha, but I acknowledge that this is more on the cafe’s end than Kopi Date. During my first date experience, I wasn’t allowed to order the non-caffeine option (tea) by the cafe, but I appreciated that this was quickly sorted out by the Kopi Date team and didn’t happen again, so to all my fellow non-coffee drinkers, we’re all good! :)

Before I conclude, I wanted to emphasise that this post is my personal experience and thoughts, but if you’re interested to read more reviews shared by others, you can find them here!

Through joining Kopi Date, I met three great people I would probably never have met in my regular work and social circles. I had an enjoyable time on three very different dates, and it was a good experience, I mean that! This is going to sound so cliché, but it’s true: I discovered more about myself and reflected a lot in the process.

Having conversations with different people meant that I had a lot to reflect and reconsider when it came to thinking about what qualities are important (and not so important) to me. I reflected on what I was looking for in a potential partner and I also thought back on those conversations, acknowledging to myself what I could have said better and what I felt I did well in.

On the other side of the equation, the personalised feedback feature from Kopi Date I mentioned above was also very meaningful, as it allowed me to get an idea of how my dates saw me! My family, friends and colleagues are people who spend a lot of time around me and who know me well, but in this case, I’ve only just met these first dates and it’s refreshing to hear some “first impressions” of how I come across. I’m glad Kopi Date included this feature. :) A couple of months ago, I joined Kopi Date not quite knowing what to expect, and now I’m writing this after a very interesting and reflective experience, it’s been a good one!

To all of us who are on our dating journeys, good luck! Through the ups and downs and the in-between, may it take us by surprise. Thanks for reading my story with Kopi Date, and if you’ll like to share your dating stories, I’d like to hear them too! :)

*Note: My experience was gifted from Kopi Date, with much thanks to Karissa and the Kopi Date team!
This is not a paid post. All opinions are my own.

Blog post source: https://www.citygirlcitystories.com/2023/10/kopi-date-review-singapore-dating-first-dates/