Think of this as a late night chat, sort of informal and nothing big. How addicted to coffee are you? I mean, how much coffee does it take you to get through a normal day?

How Much Is Enough?

Right now my coffee consumption is down. It tends to be in the summer. Marc likes iced coffee a lot but I never really developed a taste for it. So, I am on the ice water side of the year. I drink (and this is the straight up truth) about 2 1/2 gallons of ice water a day in the summer. I go through about 2 1/2 lbs of ice a day. Not just any ice either. It has to be specific ice with a specific texture, and right now only one store is carrying it.

Now you know why I have to work at home.

But I still like my coffee in the morning. I drink about two cups before I switch over to ice water. I enjoy a glass of sweet tea in the afternoon but I can’t drink gallons of it the way I can drink pots of coffee in the winter time. That’s probably a good thing since I definitely don’t need that much sugar.

I would probably drink more coffee if we used the air conditioner but the idea of a 120 degree drink on a 110 degree day when it is 104 degrees in the house is not so appealing, you know?

So. Coffee? How much? Be honest.

image:sxc

I was reading this article about Starbucks in Reuters with great interest, Green or Greenwashed?

Frankly, I am not sure that any large company can ever be green. No matter how much they try their very existence as a corporation will preclude them being environmentally friendly.

Green belongs to the small, local coffee shops that use “for here” cups and buy their organic, shade grown, bird friendly coffee from a local roaster or roast it themselves. Green belongs to small, family owned companies that operate in communities, support the local communities, and refuse to grow past a certain, controllable point.

Read more

When Ken, of Weekly Roast Coffee asked if I would like to try their coffee I said “Yes”.  I am nothing if not enthusiastic about the bean. The funnything is that I have been reviewing so much coffee lately that I haven’t reviewed tea…even though I have been drinking it.  Anyway, Ken sent me a package of their El Salvador.

The beans smell peppery. The flavor of the beans before brewing is mild with a crisp teture. These are the beans to use for chocolate covered coffee beans, coffee bean brittle, or anything that you are going to want coffee beans as a textural ingredient.

The flavor is bright without out being too acidic. Very smooth. This is a great morning coffee. Cream and sugar bring out butterscotch and vanilla flavors, but black the coffee is mild and slightly nutty.

If this coffee was a vacation it would be a small lake cabin: Relaxing, satisfying, and fresh.

I have a special place in my heart for indy companies, start ups, and artisans. I think that the corporate boom in midcentury 1900 lowered the quality of living for everyone as items became affordable but lacking in quality. Walmart is a great example. You can save money but you end up with pure- D- crap. Outsourcing to other countries irritates me.  So, when I have the opportunity to support local companies, small companies, American companies I do so.

I look forward to trying more of Weekly Roast’s coffees.

Surfin’ Safari is another of Boca Java’s flavored coffees. Caramel and Kalhua are the foremost flavors with hints of vanilla.

First of all, I think that Boca Java coffees are good, but not over the top. As for the flavorings, I think they are very imaginative but for my money Kaffe Magnum Opus takes first place in flavored coffees, other than a local roaster that I use. Boca Java flavors just don’t have the intensity that I am looking for. And…you can’t smell them when they are brewing.

Now, Marc says that is because we have a 600 square foot kitchen. Given. It has 11 foot ceilings and that may have something to do with it. But other flavored coffees have filled the kitchen with scent and wafted up the stairs. This one just doesn’t.

Saying that, the Surfin’ Safari is good. First flavor is sort of a nutty buttery caramel followed by the Kalhua and finishing with delicate vanilla notes. The coffee is somewhat rich in the mouth and without bitterness in the aftertaste.

This is a nice afternoon coffee. It would pair well with shortbread cookies or plain biscotti.

image:Boca Java

So, I am reclined here this morning, mostly wasting time. We could say “twittering” away my day…and we would be right. I am also sipping a cup of Boca Java’s Light Up Las Olas. Not the first cup, mind you… a cup.

Light Up Las Olas is a dark roast, blended from Columbian and Brazillian coffees. The aroma of the beans is spicy and licorice-y.  Nice.

The flavor is described on the site as having notes of cocoa. Eh. Maybe.

The flavor is warm and smoky, a bit too acidic at the end for my tastes. Slight nuances of marshmallow on the intake, makes you think you are going to have a toasted marshmallow flavor but at the last minute it morphs into almost an amaretto-pecan.

Oddly, with the flavors invoked this is not a smooth coffee. After the first few sips you lose track of the flavor of it and it becomes just coffee.

On a scale of 1-5 it gets a 3. There is nothing outstanding about it and yet it isn’t bad. I liked it much better sweetened and cream added.

By the way? If you are interested, you can follow me on Twitter… never a dull moment I promise.

Image:Boca Java

When Mike of Daily Shot of Coffee talked about this I knew that I had to try it. It was too weird to be missed in my little world, so I ordered it. I was trying to imagine how maple and bacon and coffee would taste and trying to figure out how they did it without muddying the flavor.

I still don’t know how they did it but I can tell you that the flavor is reminiscent of the way your mouth tastes after you have eaten pancakes and bacon, and are washing them down with copious amounts of coffee.

One thing I do not like about Boca Java is that their coffees are very delicately flavored. It is easy to miss some of the nuances of flavor, and I would like to seem them intensify the flavor a bit. However, saying that, I liked this coffee a lot. It was a nice melding of maple and bacon held together with coffee like duct tape. I think it needs to have sweetener and cream to get the best flavor, and you need to keep that in mind.

This isn’t going to be your every day coffee, this is one of those that you have to pull out for friends just to freak them out with your uniqueness, or buy for a coffee freak that has tried everything.

Image:Boca Java

I got an email from Kaffee Magnum Opus the other day and they have introduced a new, kinda cool sounding, coffee flavor. Single Malt Scotch.

I may definitely need to try this one. I am not a drinker at all, but I used to like an occasional shot of good  scotch. The combination of the buttery sweetness of the scotch with the flavor of the coffee is intriguing to say the least. I think I could plan a whole menu around it.

I don’t know. So much coffee….so little money. sigh.

If you have some extra time on your hands and you want to shop some really unique flavors of coffee, you need to head over there. It is amazing what they come up with, I have seriously never seen anything like it.

image:Kaffe Magnum Opus

No one was more surprised than I was when I picked up a bag of Starbucks Arabian Mocha Sanini at the Starbuck’s Kiosk in the grocery store. It was more expensive than what I would normally pay, especially considering that I am at the point where coffee and tea companies send me free samples to try.

But… I wanted to taste a 16.99 a pound coffee. I expected this post to be sarcasticly biting, somewhat like the flavor I expected from the coffee.

But it wasn’t.  And this won’t be either.

I loved this coffee. It was extra dark, smoothly silky in texture with lingering clove, raisin, and berry flavors. It had none of the usual acrid over-roasted taste that I normally associate with Starbuck’s, but was smooth all the way through, with a pleasant aftertaste that was almost a cardamom, although some might describe it as citrus.

I didn’t think the aftertaste was clean enough to be citrus, it was more mysterious and exotic, thus caradamom. This is a complex coffee, well worth the 16.99 I paid. I know, I am shocked myself, but there you go. Miracles do happen.

Give this one a try. I think it is seasonal so it won’t be around for long.

Image: Starbucks

Lots of people think that I think the world revolves around me.

Doesn’t it?

I am, as you know, very skeptical of cupping terms. I have always been very skeptical of wine tasting terms as well.  It just seems to me that the same tired old terms get used over and over again. I live for the day that I am at a cupping or a tasting and someone looks up, with a thoughtful look and a quiet tone and says…

“has the piquant flavor of Good and Plenty with nuance of fritos.”

Until then…my cupping terms. Read more

If you are sure that you could truly be a coffee snob if only you had the right cupping vocabulary you are in luck.  Terra Nova tweeted a site this morning with illustrated cupping terms.

Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, Bertrand came from a long line of coffee snobs.

The terms are very well defined but the best thing about the site is the illustrations.  It was a great read this morning…despite the fact that I should have been working and not reading.  Memorize this site and you too can be using coffee snob terms like chocolaty and nutty.  The article is Coffee Cupping, and of course, being the sarcastic human being that I am, I feel compelled to come up with my own cupping definitions…which I will try to post tomorrow or Friday. (Hoping to take tomorrow off but it doesn’t look promising).

Check out the cupping terms.  Education is always a good thing.

image:sxc

photoshopping: Marye Audet