Code Name: Indiana Valdez

I posted a link to my blog on the fan page for The Arrogant Texan. Part of what I love about The Arrogant Texan is their whimsy. Whoever maintains the fan page reposted the link with the following comment: "We assume it's like Juan Valdez meets Indiana Jones." This got me thinking about the idea of adventuring. I do sometimes feel a bit like Indiana Jones, exploring new territory. Then I stopped to think, have you ever wondered why "Indy" went on all those dangerous adventures in spite of having a stable professorship? It was something he was passionate about. Starting this blog taught me about what a creative outlet really is. I have gotten more work done each day since starting the blog than I would get done in a typical day before I started the blog. Other than the 10-15 minutes spent crafting a blog post, embarking on this adventure only resulted in one change to my usual schedule: I have been more adventurous, trying coffees I might never have before. So why did adding 10-15 extra minutes to my list of to-do make me feel more refreshed than just vegging in front of the TV or reading a leisure book? I think that's where a creative outlet is different from a leisure activity where your brain checks out. You still invest time and thought, but you get a better return on your investment, feeling renewed afterwards and accomplishing more than if you hadn't set aside that time. Like Indiana Jones, I have a whole academic, professional life separate from this blog, but this brief escape into adventure lets me return to that life with some of the excitement as a carry-over. My next adventure to blog about? Wild Mountain Blueberry flavored coffee!!

Barnes and Noble Cafe

I did not end up working at Starbucks today, but I'm sure you're tired of reading about k-cups for a little bit (I'm expecting a package from Green Mountain, so you're sure to hear more about the new varieties I ordered and the ordering process very soon)!! With that in mind, I decided to blog about one of my other favorite cafes. As a general rule, I love the cafes in Barnes and Noble bookstores. They have always been invigorating and relaxing for me. I cannot place exactly what it is about the atmosphere, but there is something intangible that no other cafe really has. It is my favorite indulgence to buy a book or magazine and relax in the cafe with a beverage and dessert. The Barnes and Noble cafes "proudly brew Starbucks coffee" and yet offer some unique items not available at Starbucks locations, such as the Toffee-nut latte (one of my favorites).

When I lived in the Boston area, I loved going to the huge Barnes and Noble in Kenmore Square that served as the official bookstore for Boston University (where I was going to graduate school). Now that I live in Lubbock, Texas and am working on a PhD at Texas Tech University, I can often be found at the Texas Tech Barnes and Noble bookstore cafe (usually surrounded by a mountain of work, a netbook, and a venti drink!!!).

The cafe in the Tech bookstore is more spacious than most B&N cafes. Many tables are located near power outlets and ethernet ports, though the campus wifi is also available (affiliation with University required). The food is delicious and they have a fairly wide variety, from muffins and bagels to salads, fruits, sandwiches, and desserts (plus more). Also, the lunches are amazing. For under $8 you can get a bowl of soup (You have to try their amazing Italian Wedding Soup or their fabulous Chicken Dumpling Soup, though I do have several other favorites), a grilled sourdough pretzel (I love the Asiago), and a venti latte!! This is a complete steal! If you paid full price for the latte, this makes the soup and pretzel under $2 each! It is a hidden gem in the student union because most people do not know about their combo lunches and that it is only an extra dollar to have a venti latte (some of which cost close to or over $4 a la carte) compared to a venti iced tea of coke. The atmosphere is not overly crowded and the staff are amazing!!

I've discovered that it is wise to be nice to your baristas!! Too often people are rude to them and I find that when I smile and ask how they are doing, the most common reaction is a mix of shock and gratitude that someone cared. Most of the people working there know me and help me out, like seeing me back in the line and double checking that I'm getting my usual so they can get it started or bringing my lunch to me at my table (the manager of the cafe has even taken special requests from me about what soup will be served on certain days)!!!

My take-home message about the Barnes and Noble cafe at Texas Tech is that the food is delicious and reasonably priced and the people are excellent at customer service, though their reactions to my friendliness show how under-appreciated they are! If you are at Tech, stop by the Barnes and Noble, but no matter how rushed you are please have a smile for my favorite baristas!!!

Even more k-cups!!

Eventually, the novelty of my new coffee pot will wear off and I'll blog more about other things! Tomorrow I will be working at a coffee shop (probably Starbucks) and will very likely blog about that!! For now, though, the variety of k-cups are the freshest thing on my mind and I can't help trying 1-3 new kinds each day, though I am running out of new things that I haven't tried while I wait for a shipment to arrive!! I have 3 new varieties (and some new blends) that I have tried since the last post.

Gloria Jean Hazelnut flavored coffee. This was quite delicious. I tried it on the 8 ounce setting and it was perfect. I later tried it on the 6 ounce setting mixed with the Van Houtte French Vanilla discussed previously also on the 6 ounce setting. This combination was yummy, a little bolder, but not as strongly flavorful as I would have liked. If you tasted it, you would not immediately know that it was hazelnut and vanilla.

Caribou Coffees Caribou Blend. I found this one to be quite delicious. Not too bold, not too weak. It did not taste at all watered down on the 8 ounce setting. It had a good flavor. I think this was a good everyday coffee.

Donut People Donut Shop Coffee. This was weaker than some of the other varieties that I've tried, but did not taste watered down on the 8 ounce setting. It was, like the Caribou Blend, a good everyday coffee. Unlike the Caribou Blend, which had some distinct flavors, I found this coffee to be generic.

I also tried brewing the hot cocoa (discussed previously) on the 6 ounce setting and then adding to it the butter toffee (also discussed previously) on the 6 ounce setting (though there was not enough room in the cup for all 6 ounces of the coffee). I added a touch of sugar, but I don't think I really needed it. It was AMAZING. It tasted like a caramel or toffee mocha. It had a phenomenal chocolate and buttery toffee taste. I loved it. I plan to try it with a bigger cup to get more of the butter toffee coffee in the cup, rather than wasting some!

Emeril's Big Easy Bold, Big Easy Intense

Today I am drinking a coffee made (or more correctly marketed by and giving royalties to) Emeril. It is called Big Easy Bold Big Easy Intense. I have never had Louisiana style coffee or chicory coffee before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Also, the words Bold and Intense generally make me expect bitter coffee that I'm going to choke on. Because this came in a sample pack, there was no description of it to determine if it is supposed to taste or be anything like Louisiana style coffee, so I really didn't know what to expect. The first thing I noticed was the aroma. It was very pleasant and aromatic (I chose not to say strong because it didn't smell like the coffee was too strong, the smell of the flavors in the coffee were strong) and there seemed to be flavor notes that I didn't recognize. The flavor drinking it is AMAZING. It is surprisingly smooth to drink. It reminds me of the Mocha Arabica that I used to have in this amazing Moroccan restaurant in the Harvard Square area of Boston. Strong flavors, but smooth to drink, with a decided after-taste (not in a bad way). It is smooth and flavorful in your mouth, but leaves a little shock of boldness behind! Yum!!

More k-cup flavors

Because the Keurig is new to me, I will devote several blog posts to all the new flavors that I try for the first time!! I had already posted on the Coffee House Chocolate Glazed Donut, which I had said fell in the category of wishing the flavor was stronger. This morning I tried another flavored coffee in this same collection. It is the Coffee House Cinnamon Roll flavor. This was surprisingly strong in the cinnamon-bun like flavor. It surprised me immediately. I absolutely love this one, it is probably my new favorite!!

The other new k-cup that I tried today was the Tully's Extra Bold Kona Blend which is labeled extra bold, but is a medium roast (on the scale of light roast to dark roast). As you may have noticed from earlier posts, I use cream and sugar in my coffee as a regular practice, unless I am having a cappuccino or latte. I used the same amount of sugar that I would normally use for an 8 ounce cup, but may have accidentally used slightly more cream. I brewed it into a cup that normally holds about a cup and a half (I got it on sale at Starbucks and it is one of my favorites). The cup has a leaf design inside the cup and I usually pour my coffee to the bottom of the leaf and my cream to the top of the leaf. Because the 8 ounce portion does not come all the way up to the bottom of the leaf, I have to guess by the color if I have put in enough cream. So, because this coffee is darker than the lighter roasts I typically drink, I may have put in more cream. I loved this coffee as well. Even though it was "extra bold" and medium roast, and therefore stronger than my usual coffee, it was not in any way bitter. It had a great flavor that I could tell was stronger, but tasted amazing. I haven't had that many strong coffees that I like so this was also a pleasant surprise.

As you might have noticed, I make sure to name the brand of the items I'm posting about. I do this primarily so that there is no confusion. Lots of companies probably make a "breakfast blend" or "French roast" k-cup and I may love one and hate another and I want to make sure it is clear which one I'm talking about. Also, all the k-cups I've talked about so far are affiliated with Green Mountain Coffee. In the very near future, look forward to a blog post about my experience ordering directly from the Green Mountain Coffee website.

Arrogant Texan

I have to give high praise to The Arrogant Texan located in Lubbock, TX directly across University Avenue from the Texas Tech campus. They provide an atmosphere better than most coffee shops. They manage to combine a coffee shop, an ice cream shop, and a vintage candy store all in one. The tables are small with the types of chairs you see in old ice cream shops with the twisted metal backs. They provide free wifi with purchase (they do this by printing the network password on the receipt) and there is no limit to how long you can be online or how many devices. They almost always offer the option of having your drink brewed "piping hot or ready to drink." Their piping hot option is about the standard latte/cappuccino temperature, and their ready to drink option is a little cooler so it doesn't burn your tongue. They will let you try every single flavor of ice cream, in fact they even have a fun banter about trying to encourage this. Often times, they will write fun expressions on the recycled sleeves they put around the coffee cups. I have had their cappuccino with various flavorings in it and I have had their Arrogant Texan hot chocolate (which is spiced with cinnamon and other flavorings like Mexican hot cocoa). I haven't tried a single thing I didn't like!!

Flavored coffee k-cups

I have tried the following flavored coffee in k-cups: Van Houtte French Vanilla, Coffee House Collection Chocolate Glazed Donut, and Gloria Jean Butter Toffee. I liked all of them. I brewed them all using the 8 ounce setting. On all of them, I wished that the flavor was a little stronger and more prominent because they were all a little on the subtle side. I also made a blended coffee drink with one of them. I brewed a Green Mountain Hot Cocoa on the 6 ounce setting and then added to it the Van Houtte French Vanilla also on the 6 ounce setting. I used half the amount of cream and sugar compared to what I would use in an 8 ounce cup of coffee. It was really delicious!

K-Cup "Perfect" Iced Tea

Celestial Seasoning makes k-cups that are designed to make iced tea by brewing directly over ice. They are fairly concentrated and so you put lots of ice in the cup and it brews 4 ounces of hot tea which melts some of the ice to dilute it. I've tried the sweet raspberry and the sweet lemon, both of which are flavored and sweetened with sugar. I like both of them, but I especially like to mix them together. They also make a sweet peach and an unsweetened (unflavored) black tea. I have not tried these two flavors but plan to soon. I wish they would make the flavored ones either unsweetened or artificially sweetened too.

Keurig k-cups vs. Tassimo t-discs

Before getting my Cuisinart brand pot that makes Keurig k-cups (even though I said this in the previous post, thanks Mom and Erika!!!!!), I already had a Tassimo pot. I love my Tassimo pot, it is very cool. This blog post is a side-by-side comparison of the two, with honest pros and cons from my perspective. In the end, I like the Keurig better because of a few advantages. One caveat that I have to acknowledge at this point is that I have a Cuisinart brand pot, not a pot made by Keurig. It may have features that a pot made by Keurig does not have (or that not all pots made by Keurig have). I have tried, whenever it is a special feature of the pot, to mention this, but may not do it all throughout this blog post. Another caveat that I need to add is that I have had my Tassimo for at least a year, maybe longer, and I know that there is a newer model out, but I don't know if it has any different features so you may find a newer Tassimo pot that may not have the same pros and cons that I experience with mine.

The Tassimo pot is very high-tech, and as a result, fairly idiot proof. You put the t-disc in and the laser reads the bar code and that tells the machine (1) how much water, (2) what temperature, and (3) is there a steep-time where the water needs to stay in the disc and if so, how long. You cannot alter/change/customize this process, but you also don't have to experiment with how much water to use and don't have to go through menu settings to choose the brew temperature. Like I said, you just pop in a t-disc, put a cup on the stand, and push the one button and poof you get a cup of whatever you chose to make. The Keurig, in contrast, lets you customize it more, which can be good and bad because it takes some experimentation (which wastes k-cups) to figure out what you like best. If you don't like a k-cup flavor because it is too strong, you can make it weaker by choosing a larger cup size. My Cuisinart pot has 5 different cup size settings, all of which may be used with any k-cup; these are 4 ounces brewed over ice (you put the ice directly into the cup you are brewing into, this setting is used for brewing iced tea), 6 ounces, 8 ounces, 10 ounces, and 12 ounces.

The Tassimo is a little more difficult to clean because of the way the t-disc sets in, there are more surface areas that get dirty in the process. To rinse it, you use the special clear plastic rinse disc with bar code. I've found that this never gets everything left behind by the previous disc. You end up having to remove the two inner pieces (the one that punctures the t-disc/runs the water through and the cradle that the t-disc sits on) to wash them manually. This may not be true of all Keurig pots (ones that are actually made by the Keurig company), but the Cuisinart brand pot that I have has a single button that says rinse. Because of the way it is made, the only part that really gets any of the coffee (or whatever else you made) on it is the spout that the water comes out of. This rinse cycle uses only about 4-6 ounces of water, so there is not much waste, and the pot is completely clean and ready for the next brew cycle with no carry-over flavor from the previous k-cup brewed.

The Tassimo pot, as alluded to before, is very straight-forward in its functioning because it does not have lots of options. This is great for some people who don't want to be bogged down by lots of choices. If you had asked me the perfect temperature to brew yummy coffee, I would NOT have known. The Cuisinart k-cup pot comes with a default brew temperature, but you can change it. For me personally, I like the ability to customize. But if you like for someone else who is an "expert" to tell you to just push a single button and it will be perfect, then you might like the Tassimo pot better. The Keurig offers a lot more in the way of customization. On my pot, through the menu options you can choose your default cup size, brew temperature, if you want the pot to automatically turn off after a certain amount of time, if you want it to turn on at a certain time of day (so it is fully warmed up and ready to use before you wake up so there is no wait time). It also, as mentioned before, has 5 different cup sizes (i.e. how much water will be run through your k-cup), all of which can presumably be used on any k-cup. Obviously the raspberry sweet tea is meant to be iced, but since the 4 ounce over ice still brews hot, I would guess that there's no reason you couldn't use the other settings and then pour it over ice. The other features, one of the pot and one of Keurig in general, that allow for additional customization/flexibility, are the hot water button and the "my k-cup." The hot water button on the Cuisinart pot allows you to get plain hot water out of the pot to make any drink that just requires adding hot water. I haven't tried this feature yet, so I don't know how you choose the amount of hot water, but I'm sure I'll blog on that later. The "my k-cup" is a small metal mesh filter in a plastic housing. This allows you to put any kind of coffee grounds into the filter and use it in lieu of the pre-packaged k-cups. This allows the Keurig to do everything the Tassimo does, plus what your "regular" coffee pot does, plus what an electric ketle (for heating water) does.

The Tassimo pot has four types of t-discs: cofee, tea, hot chocolate and milk based (i.e. latte or cappucino). One plus to these discs is that the hot chocolate and milk discs use a liquid concentrate rather than a powder. The cappucino and latte discs are actually a two disc set, one is espresso and one is milk. The Keurig k-cups have the additional category of iced teas. In this area the two are somewhat equal because, even though there is the one additional category of k-cups, by splitting the milk drinks and selling milk separately, you can combine t-discs in unique ways to make drinks like macchiatos.

The Tassimo pot has a drip pan, which is used for more than just the occasional accidental drip after brewing. The Tassimo pot dumpes water into it from a side port as part of the brewing process. This creates a problem with trying to use a larger cup because you have to remove the drip pan and put a towel down to keep it from spilling. The Keurig pot does not waste water in this way because any water in the line that is not hot enough will be recycled by being pumped back into the reservoir.  In addition, the Keurig has a taller place for the mug to go, therefore accommodating even standard (approx. 14 ounce) travel mugs (but not super tall tumblers).

In the end, while the Tassimo and the Keurig both have pros and cons, I like the Keurig a little better for the following reasons. The Keurig provides more flexibility and customizability. The Keurig is easier to clean. Also, something not previously discussed in this post, it brews much more quitely. Lastly, the Keurig pot accomodates a taller cup/mug.

Keurig Coffee Pot

I just got a Cuisinart brand coffee pot that uses the Keurig K-cups. It was a random surprise gift from my parents and my sister helped with orchestrating the surprise (my mother and my sister both have the same coffee pot). I bought a flavor of coffee today and offered to give my sister a few k-cups and she said that she wished that the three of us could be more coordinated about which flavors we get. She has a whole box that she doesn't want because she didn't love it. This is what sparked the idea for this blog, Adventures in Coffee. In this blog I'm going to blog about coffee/cafe experiences. Certainly not everyone has the same tastes, but it helps to know others' experiences (like customer reviews).