So Many Flavors, So Few Mugs!! (Part 1)

I have tried many new flavors of k-cups, especially since I ordered a variety box from the Green Mountain website and ordering several sample packs (boxes of only 5 k-cups) from the Keurig website. At this point, I have so many flavors to blog about that I'm hoping to cover as many of them as possible in one post. As discussed in some earlier posts, some flavored coffees have subtle flavors. Even though I want all my coffee to taste like coffee, I want to really taste the flavor in my flavored coffees. So I find flavored coffees with more subtle flavors less satisfying than flavored coffees with more potent flavors. Also, many flavored coffees taste great even though you would probably not be able to identify the exact flavor if someone handed you a cup without telling you what it was.

Green Mountain's Caramel Vanilla Cream: I loved this one. It had a good flavor, though I wouldn't have minded the flavor being a little stronger. The flavors in it were mostly identifiable, though with it being a combination flavor, you might only guess one of the two flavors. This one works great as a mocha by mixing it with hot cocoa.

Gloria Jean's Butter Toffee on the 8 oz setting and Gloria Jean's Hazelnut on the 8 oz setting: The combination was ok, but not great. The flavors did not seem to gel. At some point I might try a different ratio, but I think that these two flavors may not be compatible with each other.

Green Mountain's Golden French Toast: This flavor is amazing. The first few times I tried it, I was of the opinion that it was delicious but would not have guessed that the flavor was French Toast unless I knew. On a more recent tasting, I noticed more strongly the maple hints in it, which for me solidified the French toast-ness of it because my mom adds maple syrup to her French toast batter.

Green Mountain's Island Coconut: This is surprisingly good. It tastes amazing, but instead of tasting like I am drinking coffee while having a bite of coconut flavored confection still in my mouth, this tastes like someone put a shot (or so) of some coconut flavored liqueur (or even coconut rum) in my coffee. It has a slight after-burn in my throat and there is something about the flavor that reminds me more of an alcohol based flavor. I tried this in a mocha, doing my usual cocoa on the 8 oz setting (this time dark chocolate) mixed with this coffee on the 6 oz setting and it was absolutely fabulous. The coconut/chocolate combination reminded me a lot of Mounds (or Almond Joy) candy bars.

Van Houtte's Spicy Mayan Chocolate: This is one of my new favorites. The flavor on this coffee is simply fabulous. The chocolate taste is a good clear chocolate flavor and the hints of spice are not overpowering, they make the flavor taste more rich. It does not taste like having a sip of coffee and bite of plain milk chocolate bar at the same time. It is a more complex combination of flavors that work well together.

Green Mountain's Perfect Peach Coffee: This was, in many ways, like the Island Coconut coffee. Did they taste the same? No. They were similar, first in the sense that they both were surprising to me. I hadn't expected to like either one. They were also similar in the way that they tasted like they were flavored by a liqueur. This did not taste like biting into a fresh peach and then taking a sip of coffee. Instead it tasted like someone poured some Peach Schnapps into my coffee (not me of course, hence the surprise)!!

NOTE: The Golden French Toast, Perfect Peach, and Island Coconut were all Limited Edition flavors put out by Green Mountain. Apparently, they come out with one specialty blend of regular coffee and one specialty flavor every month. These are available, according to Green Mountain, for a limited time.

I have many other flavors I would like to blog about, but this is already one of my longest posts and it is quite late, so this will need to be continued in part 2!!

What's Fair Trade, and why do I want it in my coffee?

Several years ago, someone introduced my father to Fair Trade coffee.  Unfortunately, it was not a brand that he liked the taste of, so he always assumed that "Fair Trade" would somehow negatively affect the taste of the coffee.  So when I started getting Fair Trade certified k-cups, I started to wonder how many people really know what Fair Trade means.  Have you ever thought about how your coffee gets to you?  Before anyone ground the beans, or roasted them, someone had to grow those beans.  So often that bag of coffee that cost you 7 or 8 dollars was purchased for pennies and the people who did the hardest labor don't make a livable wage.  This problem is what Fair Trade tries to avoid.  By paying the growers a fair price, the growers make a livable wage. While this might end up making your cup a little bit more expensive, isn't it worth it?  Knowing that the people who worked so hard to grow your coffee haven't been taken advantage of and have been dealt with fairly is peace of mind that is worth a few extra pennies a cup!!  That being said, it is important to know that just because something is not stamped Fair Trade Certified, does not automatically mean that it is "unfair" trade.  The certification standards are stringent and include environmental issues as well, therefore some companies may fall short of the certification requirements, but still be paying a fair price.  So the next time you see a Fair Trade Certified coffee, you can feel good that this cup helped hard working people earn a fair wage, and that makes it taste better to me!!

Long Time, No Blog

To all my regular readers, I'm sorry for the long break between blog posts.  I was swamped with getting grades finalized at the end of a very hectic semester.  The downside is that I could not justify taking a break to blog, even though it would have been refreshing!  The one good thing about this is that all that grading required lots and lots of caffeine!!  So now I haven't blogged in a while, have a lot to blog about, and not a lot of other responsibilities!!  So you can look forward to several new blog posts very, very soon!!!  What kinds of blog posts, you might ask?  Well, I've recently ordered over a dozen sampler packs from the Keurig website (only $3 for a box of 5 k-cups, so it's a cheap way to try new flavors with very little waste if you don't like them), not that I've tried all of them yet, but I do have a lot of different k-cups to blog about and some other coffee experiences and insights to share!

to flavor or not to flavor

Around the table one night at my parents' house, my brother-in-law (my sister's husband) asked me what the draw was to flavored coffee.  One of the comments he made indicated that he wasn't sure if the coffee would taste like coffee.  He said that, even when you add cream and sugar, it still tastes like coffee, but was it the same way with flavored coffees?  I had never really thought about this issue, so I don't know how I would have answered him before, except to say that you taste the coffee and the flavor.  However, I recently tried a flavored coffee that I did not expect to like at all, but loved and that experience helped me respond to him.  I recently tried a Green Mountain Coffees flavor called Wild Mountain Blueberry.  Now, before you react, I know that it sounds weird and in all honesty the only reason I tried it was that it came in a mixed flavored coffees box from Green Mountain that included flavors that I was pretty confident I would like (like the Caramel Vanilla Cream).  I expected to not like it, but in the spirit of my code name (Indiana Valdez) I was adventurous and tried it.  It was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.  The sweet blueberry flavor reminded me of blueberry muffins or blueberry bread.  It actually tasted like I took a sip of coffee while I still had a bite of the most delicious blueberry muffin in my mouth.  If you like blueberry muffins and you have coffee with your breakfast. then you have probably done this before, I know I have.  Because it seemed like such a strange flavor to want to put in your coffee that I had to compare it to something that I considered a "normal" coffee experience, I ended up having the perfect answer as to why I like flavored coffees.  I asked my brother-in-law if he ever eats food while drinking his coffee and he indicated that he does.  I asked him if he sometimes takes a drink of his coffee while there is still food in his mouth, and he said yes to that as well.  I told him that this experience is what flavored coffees are like.  Your coffee still tastes like coffee, but the coffee flavor mixes with a complementary flavor.  So what is my answer to the question, to flavor or not to flavor?  Well, if you ever drink regular coffee while eating food and like how the flavor of the food mixes with the flavor of the coffee, then you might want to try flavored coffees if you never have before.  Here's a sneak peak of some flavors I've tried recently that I'll be reviewing soon, both by Green Mountain: Golden French Toast, and Island Coconut.  Stay tuned!!