Over at Kickstarter Shaun Pitz is working very hard to show the battle line between coffee and espresso in a new short film.
"Espresso Manifesto is a seven minute animated film that reconsiders the origin of coffee through a colorful world of fantasy and science fiction. A mysterious cafe set beside an ocean of grass, a silent observer, metallic serpents, rolling robots, and one lingering question: Why is coffee just so delicious? The answer may be more sinister than you think. "
Shaun works in a coffee shop by day and has been animating and creating the film at night. We're thinking given the trailer a bit Shaun has been a bit hopped up on espresso and coffee the entire time.
Brewing these T-Discs resulted in mild caramel notes during brewing along with some of the usual buttermilk notes from the creamer. Again, we were hoping for a stronger aroma, but since it was being concentrated into a 2oz espresso shot, we suppose we were probably expecting for too much. Flavor was a bit better as we detected light notes of caramel up top quickly followed by some of the espresso flavors, then a bit more tinges of caramel followed by sweet buttermilk flavors of the creamer at the bottom. As we neared the end of the cup, the buttermilk flavors & overall sweetness of the drink became more pronounced.
If something has SWEET in its name, you can damn well bet the final results will taste sweet and that is once more the case with these T-Discs. Unlike what we've been seeing lately, we didn't detect any chemical notes in the sweetness and things just seemed like natural sugar overall. At least that's something that Kraft took the time get right. Acidity was pretty much washed-out by the creamer but did yield some bite from the espresso at various points throughout the drink. It helped let the mild caramel flavors come through & would have just washed them out had it been any stronger.
io9 has a great article on how caffeine (if ingested while driving) can really save your life. Why? Drivers hopped up on caffeine have a 63% reduced chance of crashing. Yep - that one cup of coffee could improve your chances by as much as 63% while the caffeine is in your body. But the study really recommends:
While comprehensive fatigue management strategies for these drivers should consider the provision for adequate breaks and sufficient sleep and the promotion of regular exercise, the use and influence of caffeinated stimulants should be considered as an effective adjunct strategy to maintain alertness while driving.
SO remember getting proper sleep is also really important over just downing cups of coffee to stay awake while driving. Still - it's nice to see all the benefits coffee brings us in all the places and travels of our lives.
Over at Bevnet we'll see four new iced coffee drinks before the end of the month. The line of iced coffee beverages will be available at select grocery retailers in Boston, Hartford, New York and Philadelphia. The company will continue roll out the new iced coffees nationwide over the next three months, and the products will be available across the country by the end of April. Given how things are heating up already this Spring, these iced beverages should be a cooling force for the Summer months ahead.
We just got word that Hamilton Mills is making their own line of K-Cup compatible coffee packs. They call them single serve coffee cups and they'll work with any Keurig K-Cup brewers. We'll try and get a set to review soon.
Flavors include:
Hamilton Mills Cape Cod Roast Single Serve Coffee Cups
Hamilton Mills Morning Roast Decaf Single Serve Coffee Cups
Hamilton Mills Mocha Swirl Single Serve Coffee Cups
Hamilton Mills Toasted Cinnamon Single Serve Coffee Cups
Hamilton Mills Vanilla Bean Single Serve Coffee Cups
We decided to review something today which is somewhat cloaked in mystery much like the Caribou Obsidian K-Cups or the President’s Choice T-Discs. Today we review the Gevalia 15% Kona Blend T-Discs. These T-Discs were not widely advertised and the only place we’ve been able to find them lately was our local Bed Bath & Beyond retail store and the Tassimo Direct website.
It would appear you can also order from the Bed Bath & Beyond website if you don’t have a retail location near you. As far as we can tell, Gevalia 15% Kona Blend T-Discs are only available in USA. Seems a bit odd for Gevalia to be releasing a Kona coffee blend since there are still issues with the recovering Kona crops in Hawaii at the moment which have forced Keurig & others to stop selling Kona blends due to shortages or insufficient supply. Despite this, we appreciate the fact that they chose to incorporate a 15% blend since most blends a few years back were only 10%. It’s not much more, but hey, we’ll take what we can get.
With Keurig's K-Cup patent having expired, a multitude of soft-bottomed One Cup flavors have been released within the past year. When the first One Cup company (Rogers Family Coffee) started releasing their products, they came packaged within a non-resealable plastic bag inside a cardboard box for outer packaging. The main problem that quickly arose once you'd open the bag would be two-fold... the coffee aromas were so strong, that they'd permeate through the box and into whatever surrounding items you had nearby + you'd quickly lose freshness in the ground coffee since the filter provided no oxygen barrier whatsoever and left the grinds exposed to the elements.
Other companies (Club Coffee, Melitta) tried resolving this issue with some success by creating cookie bag style foil packaging that had bendable tabs near the top of the bag which allowed you to roll the bag up and secure the tabs in order to prevent the bag from opening again. This still resulted in another problem since it meant you had to keep the entire bag nearby if you wanted to use that particular brand/flavor. Not an ideal solution if you aren't a frequent coffee drinker or like to drink a different flavor on a regular basis.
We've often thought Batman's logo would make a pretty nice coffee table, and the Bohemian workshop has proven us right. Made by Charles Lushear of the Bohemian Workshop, the coffee table is carved from wood with hairpin legs. The bad news? You can't actually buy the Bat signal coffee table. DC Comics found out about Lushear's wood work and only allows him to display it on his website.
Single Serve Espresso has word that Nespresso will be launching limited edition Napoli and Trieste coffee capsules sometime in this middle of this April 2013.
The Napoli capsules is a blend of South American, African and Asian beans that have a dark, complex and STRONG flavor with a bit of a Robusta finish. The capsule sis said to be an 11 on a 10 scale, much like the fabled Kazaar all Robusta blended capsule. With the Napoli, Nespresso is pushing a 'Black Gold' concentrated coffee concept of taking the espresso as a Ristretto, (25ml) or an even shorter 15ml. We'll have to see.
The Trieste is a bit less intense, but not by much. The Trieste capsules will be 100% Brazilian and African Arabica beans with a nutty and chocolatey flavor coming in at a 9 on the 10 intensity scale.
There's a launch site of course and it's really well designed.
D: Last December, Tassimo had a rebate promotion on its Tassimo read more david boe: About 5 months ago, we sent in the plug from read more Thomas Davie: Just ran out of these this morning (Damn). I can read more nadine dartois: hi,,Ipurchas a box of breakfast blend ,kirkland breakfast k cups read more Andrew: The wife just brought home Archer Farms Vanilla Bean Creme read more
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Espresso Manifesto Short Animated Film by Shaun Pitz
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