Coffee Break

Y’all who know me know that the only thing I love better than my coffee is saving money on my coffee. I love me some Hawaiian Kona or Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee as much as the next pretentious coffee snob, but seriously? The coffees that win my heart and stake out a permanent place on my coffee counter are those that mix great taste with great price.

So what do I drink when money is tight? The list may surprise you - and I do add the caution that my definition of “cheap coffee” may not be the same as yours. I really really can’t quite abide most supermarket aisle offerings, so you won’t find a $3.50 can of your standard “Mountain Grown” on my list. That warning made, here’s my list of surprisingly good cheap coffees that will always find a place in my coffee canisters.

Archer Farms Reserve Roasts never fail to impress. At about $9.95 a canister, they’re at the top end of what I’ll pay for “cheap” coffee, but are nearly always well worth the cost. Reserve Roasts are grown on small estates and roasted in small batches. Because of that, you won’t find all varieties of Archer Farms Reserve Roasts all the time. If you can find it, grab a canister of Estate la Violeta, which is pure heaven in a silver can, or Costa Rican Peaberry, which is purely delicious - rich, flavorful and smooth as cream. You’ll find it at Target - that’s right - Target.

Gourmet Coffee - I know. That’s not a brand name! A couple of years ago, my mother brewed up a pot of coffee that was so surprisingly good - my mom likes coffee, but she’s her usual idea of “good coffee” is Folgers - I asked her what kind of coffee it was. She told me, “Gourmet coffee”. Well, yeah, ma, duh! What KIND of gourmet coffee? She pulled out the package - a plain brown paper kraft bag with a stick on label that said “Gourmet Coffee”. She’d bought a two pound bag of it at the local Building 19 - I think it’s 19 7/8 - for less than five bucks. For those of you outside the Northeast, Building 19 is a surplus superstore with about a dozen branches. Definitely not the place you expect to find good coffee - but this stuff is so consistently good that I make a point of stopping in every time I visit my mom. You won’t find it every time you visit, but when you do, grab it!

Trader Joe’s Five Bean Espresso Roast is oh, my! so delicious! TJ’s blends five different Fair Trade coffees and roasts them to a mellow dark roast for a flavor that is complex, balanced and creamy smooth. I’d shied away from this one until recently because I’m a fan of single origin coffees. But last time I made a TJ run, I decided to go beyond my usual menu - French Roast, Fair Trade Ethiopian Yrgacheffe and a couple of others - so I picked this one up because it has a pretty can. Darlin’s, let me tell you - it was worth the chance. It definitely earned a place on my favorites shelf - and at about $8.99 a canister for whole bean, it also fits into my “cheap coffee” column.

Cafe Caribe is the cheapest coffee on the block. I pick it up at my corner bodega for about $1.99 for a 10 ounce brick. It comes in bright, cheerful yellow, green and red package and really needs to be repackaged if you’re not going to use it up in a couple of days. The grind is perfect for making Spanish coffee on the stovetop, or for using in a stovetop moka pot - powdery fine and uniform. The coffee is strong, deep and rich with serious coffee flavor. I try to keep a brick on hand for those mornings when I really have a yen for a creamy, sweet cup of Puerto Rican coffee. It totally fits the bill.

Dean’s Beans green beans are one of my indulgences - I love roasting my own, and at about $5.99 a pound for most varieties, it’s a definite cheap coffee indulgence. Unfortunately, there’s also shipping to take into consideration, so I don’t order as often as I’d like to do. In fact, if it was up to me, I’d ALWAYS have two or three varieties of green coffee beans on hand to roast up fresh for after dinner and first thing in the morning.

Eight O’Clock Coffee is about the only supermarket coffee that I regularly buy. I grew up with Eight O’Clock coffee. I still remember standing at the cashier at the A&P and watching the lady dial the grinder up to grind the coffee just so. Nana usually ground her own at home - and if I was up early, it was my job to do it with the old-fashioned crank coffee grinder. The aroma of fresh ground coffee is part of the background of my childhood - and is probably a big part of why I love coffee to this day. My personal favorite Eight O’Clock coffee is the French Roast, but I’m drinking Colombian this morning because Stop & Shop was out of French Roast last time I was there. At about $12.99 for a 3 pound bag, the price is as attractive as the taste.

That’s it for now, but I’m quite sure that I’ll think of others in the next few days. Expect updates - and do take notes!

I got me a new coffee mug - but it’s not just any ol’ coffee mug this time. It’s a bona fide I Love ezinearticles coffee mug and it showed up in my front hallway this morning - a complete surprise!

If you do any Google searches at all, chances are good that you’ve run into ezinearticles.com in the results. They’re one of the oldest - and definitely the best known - article directories on the web. Thousands of writers have been posting their expert articles on EzineArticles.com for years. They practically developed the ‘free articles for promotion” model for article directories.

The idea is that you write articles about your area of expertise, and post them on Ezine Articles along with an author’s Resource Box that includes your name and a link to your web site. The articles have to conform to fairly strict guidelines for quality writing in order to be approved, but once they’re approved, they are made available on the Ezine Articles web site along with permission to reprint the article in full as long as the Resource Box and any links contained in the article and resources are kept intact.

I wrote a handful of articles at Ezine Articles back in 2006 as samples to bring business in for a freelance writing network of which I was part - and then more or less forgot them until recently when another of my customers asked me to write several articles a month at Ezine Articles with links back to his site. Since it’s a cause that is near and dear to my heart - environmental and technology related - I agreed happily, and posted another five articles over a couple of months.

That brought my total articles on Ezine Articles to 10, which triggers a review of your account for upgrading from basic author status to basic plus author status - that allows you to post another 25 articles on the site. That’s how it usually goes - but if the editors really like your work and all of your articles have been approved with no problems, they sometimes skip you right past Basic Plus to Platinum membership - which allows you to post as many articles as you want, and shortens the length of time you wait for article approval.

To my surprise, I was one of the writers that got skipped past Basic Plus directly to Platinum membership, making me a very happy camper. But that was nothing to how delighted I was when my son stepped out in the hallway to take out the trash and returned with a package from EzineArticles in hand - it apparently was delivered yesterday and overlooked. Inside was an EzineArticles mug - and a packet of totally nummy Lighthouse Blend Coffee from Door County Coffee - which I am thoroughly enjoying right now, and may just order for myself so I can enjoy it even more.

So - thanks, EzineArticles! Love the mug, adore the coffee, LOVE EzineArticles.com!

Hey, kids! Today, September 29, is National Coffee Day - I hope you’re celebrating appropriately! Me, I’m sipping a cooling cup of Trader Joe’s Bali Moon coffee mixed with Trader Joe’s Bay Blend. I’ve been doing a lot of mix-and-match coffee bean pairs lately, and finding that I really really like the results. It lets me mix dark and light roast coffees to come up with something in between, or pair up a rich coffee with a more acidic snappy blend and enjoy the best of both worlds.

If you don’t have a nice range of coffee selections to pair up, though, you can enjoy National Coffee Day in lots of other ways. Here’s some samplings from around the country:

In New England, get a free cup of Newman’s Own Organics at McDonald’s. Locations in Eastern MA, NH and RI are handing out free cups of Newman’s brew all day today and tomorrow in appreciation of National Coffee Day.

Filterfresh Coffee Service, a Massachusetts company, is kicking off a literary contest to celebrate National Coffee Day. Drop by the Filterfresh blog for details on their writing contest. If you can write an essay about why Coffee is the Greatest Beverage of All Time!, you could win a home brewer and a supply of coffee.

If you’re in Coral Gables, you can grab a free coffee at Buttercream Cupcakes and Coffee - don’t forget to have one of their yummy cupcakes to go with it.

Starbucks will be debuting their new VIA instant coffee at locations around the country this week. Look for promotions locally for a free tall cup of VIA at your local Starbucks Oct 2-4.

I love me my single origin coffees, and I prefer them fresh roasted from indie local roasters. Unfortunately, those are hard to come by here in town - and having it delivered tends to put a major crimp in my budget. That means that I’m always on the lookout for reasonably priced, good coffees that I (and other people) can buy locally. About a year and a half ago, I discovered Archer Farms Reserve Roast coffees, sold exclusively through Target. Yes, Target.

First, a word about the brand. Archer Farms is Target Corp’s specialty food label. Their slogan is Tasty foods at Tasty Prices. If you’re used to buying your coffee for $3.79 a can in the grocery aisle, the $9.99 price tag for a tin of Archer Farms Reserve Roast coffee may not seem like a bargain. When you compare the price to similar coffees of the same quality at $14.99 and up, and when you actually taste the coffee, chances are good that you’ll change your mind.

Archer Farms coffees are packaged in very distinctive silver tins - that’s more a pewter color than the bright chrome silver most people associate with that color. Reserve Roast coffees are “rare and exemplary–grown in quantities that are too liited to allow us to offer them year-round. Available exclusively at Target, these distinctive, single-origin coffees are artisan-roasted to emphasize the remarkable flavors and aromas of each growing region.”

That’s straight from the package labeling - and having sampled a number of different Reserve Roast coffees, I have to tell you that it they generally live up to their labeling. The Costa Rican Estate La Violeta certainly does.

When I opened the inner packaging, the aroma wafted out almost as strongly as if I’d already started grinding the beans. I ended up burying my nose in it to sniff deeply - and passed the can around the whole family, all of whom just ‘mmmmm”d at it. The aroma was rich, smooth and had a hint of the balance that the cup of coffee would prove to have. It was fruity - a hint of berry, a touch of citrus - and a little cocoa-ish, and had an overtone of - I kid you not - Brazil nut. And that aroma filled the house as the beans were ground, and then suffused it as it started to brew. I couldn’t wait to actually taste it.

The Estate La Violeta didn’t disappoint. First, though the roast was medium, the brew was rich and dark. Unlike some medium roast coffees, you couldn’t see the spoon beneath the level of the coffee. There was almost a purple overtone to the color, and the coffee oils were visible floating on the top of the cup. It was lovely. I sipped… and oh, my…

I don’t often use the words “rich” and “snap” in reviews of the same coffee. Often, coffees that are this rich in feel don’t have the acidity to tingle your tongue. The Violeta proves that the two are not mutually exclusive. The first distinct flavor is mildly citrus, melding into smooth, sweet plum flavor tinged with chocolate. The body is smooth, not quite as heavy as say, Sumatran coffee, but much more substantial than a Brazilian or Colombian coffee.

It’s not really a breakfast coffee - which surprised me, because I generally am happy with most coffees for breakfast. This Costa Rican coffee from the Tarrazu region is very definitely an after dinner coffee. I can imagine it with a slice of cheesecake or a tiramisu. The pairing would be pure heaven.

Flavia coffee helps offices go green

I love pretty shiny things. I love things that are better for the environment. I love friendly people. And I love coffee. When you put all of those together, you’ve got a win-win-win situation that is guaranteed to get my attention. That’s why the very nice letter I got from a PR rep at Mars Drinks caught my attention this morning.

See, Mars Drinks makes the coffee that’s used in the Flavia single serve coffee machine. I first ran into the Flavia at my kids’ dentist’s office almost ten years ago. This was long before I ever heard of Senseo or Keurig. In fact, the Flavia was the first single serve coffee system that I ever saw. And since it was a shiny new thing that had to do with making coffee, I had to try it.

It was pretty cool to be able to have a cup of gourmet flavored coffee whenever I took the kids to the dentist. Even better - my son fell in love with the machine, which meant that he was making coffee for everyone in the waiting room instead of climbing the walls and slipping unnoticed out the door into traffic. I loved the Flavia office coffee maker and wondered how much it would cost to buy one for my kitchen.

Alas, it was not to be. Flavia concentrates on office coffee service rather than the home market, so I tend to leave them out of the reckoning when I’m pulling up things to write about. Which isn’t quite fair, since Flavia does make a couple of small single serve coffee brewers for the home kitchen - and I do know that some people out there are trying to figure out how to make better coffee at the office - without over-running the budget.

So, when I checked the mail this morning and found a note from Andrea at Flavia, I figured I’d share it. Here’s the scoop:

In today’s world, companies are doing all they can to try to go green. Mars Drinks recently launched a sustainability initiative for FLAVIA, its line of single serve hot beverages that are made specifically for the workplace.  The first step was having three of its most popular beverages (House Blend, Breakfast Blend and Kona Blend) certified by the Rainforest Alliance.

Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee is grown on farms where forests are protected, rivers, soils and wildlife are conserved and workers are treated with respect, paid decent wages, properly equipped and given access to education and medical care.

However Mars doesn’t stop there, it’s also working to green other aspects of the Flavia workplace experience by offering:

• Cups that use 10% post-consumer recycled materials
• The packs, which hold the fresh ground coffee and tea leaves, are now 20% smaller, leading to decreased waste
• The merchandiser, which displays the packs in offices, is made from 90% post-consumer recycled content
• The rail, a piece of hard material that the packs are stored in, is made from fully recyclable material.

So if you’re considering an office coffee solution, do take the time to check out the Flavia and the thirty kinds of coffee, espresso, chocolate and tea that they offer in Flavia packs for your office.

Kudos to Starbucks and AT&T for their efforts in helping out with the efforts to fight the LA fires and assist those who are displaced by them.

I’m always a big fan of those companies who give “better than money” in community efforts - businesses that estimate how their expertise can assist in ways that a community might not even have considered. That’s what this effort by Starbucks Coffee and AT&T is - a sharing that grows from the things they do best.

As of this past Monday and continuing through September 15, Starbucks is providing free coffee at all the fire staging areas and Red Cross refugee evacuation sites. In addition, AT&T is providing free WiFi at 19 Starbucks stores in the area affected by fire so that those displaced can stay in touch with family and business connections during any time that they’re access is disrupted.

Read Starbucks company statement.

Find LA Fire Red Cross evacuation centers (including those that shelter pets)

Hat tip to LA Times for this list of Starbucks stores offering free WiFi

• 280 E. Palmdale Blvd., Palmdale
• 8349 Foothill Blvd., Sunland
• 3747 Foothill Blvd. #A, Glendale
• 627 Foothill Blvd., La Crescenta
• 475 Foothill Blvd. #M, La Cañada Flintridge
• 1929 Verdugo, La Cañada Flintridge
• 1840 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena
• 1135 Truman St., San Fernando
• 19435 Soledad Canyon Road, Santa Clarita
• 24802 Orchard Village Road, #A4 Santa Clarita
• 23792 San Fernando Road, Santa Clarita
• 26925 Sierra Highway, Santa Clarita
• 805 E. Avenue K #101, Lancaster
• 1845 W. Avenue I, Lancaster
• 2062 W. Avenue K, Lancaster
• 39904 10th St. West #D, Palmdale
• 39570 Lowes Drive, Palmdale
• 2834 Lenwood Road, Barstow
• 2843 Lenwood Blvd. Suite D, Barstow

Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade Five Country Espresso Blend may be up there with the best TJ’s coffees I’ve ever tasted. The can describes the Five Country Espresso Blend as “strong, rich and well-balanced”, and that about sums it up - but man, if there was a way to amplify each of those adjectives by about 100, it would be a whole lot closer to true.

Let me start off by saying that Trader Joe’s is my fallback option when I’m buying coffee. Given a choice and a good cash flow, I love to buy my coffee beans green at Dean’s Beans and roast them myself when I’m ready to roast. Unfortunately, shipping and handling tends to make that too expensive for me to do too often - in order to make it worthwhile, I need to buy 5 or more pounds at a time and I don’t always have the cash on hand to do that.

Failing that, my next choice is a trip to Trader Joe’s and half an hour or so in the coffee aisle. I have my perennial favorites - Bali Moon and Bay Blend come to mind - and nearly always pick up a can or two of those, but I also like to pick up a couple of cans of something different to try. This week it was the Five Country Espresso Blend - and I’m so glad that I let myself be seduced by it.

First off, it’s both Fair Trade AND Organic - not all Trader Joe coffees are either or both, though they’ve got a great selection of both. Second, it’s a dark roast, which is usually my preference. And then there’s the five countries that go into the blend - Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and… Sumatra. Two Central American, two South American and a Pacific Island coffee are bound to make a smooth, balanced blend - and they do.

The aroma is very rich and very dark - just a bit burnt, which was a little off-putting right out of the can. That concern was put to rest in the brewing, though. The aroma that filled the house was as sweet and full-bodied as the best-smelling coffee houses I’ve ever been in. I  could even smell the notes of chocolate and smoke under the coffee aroma before  I even poured a cup.

When I did get around to actually drinking it - heaven! The South American coffees have just enough acidity to keep the Sumatran coffee from tasting flat, while the Sumatran adds a lush, spicy-chocolatey flavor that no other coffee origin ever seems to quite match. The Sumatran is also very full-bodied, which balances the very light mouth-feel that’s typical of South American coffees. The Central American coffees also tend to be the most smoothly balanced of all the origins, so adding them into the mix was a bit of genius.

I highly recommend this one for anyone that enjoys espresso - but you don’t have to make espresso to enjoy it. I loved it just fine made in my standard auto drip coffee maker.