Talking Espresso and Great Coffee

While the Keurig is not as sophisticated of a coffee system as the Tassimo, they do have an impressive line of K-Cup coffee offerings. The system treats each pod the same so the many providers of the coffee options pick and choose which of their line will work best with the system. Several brands offer many of their regular drip coffee versions, while others may offer just a regular and decaf.

Costco carries the standard machine, packaged with a few of the coffees on the market to sample which you may like best. They also offer large 80 K-Cup boxes of a few coffees. Most notable has been the Folgers Gourmet Lively Colombia (medium roast).

Also in the ‘big’ box is The Donut Shop Coffee from Coffee People. Well, they ‘did’ offer it, for a couple months.

Many times at Costco, things appear and then go away a short time later. Sometimes this is because the offering isn’t as popular as hoped but many times it is because the product manufacture was just getting folks to try. Then, they pull the bulk product and the only place to buy is in smaller quantities for more money in regular retailers.

There is actually still ‘Donut’ K-Cup coffee at Costco, but it is “Donut House” Coffee.

There is nothing wrong with the Donut House compared to the Donut Shop coffee… we just found it interesting that Costco stopped a coffee and replaced it with a very similarly named product.

For those that care, the Donut Shop is a bit ‘stronger’ tasting, while the Donut House is more ‘bold’. Both are fine… and it’s always great to have new options to try.

As a side note, if Donut Shop did do a bit of test marketing at Costco, it worked. In a visit to Crate and Barrel this weekend, the K-Cup area had only the Decaf version of the Donut Shop coffee left. The counter person said the regular option is always out of stock due to popular demand, now.

In this month’s (January) “Wallpaper” magazine is a two page add for Nespresso showing George Clooney. Wow, he is now doing Nespresso ads now.

Well, actually, he has been doing them for more than a year. My miss, my bad. It would appear that he filmed a commercial for Nespresso just after releasing his movie “Up In The Air” in 2009. I found a page on Nespresso pointing to it. The below is a screen shot of the resulting page. It would appear that the commercial wasn’t for the U.S. .

But, leave it to YouTube and you can find the video you want or need. Here is George being George and Nespresso doing coffee.

And a follow on to that one with John Malkovich

Tim Hortons is something that I along with other Canadians truly feel is one of Canada’s great wonders. Tim Hortons is undoubtedly one of the single most popular coffee shops ever.

Every time I go to Tim Hortons I get the same welcoming feeling. Polite staff, familiar menu, familiar colors, and a familiar smell. No matter where the Tim Hortons is located, all of these are the same. Because of this, people continually come back, including myself.

Tim Hortons has very cheap coffee, and it tastes amazing. You can buy an extra large coffee for under $2, and it really is “Extra-Large”. the coffee is smooth, and you can really taste the way the coffee has been roasted. The aroma of the coffee is very deep and rich, and it is one of those familiar smells.

Tim Hortons is most famous for their “Double Double” which is a coffee that has two shots of creme, and two shots of sugar. It is also my personal favorite. The reason it is my favorite is because sometimes the coffee at “Timmys” tastes a bit too burnt, and this offsets it enough so that the coffee is more or less perfect, every time.

Another great feature of time Hortons is their food. Every time I get food from them, it is simply amazing, and once again is a great price. The French Onion soup, and their Sandwiches are very rich, warm, and great tasting.

Overall, Tim Hortons is a great place, and anyone who gets the chance really should try it. I recommend it to anyone visiting Canada, and people who live in the United States seeing as they have opened a few stores there.

It’s fun to see new infographics on coffee. Previously there has been ones on caffeine, what is in your favorite espresso drink as well as the history of coffee. Now, one from mint.com outlines “How Coffee Affects the Global Economy”.

It is full of info like how many grounds are sold per year, where coffee is most drank and how many people are involved.

Grab your copy of view online. This is just a snap shot of one small part of the larger infographic:

There hasn’t yet been a life cycle of the coffee bean yet, someone should do a poster of that too… please!

Having owned many retail businesses, I know how difficult it is to open the doors and get in the groove of providing a service and providing customer service. No matter how much you polish the chrome, first impressions are your employees. It is important to smile before you make eye contact so that your smile is in your eyes.

The House Coffee Bar has opened their doors in Ft. Worth, right on the edge of the west side downtown. It is an area that is looking to be the place people live and shop. Many of the old buildings are being refaced or torn down for new, with the average building being single story and new condos being built as high as three.

A single parking space length off the road was once a three store mall, now the home of The House Coffee Bar and conference room spaces. The dark windows and artistic block letter sign could easily be missed by all but the locals. Judging by the number of cars out front, the locals are spreading the word.

Once inside, you are greeted with the ‘usual’ danishes with a few local specialties mixed in. High on the wall behind the counter and espresso bar is two large thin screens showing the menu of drinks and sandwiches. The dark wood walls, black leather wrapped furniture, large tables and open air environment says less about ‘welcome’ and more about ‘bring your friends with you… take your time’.

The staff was nice, making no attempt to offer additional items or pressure up sells, they took my coffee drink order efficiently. There was a bit of an air of ‘in training’ with the talk amongst staff so the extra time for the drink to be finished felt acceptable. When the espresso was delivered, it had a nice punch in the taste that set it above the big chain coffee houses. I had a Mocha, which was syrup rather than powder carrying a nice level of sweetness without being over powering.

While myself and the gent behind me in line where welcomed more warmly than most businesses I frequent, the three men behind us where greeted with great energy. Making us feel like we were ‘just customers’. It was soon apparent that all three individuals have used the space for meetings and hung out longer than the time to drink an espresso.

Will I go back? Of course, the coffee and available space is just right for the area. It will require taking clients ‘away’ from town but once inside I can see the atmosphere being right to meet. And of course, I need to go enough so I can get greeted with the high energy welcome, everyone wants to go someplace they know your name.
915 Florence Street
Fort Worth, TX, 76102

http://www.thehousecoffeebar.com

When marketing for companies I work with, I’m well known for ‘being where we shouldn’t be’. It’s the idea that you get more attention and smaller ads make more of an impact when your out of the norm. I’m not talking about doing things to shock people, this is about putting your message where people do not expect to see it.

I was reminded of this when I was looking around at another one of my passions (not as much as Coffee of course!), MindMapping. I was doing a search for new news on MindMapping and had not removed ‘coffee’ from the search box and came up with an unexpected post.

No, Mindjetter is not selling coffee these days. But, they have a couple employees that have a coffee passion and they took the time to talk about a bit of fun competition. A great example that searching for Barista Competition will now get their software found.

Don’t run out and ask MindMapping software companies to host your barista competition. But, why not ask local companies to drop by as a place to have an hour off-site meeting. Companies get set in their ways and forget your an option to freshen up a meeting. When their onsite, they could be reminded that you will deliver coffee to their next meeting if they can’t come to you.

Anything you or your customers do is a place to think about for your ads. Golf courses have sponcered holes, sewing clubs need their caffeine too as well Businesses hold classes on doing spreadsheets… think about where people will notice they need a cup of your coffee.

The desire for this site is to be the search for a great cup of coffee or espresso, with comments along the way on the latest news. But, I am getting a lot of emails about Caffeine and if I knew anything about the quantity of Caffeine in different drinks. This sort of heads down the path of why we drink espresso… for the taste or the buzz. For me, it’s all about the taste.

There are many articles available online about what Caffeine really is, it’s chemical make up and where it comes from. The Slate had some interesting throughs on it being why we will pay more for a great cup of coffee. I wont get into any in depth research quoting here. The folks at the Center for Science in the Public Interest listed Caffeine as a highly used food additive item some folks should avoid. More important from the CSPINET group is their research on a nice long list of currently available drinks and their Caffeine content. It covers the Coffees, Teas, Soft Drinks and even chocolates you will know broken down for quick reference. A few off the top:
Coffee, generic brewed 8 oz. Serving 133 (range: 102-200) (16 oz. = 266) Caffeine (mg)
Starbucks Brewed Coffee (Grande) 16 oz. Serving 320 Caffeine (mg)
Dunkin’ Donuts regular coffee 16 oz. 206 Caffeine (mg)
Einstein Bros. regular coffee 16 oz. Serving 300 Caffeine (mg)
Mountain Dew, regular or diet 12 oz. Serving 54 (20 oz. = 90) Caffeine (mg)
Pepsi One 12 oz. Serving 54 (20 oz. = 90) Caffeine (mg)
Mello Yellow 12 oz. Serving 53 Caffeine (mg)

Hope you find this helpful… now let’s get back to that perfect Espresso search!

In 2009, Starbucks decided on a path forward to better compete with the McDonalds Cafe Coffee offerings. They would lower the price on a basic cup of coffee, and make up for it by charging more for complex or premium drinks. The drinks that have anything extra such as a squirt of flavoring or an extra shot. It amounted to charging the loyal customers 8% to 15% more on their drinks so occasional visitors could be enticed with a cheaper cup of drip. No, I’m not just making this up… the NY Times did interviews and many Restaurant Blogs commented as well. Not outlined is the big price increase in extra shots.

Due to the ease of finding and directing others to the Starbucks locations, I use them daily for quick meetings. Paying Starbucks for a minimum of two cups of coffee a day.

Early in 2009, I paid $25 to Starbucks for a little black and ‘Gold’ card that allowed me to get 10% off my many drink purchases. It didn’t fully offset the price increase but it made the pain less noticeable. Right up to yesterday when the cashier let me know my card was no longer any good at Starbucks. They didn’t cut it up, but they did give me a little flyer outlining their new program. No email, no direct mail piece – Starbucks just decided the discount wouldn’t be honored to those who paid for the right. It would appear that Starbucks has taken a page from the Credit Card companies of late with their many ‘take them or you can leave’ changes.

The cashier was excited to let me know that they would now be giving out a free cup of coffee after a ‘few purchases’. It appeared to me that Starbucks wanted to keep the money in the bank by charging now and giving something away later. That was till I found out that the ‘free’ drink was after 30 coffee purchases.

Quick math shows that at 10% off, you getting 4 free drinks every 30 drink purchases.

With ‘Gold’ Card:

Average ‘complex’ drink $4.50 x 2 drinks a day x 5 days a week = $45 less 10% = $40.50

10 drinks a week for 3 weeks (30 drinks), out of pocket cash $121.50

Now with 1 drink free after 30:

Average ‘complex’ drink $4.50 x 2 drinks a day x 5 days a week = $45

10 drinks a week for 3 weeks (30 drinks), $135 then 1 free drink the next week -4.50. Out of pocket $130.50 if you accept the free drink isn’t actually in the 30 (effects the 31st drink)

Having tried coffees from many different sources. I do agree that the syrups are ‘better’ at a Starbucks. It is interesting that they only see McDonalds drip customers as important to win over. The smaller coffee houses have a chance to really strike and pull in customers to become ‘local loyal’ regulars.

The office has decided they are going green by having us bring our own mugs in And they do not want coffee grounds down the drain so no more fresh ground coffee in the maker or use of Presses. No matter how they ask, grounds from people’s Press’s still make it down the drain causing a clog and the folks downstairs end up getting wet from our backed up pipes.

Starbucks introducing their ‘Instant’ coffee is rather timely. Not that instant could possibly replace our fresh ground drip or Press… or could it? If you watch the ads, you might believe that your getting the same cup of coffee you would if you walked into the local corner Starbucks location and asked for a cup of drip coffee… all you need is hot water, a cup and some free WiFi.

The packaging is a switch from little envelopes to thin tubes… all inside of boxes carrying the usual look of the artwork in the Starbucks stores. If you visit the Starbucks Web site, they offer you a chance to give your views of their Instant. They also offer back a area of recipes you can make using a tube or two.

For a local ‘taste test’, I reached out to Brandy for her thoughts on the new Starbuck Instant – exchanging a few tubes of dried dark goodness for a few of her thoughts. Many thanks to her for jumping in with her insight!

“I was given a box of Starbucks VIA Ready Brew, Italian Roast (Extra Bold). In exchange, I was asked for a paragraph of my thoughts. Not a bad deal. Free coffee and a chance to give my opinion? Count me in!

Not being a coffee connoisseur (I have a regular Starbucks order and pretty much stick to it), I don’t know much about instant coffee… and the things I’ve heard are not good. I’ve heard that it can be weak, less-flavorful, and sometimes fails to dissolve. But, I figured if it was any of those things, I’d gotten it for free, even if it was swill!

However, as it turns out, it dissolved well in the water (I made mine with hot water, while the website boasts you can make it either hot or cold) and was actually more flavorful than the (Archer Farms) coffee I brewed at my house just yesterday! Starbucks calls their VIA “full-bodied” and I have to agree. Honestly, it was pretty strong! And, it wasn’t as bitter as some of the Starbucks drip coffee I’ve tried. There were no coffee grounds floating in my cup while drinking the coffee, although my last sip left a trail of small granules down the inside of my cup. (Never having had instant coffee, maybe this is typical for all of them. This would have been the only give-away on the Starbucks VIA Taste Challenge.) Would I drink VIA again? Yes, I would. Will it stop me from taking the trip to my local Starbucks once a week? Definitely not. It works well on-the-go (it’s fast and easy) and tastes pretty good… but, my friendly baristas would miss me. ”

So, coffee to go without the clean up or the atmosphere – looks like a box of tubes will be handy on my desk for those times too many people will catch me sneaking into the kitchen with my secret Press.

Have you ever dreamed of a ‘going places’ career in the coffee industry as a Barista?

I have to admit, when I saw the headlines to this article the above is what flashed into my head. Then reading it through, I discovered many great points. From dress, attitude, customer management and producing a great product. I did learn some great bits I will take and use in my current day job. Read the full article here… it’s worth a look.

“If you are going to be working as a professional barista (or as a professional anything), here are some words of advice that you should heed above all else: “What is crucial to your success is your ability to get along with your customers, your co-workers, and your managers. Having outstanding technical skills will not bring outstanding success. Having outstanding interpersonal skills is even more important.”

Most interpersonal skills are merely common sense, but many of us haven’t spent much time thinking about them at a concious level. You should focus on your interpersonal personal skills and work daily to improve them, just as you focus on your barista techniques and think about how to improve those. And there are a few interpersonal skills that are not automatic, and do not come naturally, but they can be cultivated.“