Category Archives: Fun

Last two days for FREE Starbucks Holiday Drinks!!

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We received an email from Starbucks… yes, we hit the button for them to tell us about specials and deals. Sadly, we missed this small bit of text till we where in a Starbucks last night and everyone around us where there with friends for their free holiday drink!

The text from Starbucks:

“Grab a friend and head to a participating Starbucks® store – because November 17-20 from 2-5 p.m., when you buy one holiday drink, you’ll get another one of equal or lesser value for free. Take your pick of your most-loved holiday beverages, including Peppermint Mocha, new Skinny Peppermint Mocha, Caramel Brulée Latte, Gingerbread Latte and Eggnog Latte.”

See ya there… friends…

Photo created on an iPhone using Hipstamatic

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Fun celebration scenes come alive on the holiday Starbucks cups

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During this time of year, Starbucks introduce their holiday drinks… and holiday cups. We will cover the holiday drinks later, for now we will have fun with the paper cups you get your cup of coffee in. They have a variety of different animals and scenes. If you grab the free iPhone Starbucks Cup Magic app, this scenes pop out of the cups in some fun 3D actions.

Launch the free app on your iPhone/iPod Touch or iPad, point the camera at the cup and the characters jump off the cup to entertain you. Don’t take too much time playing, your coffee is getting cold.

The Starbucks Cup Magic app lets you collect the different cup art, as well check out the latest discounts and specials. If you find yourself in need of a quick gift but don’t want to stop playing, you can order and send a eGift Card directly from the app too.

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Are you subscribing to your espresso beans?

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I had mentioned last year at this time that illy was offering a big discount on one of their machines if you signed up for monthly delivery of coffee delivery (illy Y1 iperEspresso Machine discounted). They had no length of time requirements but the machine only used illy’s capsules so if you didn’t do their service you didn’t have coffee in the morning.

A friend posted up on twitter that he just got his Tonx delivery. He was so excited that I had to look into what he was talking about. Tonx.org is a small company that looks for beans they like, they roast them and send out a lb to folks that subscribe. They can’t promise a particular bean each month as they never know what they will find and how long their inventory will last.

Do you subscribe to a espresso bean delivery like Tonx offers? There are offerings from a lot of the larger bean providers, but not the giant chains. Do you like a variety of beans from time-to-time or do you like to stick with what you love? Since coffee beans are a crop, it means a location will have a different flavored bean from one year to another, only the giants will match on flavor consistency. While the smaller shops like the variety.

In the past, folks have given gifts of magazine subscriptions, cigar subscriptions, and even movie services like Netflix… will espresso bean subscriptions be the next big thing?

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McDonald’s first holiday drink – McCafé Peppermint Mocha

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A week after we saw Starbucks roll out their holiday season drinks, McDonald’s has announced that they too will have a seasonal drink. Both of these companies will only offer these drinks over the year ending holidays.

For McDonald’s, we get the Peppermint Mocha, bot as a coffee drink and a hot chocolate drink.

The addition should be a nice add to their product line. A product line that I have read makes up 20% of the total sales McDonald’s does. To make sure plenty of folks try, love, and buy the new Peppermint Mochas, there will be sampling dates around the US. Keep an eye on the McDonald’s twitter posts (@McCafeYourDay and @McDonalds) for a mention of a town near you.

For Nutrition concerns, they are available via the McDonald’s McCafe site:

 

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Gingerbread coffee drinks – the simple version

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It’s getting close to the holiday time of year. We know this because the rains have started and we are staying in the 40s over night instead of the 70s before. With the windows open overnight to let the fresh air in, it means the morning coffee had double duty.

We have our normal espresso pulls for your ‘wake up’ coffee, but after that we turn to our trusty K-Cups to fill in through the day before the afternoon break cappuccinos. The K-Cups have really expanded their bean and flavor choices over the last couple years. The bigger Coffee Shop, Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks are all putting their beans in the little cups.

A recent find, for us, is the Gingerbread K-Cup coffee option. We can enjoy our coffee with a hint of gingerbread, that isn’t actually overpowering sweet or spicy. The Green Mountain folks producing these holiday flavors claim it is one of their ‘fair trade’ coffees.

As luck would have it, when going to order a new box this morning, we found the Green Mountain Gingerbread flavor listed as out-of-stock. Guess we will have to try the Donut House Cinnamon Roll K-Cups this time.

We’re up for a challenge so we’ll see what we can do to put a list together of all of the ‘winter’ and ‘holiday’ flavored K-Cups. As they come in, we’ll post up how the flavors where. You know how some things sound good on the wrapper and don’t stand up in reality, we’ll see!

 

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