Category Archives: News

My iPhone tells me that I need another espresso… I don’t need to be told twice!!

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I hit a nice little gold mine for my iPhone today. Being the first day to play with it, I will tell you about the app… then report back after playing with it for a week at work.

The app, Caffeine Zone2, has you enter when you drink things with caffeine in it… mostly in the area of coffee and tea based drinks. From that information, you will be alerted when the caffeine (per the apps calculations) in your body has dropped down and a coffee might get your energy back up. Note that Caffeine Zone2 does have a disclaimer saying the apps recommendations comes from calculations and no real blood testing is done.

Along with when you might want to drink a cup of coffee, Caffeine Zone2 will also calculate when the last cup of coffee for the day should be based on when you plan on going to bed. The app will warn you when you enter the drink information… so to make a decision from the information you should enter your caffeine intake prior to drinking.

The app uses your body weight to help make decisions, but there is no way to enter if you where (or what) eating when drinking your coffee. The presets for drinks in Caffeine Zone2 include 3 drink sizes and defaults for how long it took you to drink. If you are drinking espresso drinks, there is an option to put in the mg of the drink… I looked around and found “The USDA value for Espresso coffee is 64 mg caffeine per fluid ounce.” on this site.

You do get a nice graphic that shows a rise  when you drink, tapering off over time. A downward line crossing the center line will be an impact on your energy and the blue area is sleep time. Use your finger to slide left/right through time.

 

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Pocket Coffee and Pocket Espresso really isn’t for the Pocket

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A friend in Italy was talking about the new Ferrero Pocket drinks have changed their taste this year. The wha?

Looking around the US, they appear to be available from Parthenon Foods, selling through Amazon. There are two versions, a Coffee and a Espresso version. Both are listed as having chocolate included. Of course, we had to order a couple of both to see if they are good by themselves and how they are over our ice cream. Heh-heh…

 

Pocket Espresso:

225g, 18 pieces of Pocket Coffee with real Italian espresso coffee inside and covered in a chocolate praline. This candy starts out with a caramelized sugar pocket for a sweet espresso liquid. The caramelized sugar is coated with European milk chocolate. The manufacturer (Fererro) claims that eating three pieces is equivalent to a shot of espresso

Pocket Coffee:

Ferrero Pocket Coffee is a bittersweet chocolate tasting exactly like an Italian espresso. 3 pieces of Pocket Coffee is equal to 1 Cup of Espresso. The chocolate taste Like a liquor chocolate, but with strong espresso in the middle instead of liquor. Pocket Coffee is a delectable combination of espresso filled dark chocolate that combines a gourmet chocolate experience with an authentic espresso taste and energy boost.

 

 

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illy shares their Marocchino Caldo recipe for free!

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I never mind when a company sends me a free coffee recipe… especially when it isn’t linked to a hard sale.

Illy sent an email today giving their recipe for a Marocchino Caldo. It is a pretty simple drink to make and was oh so good this morning! No special equipment needed.

Of course, illy does mentioned they have many more coffee drink recipes in a book they have for sale. Since it was a light mention of the book and they didn’t make the email a pressure sale, I feel good about passing on the recipe and passing on an unsolicited mention they offer many more in a 44 page hardcover book. Keep it fun!!

 

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A couple nice finds for Espresso Cup fans…

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Two fun espresso cup items came my way this weekend, without even looking. Strange how things work out like that.

The first was a group of designers doing a ‘espresso cup of the day‘. Which you can purchase individually. The cups are all over the place in what makes each one unique, here is one that looks like a cupcake!

If your a technology fan as well as an espresso fan, you will be interested to know that the ones you can order are made when you order – “The cups are printed in Glazed Ceramics by Shapeways.” You can read more about the concept and info on each of the cups on the cunicode site.

So many to choose from… where to start?

The second was a postal print mailer I received from Illy USA. It was full of their coffees and coffee makers. A couple pages had their new espresso cup ‘art’. They looked like a lot of fun so I buzzed to the illy USA site to see more information. Sadly, the site has must smaller images and less info than was even in the mailer. I scanned the printed page to share with you so you can see the art much better if your a fan of fun like I am.

 

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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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