While there is much to be said for the new and different in coffee — for surprising new cup profiles generated by the latest processing methods, tiny lots of coffee produced from newly rediscovered tree varieties — there is also a lot to be said for the pleasures of consistency. Even for those coffee lovers willing to pay big bucks for a few extraordinary cups of a super-distinctive
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New England Coffee Roasters: Embracing (and Reinventing) Tradition
The very day we spoke with several roasters in New England whose coffees are featured in this month's tasting report, Dunkin' Brands, parent company of Dunkin' Donuts (now rebranding simply as Dunkin’) and headquartered in Massachusetts, announced plans for expansion. And the company's "Blueprint for Growth" centers not on doughnuts, but coffee, including the relaunch of the Dunkin’ espresso
Trolling the Supermarkets for Single-Origin Coffees
Every month Coffee Review publishes reviews of exceptional, often extraordinary single-origin coffees: green coffees produced in a single country, from a single crop, from a single farm or cooperative and, often, from a single variety of tree. These coffees are usually roasted and packaged by smaller roasting companies, however, so unless you happen to live in the immediate neighborhood of one of
Donut Shop Coffee (Vue-Pack)
Coffee People is a brand of Diedrich Coffee, which in turn is owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. It appears that Donut Shop is a blend designed to compete with the medium-roasted Dunkin’ Donuts blend. Visit www.GreenMountainCoffee.com or call 888-879-4627 for more information.
Original Donut Shop (K-Cup)
Coffee People is a brand of Diedrich Coffee, which in turn is owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. It appears that Donut Shop is a blend designed to compete with the medium-roasted Dunkin’ Donuts blend. Visit www.GreenMountainCoffee.com or call 888-879-4627 for more information.
Benchmarking the New Starbucks and Peet’s Medium Roasts
When Starbucks, bowing to changing tastes in coffee, debuted two “Blonde” medium-roasted blends a couple of weeks ago, reaction among the blogging and tweeting cadres of coffee observers was predictable. One of our readers wrote that she didn’t want to bias us before we tested the new Starbucks blends, but for her they tasted like “cardboard and water.” She added that she would prefer to remain
Original Blend
Dunkin' Donuts claims to be the world's largest coffee and baked food chain. The Dunkin' Donuts Original Blend has distinguished itself over the last two decades by carrying the torch for the classic medium-roasted American breakfast cup against the darker-roasted onslaught of Starbucks. Visit www.dunkindonuts.com for more information.
Don’t Give Up Your Grinder: Pre-Ground Supermarket Coffees
Many years ago I was introduced at a party as “the guy responsible for messing up your kitchen counter every morning” because I had asserted in my first coffee book that the single most important thing one could do to improve one’s coffee was to grind it fresh just before brewing it. In the forty years since I’ve had many second thoughts about what I wrote in that first book, but the
Dunkin’ Dark
Purchased pre-ground in a sealed 12-ounce foil-laminated bag with one-way valve at a Safeway supermarket in northern California; 67 cents per dry ounce. Composed of 100% Arabica coffees. Visit www.dunkinbrands.com or call 781-737-3000 for more information.
Original Blend
Purchased pre-ground in a sealed 12-ounce foil-laminated bag with one-way valve at a Safeway supermarket in northern California; 67 cents per dry ounce. Composed of 100% Arabica coffees. Visit www.dunkinbrands.com or call 781-737-3000 for more information.
The Humble Flat White
I read an article today in an industry newsletter that Starbucks/Seattle’s Best Coffee is joining forces with Subway and Burger King to improve their coffee to try and compete with McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts success with espresso coffee. Espresso coffee has now contributed to an enormous profit turn-around in several of the world’s largest corporations. So we are obviously talking about very big
Original Blend
Dunkin' Donuts claims to be the world's largest coffee and baked food chain. The Dunkin' Donuts Original Blend has distinguished itself by carrying the torch for the classic medium-roasted American breakfast cup against the darker-roasted onslaught of Starbucks (one side presumably hurling donuts and the other croissants). Two years ago I reviewed the Original Blend and found it a "genuinely
Cafe Blend
The Cafe Blend is a medium-dark-roasted blend, apparently offered as complement to Dunkin' Donuts' signature medium-roasted Original Blend. Evaluated in pre-ground format. Dunkin' Donuts claims to be the world's largest coffee and baked food chain. Visit www.dunkindonuts.com for more information.
Readers’ Nominations
Coffee Review readers nominated close to four hundred coffees for potential review over the past year or so. Here are my reviews of nineteen of those nominated coffees. Many of them were quite exciting; all were interesting. When selecting coffees for review from among those nominated I tried to balance between offerings of large companies that attracted multiple nominations (Starbucks, Caribou
Pacific Northwest Coffees
It's difficult for a long-time Berkeley guy like me to admit that the Pacific Northwest is the heart of current North American coffee culture, but it is. Seattle, Portland, and small cities and towns around and between are paved with coffee houses, coffee stands, cafes and specialty roasters of every possible level of size and sophistication, far more numerous and more varied than elsewhere.
Original Blend
Sold whole-bean in a 16-ounce valve bag; 44 cents per ounce. Visit www.dunkindonuts.com for more info.
Roast-and-Ground and Whole-Bean Supermarket Coffees
At one time certainly when I wrote my first coffee book 25 years ago the distinction between commercial and specialty was clear. Commercial coffees came in branded cans at supermarkets and specialty coffees were whole beans sold in bulk at obscure stores in college towns with dark wood counters and burlap on the wall. Today, of course, that distinction is blurred. Many specialty roasters, large