When people see the CaffiNation they assume I only drink Coffee. I love coffee, but I also tend to drink my fair share of tea as well. Not only do I enjoy a good cup of tea i think bad tea is worse by far than bad coffee.

I was approached about reviewing the Village Tea Company’s Rooibos. Specifically the Cherry Me Bloom Rooibos with Acai. First order of business with anything new is to check up on what all the fun words mean and apparently this tea like so many others is full of antioxidants and other bits of healthy goodness. Selling points of health marketing aside I wanted to know how it tastes! Read the rest of this entry »

Coffee has been called many things, joe, java, motor-oil, giddy-up juice and a good deal more. So it’s pretty easy to figure out why and where RocketfuelCoffee.com got the idea for their name. I was recently sent a care package by Lisa of Rocketfuel Coffee that included two different samples of Coffee, the first of which being the Hawaiian Kona Dark, and the second being the Millionaires Blend, but that is a story for a different time.

Lisa Rotenberg the owner and artist for Rocketfuel coffee focuses on specialty coffee, the high quality Kona, Jamaican Blue Mountain, Kopi Luwak ect.

The Contestant this time is the Dark Roasted Kona. Certified with a lovely embossed stamp affirming that the product is in fact 100 percent Kona Coffee. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a geek, if you’ve looked around the site very much you know that. But I’m a special kind of geek, I love coffee and I like shiny things, so when word got out that there was a voice responsive coffee maker coming to the marker I reported on it on my podcast. I would never guess that I would later get a chance to review the very same item.

Primula Products was nice enough to send me a a Primula Speak n’ Brew voice activated coffee maker. The idea behind this is that you press a button and speak the time and AM or PM when you would like your coffee. It also allows you to set the time on the clock without playing with any buttons or dials.

No matter what product comes out there is always a target audience. A group of people who the product is meant to appeal to. Who would be the target audience for this coffee maker? Well anyone who isn’t too technically inclined and still loves good coffee. There are a good number of people out there who at one point or another had a flashing 12 on their VCR’s and this product is marketed directly to them. Beyond the voice recognition aspects I wondered how the coffee coming out of the machine would taste, because no matter how awesome the features, if it doesn’t brew good coffee there is no point. Read the rest of this entry »

I love coffee in all its forms. Be it espresso, coffee, just smelling the beans, and I have a fair amount of experience infusing the flavor of coffee into other drinks as well, such as vodka. That brings me to an inspection of the Vincent Van Gogh Double Espresso Double Caffeine Vodka. We’re going to need an intervention soon for exceptionally long product names. This is getting out of hand.

Packaging:

As with all Van Gogh branded products the bottles are nice. That is to say they have Van Gogh paintings on them. Which like most people i think are interesting, but it strikes me as more of a missed opportunity. The canvas isn’t the square or the rectangle you put the painting into but rather the whole bottle. Surprise me with a full screened bottle or stylized lettering, done something else. This brand as a whole strikes me as a bland, reactionary construct. They take other ideas and put a Van Gogh on it and sell it because his painting posthumously have been associated with wealth, wealth is associated with good things so by proxy their bottled spirits should be good. For the most part they are high quality spirits. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention I think it is in pretty poor taste to brand an alcoholic beverage after a man who was addicted to the bottle, by most accounts. That wasn’t the worst of the man’s problems but still is seems in bad taste.

Read the rest of this entry »

A Huge Thank you to Norbert Davis for not only taking the plunge and trying a new product for our amusement, but also sending in such great product shots and a Full review. Be sure to check out his Show the Totally Cool Tech Podcast,and make a special trip over there right quick to sign up for the 1 year anniversary contest! Now I need to find me some cookies!

– Norbert Reports –

As I was wandering the aisles of our local megamart with my wife doing the weekly grocery shopping, my wife spotted the BuzzStrong’s Real Coffee Cookies. Now being a fan of the Caffination Podcast, I could not pass up the opportunity to get these and pass on the wonderful news. We purchased a box and when we got home I opened them up to check to see if they are as advertised. 4 cookies = 1 cup of coffee. Well, I’ll bit (pun intended). Read the rest of this entry »

“There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.”~Mark Twain & Benjamin Disraeli

You’ve heard the phrase before, you’ve probably even been a victim of the results. But the facts stand when you run a website you need a reliable metrics to measure how well you’re doing and help you figure out what works and what doesn’t. Whether you are running a site for a hobby, or you are setting yourself up for a business account, everyone wants eyeballs on their site.

Its how you know

Woopra is a different type of stats service, still in beta. I’m running the service on CaffiNation.com. My site is running wordpress so I installed their wordpress plugin, added the javascript to the templates and was set to jet. Woopra gives you live results. No waiting to see what the numbers are a day later you can actually watch as people hit your site, and even chat with them as they do It. Although the chat functionality seems to freak people out a bit more than i initially expected it to.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Today’s Show:Electric Cars, Retro Gaming, Sidewalk Chalk, Geek Tool Boxes, Coffee, Tea, And Reviews

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Tech Cruft

• Conversion, and the art of electric cars
• Deck the walls with retro gaming
• Faux Speed bumps in philly
  • They should have gotten this guy
• Soylent green is Algae
• Your Geek Tool Box: With Norbert Davis of Totally Cool Tech
  • 5 DIY tools
  • SATA /IDE USB Adapter
  • 6-1 multi tool
  • Ultimate Boot CD for Windows
  • USB PC Repair System
  • Portable Apps
  • Ubuntu, Know some type of linux
  • Leatherman, if I only had one tool this would be it
  • Dremel, If I had a second tool
• Phoney Phone Cooking Eggs
• A Proper send off to a good machine

Caffeine & Food

• Beer Bottle Organ, Carrying on with a beer Pipe organ
• Coffee Dispenser
• Rolling Chopper
• Energy Drink packet done right
• New Vodka and Coffee Pairing, or you could make your own
• Golden Star Tea Review

Contact Me:

• Phone Me: 215-240-1319 :: Email Me @ CaffiNation@gmail.com
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Thanks and Stay Caffeinated People!

Tags: CaffiNation Review, Coffee, Electric Cars, Geek Tool Boxes, golden star tea, Retro Gaming, Review, Sidewalk Chalk, Tea