This is not a normal review. I have used this machine for 3 years, and it is still going strong. The problems that were there in the beginning are still there, but they were never enough to force my hand at upgrading.

This review has been a long time coming. I often have people ask me what is the best espresso machine to start out with? Well I myself don’t have a huge budget, so technically I’m still with my starter Espresso Machine. And it is a beast. By Beast I mean this little machine has a few quibbles and just works, and works well. Especially when you consider the price point it comes in at.

Will I still upgrade down the road when funding isn’t as much of a object as it is right now? Why yes… yes I will. Will this machine earn a place of honor in my office as the espresso machine in my remote coffee campus? Why yes… yes it will.

The DeLonghi EC155 has a couple of great things going for it, and two main detractors. First we go with the good. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I had the pleasure of trying out the new offering from Bai Brands the Bai5 Congo Pear. Bai means pure in Chinese, and the Founder of the Company Ben Weiss has worked to craft a set of beverages that leverage the long unused fruit from the Coffea Arabica plant, better know to you as coffee. Bai’s mission is to create good tasting all natural healthy beverages. the Bai5 line specifically is the low-calorie line from Bai Beverages.

The Fruit of the Coffee plant is extremely perishable and for years has been regulated to being the byproduct of my favorite habit. The Coffee Cherry is usually discarded as the bean is harvested, roasted and sent to my stomach. According to the information provided the fruit of the coffee cherry is apparently extremely high in antioxidants. And these beverages were designed as a good tasting all natural delivery system for this new form of antioxidants

The Bai5 product line uses an all natural sugar substitute called Stevia, which is touted as being sweeter than sugar. It allows for the beverage to still be sweet while only containing 5 calories as opposed to the regular version which contains around 70. Either way these beverages are well below the equivalent amount of fruit juice in terms of caloric impact.

As per usual all products submitted are run through the same process. And with non coffee beverages I like to enlist an elite team of tasters. Specifically the focus group this time consists of my wife, myself, our good friends Marianne and Dave. Marianne and My Wife Jen are both non coffee drinkers, Jen being an expert in diet foods I figured this would be a good group to try these beverages out. Specifically we strive for honesty when we taste things at the Caffination, and these are some of the most honest and direct people I know.

The Journey

• Smell: If it doesn’t smell good How can you drink it?
• Taste: Obvious and penultimate
• Aftertaste: Beverage is done, but is the flavor?
• Notes: Anything I might notice or want to share

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I had the pleasure of trying out the new offering from Bai Brands the Jamaican Blue Berry. Bai means pure in Chinese, and the Founder of the Company Ben Weiss has worked to craft a set of beverages that leverage the long unused fruit from the Coffea Arabica plant, better know to you as coffee. Bai’s mission is to create good tasting all natural healthy beverages.

The Fruit of the Coffee plant is extremely perishable and for years has been regulated to being the byproduct of my favorite habit. The Coffee Cherry is usually discarded as the bean is harvested, roasted and sent to my stomach. According to the information provided the fruit of the coffee cherry is apparently extremely high in antioxidants. And these beverages were designed as a good tasting all natural delivery system for this new form of antioxidants

As per usual all products submitted are run through the same process. And with non coffee beverages I like to enlist an elite team of tasters. Specifically the focus group this time consists of My Wife and Myself, and our good friends Marianne and Dave. Marianne and My Wife Jen are both non coffee drinkers, Jen being an expert in diet foods I figured this would be a good group to try these beverages out. Specifically we strive for honesty when we taste things at the Caffination, and these are some of the most honest and direct people I know.

The Journey

• Smell: If it doesn’t smell good How can you drink it?
• Taste: Obvious and penultimate
• Aftertaste: Beverage is done, but is the flavor?
• Notes: Anything I might notice or want to share

Read the rest of this entry »

Quick single serving coffee? How good can it be? Turns out quite good, at least with a Tassimo

Energy drinks overall are the bane of my existence. They run completely counter to the way in which I enjoy getting caffeinated. Go big or go home works for many things but for sugary beverages it goes too far. That is why I enjoy coffee and in a pinch a good energy alternative. Enter Revive Energy Mints. I was contacted about the possibility over reviewing these mints and I jumped at the chance. What new father of a lovely little girl wouldn’t give to have a little extra pep in his step after a sleepless night?

Join us as we wander through the claims, the taste and finally the verdict on Revive Energy Mints

Read the rest of this entry »

If you mention flavored coffee to most coffee lovers, myself included I’m usually not interested. But there was something a bit intriguing about the Starbucks Natural Fusions, their flavors are not chemical in nature, they are actually made by including extracts and spices into the blend as the coffee is ground. I myself have thrown a cinnamon stick or a vanilla bean into coffee to punch it up a little bit, I was curious how the flavors would blend into the coffee if done on a larger scale. This time around we are testing out the caramel flavored coffee.

The last of new natural flavored coffees from Starbucks is Caramel. I was quite worried about this. What direction would they go with caramel? Even most caramel candy isn’t natural these days so how would they play it. Caramel in roasted sugar is a beautiful smell and flavor so I was hoping for something along those lines? What did we get? Well you need to read on. Read the rest of this entry »

I am very familiar with adding cinnamon to various stages of brewing coffee, either as a spice at the end, throwing a stick in the grinder in the beginning or dashing a bit over the top of the grounds before brewing. So i was pretty excited to see how this flavor combination worked out.

If you mention flavored coffee to most coffee lovers, myself included I’m usually not interested. But there was something a bit intriguing about the Starbucks Natural Fusions, their flavors are not chemical in nature, they are actually made by including extracts and spices into the blend as the coffee is ground. I myself have thrown a cinnamon stick or a vanilla bean into coffee to punch it up a little bit, I was curious how the flavors would blend into the coffee if done on a larger scale. This time around we are testing out the cinnamon flavored coffee.

As per usual all coffee’s submitted are run through the same process a nice coarse grind and a 4 minute steep in the trusty french press. To be through with the testing I also ran the coffee through the venerable Cuisinart Grind and Brew, as well as cold brewing a batch.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you mention flavored coffee to most coffee lovers, myself included I’m usually not interested., But there was something a bit intriguing about the Starbucks Natural Fusions, their flavors are not chemical in nature, they are actually made by including extracts and spices into the blend as the coffee is ground. I myself have thrown a cinnamon stick or a vanilla bean into coffee to punch it up a little bit, I was curious how the flavors would blend into the coffee if done on a larger scale.

As per usual all coffee’s submitted are run through the same process a nice coarse grind and a 4 minute steep in the trusty french press, this time however my first experience is via drip brew in my office. The French Press came later, and only served to reinforce my experiences. Since its the summer time I also did a cold brewed  batch as well. Read the rest of this entry »

I love coffee, and from time to time even I enter into free coffee competitions on twitter, hey if someone is giving good stuff away I’d love to throw my hat in the ring. There was one such contest being run by the fine folks over at ROASTe, which I won! I was given my choice between three different Cafe Trobetta 2 lb bags. I chose the Red, because I like the color, no great and mysterious coffee skills where involved.

As per usual all coffee’s submitted are run through the same process a nice coarse grind and a 4 minute steep in the trust french press, this time however my first experience is via drip brew in my office. The French Press came later, and only served to reinforce my experiences. Sometimes necessity demands that i bring large samples into work to share with other coffee lovers and this was one such time.

The Journey

• Smell: The Start of your journey
• Taste: Obvious and penultimate
• Mouthfeel: Besides the taste how does it feel while drinking

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

What if you could tell your coffeemaker when to brew your coffee?

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 »