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Brewhaha: Stone Cup Roasters East Timor Blend

Hey readers! As promised, I'm back to briefly review Stone Cup Roasters East Timor Blend. The bag, as you can see, is very sleek. It's black, with a mosaic of a cup of coffee made out of stone. The only thing I don't like is the name of the blend being written on, but that's understandable, seeing as it's not one of their official retail blends. Since this was a test batch of beans, there is no pricing info available.

Acidity- This one has a nice acidic bite. Definitely not a flat cup of joe!

Aroma- It's got an aroma unlike any other coffee I've ever encountered. It's good, though, so no worries here!

Body- East Timor has a less than favorable body, but if you like the lighter-bodied coffees, this one is for you!

Flavor- This is where the blend shines. It's got great berry notes, and just is a great-tasting cup of coffee overall.

Buzz factor- It gives me a better than expected buzz!

Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10. If only it had a better body! Then, it would be a truly elite blend!

Till next time, coffee connoisseurs!

Fiendish News: Back to the 80's!

Allright, Marty. This week I jumped in the Delorean and headed to the mid-80's. On my way through the timesteam, I hit a quantum pothole, and now the Flux Capacitor is incapacitated. So here I am, trapped in the 80's. To be honest, it's not quite as friendly as the Old West.

Luckily, there are plenty of sodas to taste while I'm there to keep me busy! Sodas that are not available in the 21st century! Here's just a few of my favorites...

Lifesaver Soda
I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a soda, considering it's missing one of the most important ingredients... carbonation. Regardless, this modern "beverage-of-sorts" is available in something similiar to the flavors of normal Lifesavers candy: Fruit Punch, Pineapple, Lime Punch, Grape Punch, and Orange Punch. Lots of punches all around. It sounds a lot like drinking liquid candy... I haven't gotten around to trying it just yet, but it looks interesting to say the least.
image source: TIME


Like Cola
7UP recently developed this cola under the slogan "Made from the Kola Nut." Ok... Great. And it claims to contain no caffeine. First of all, the exclusion of caffeine would result in this not actually being a cola... by law. Therefore, it contains caffiene, but it is almost statistically insignificant.. 1%. Secondly, it just tastes like a cola. Nothing too special here.



Hubba Bubba
Steve Roeder came with with this novel concept by experimenting with soda water and a variety of snow-cone flavors. Supposedly he approached Bazooka Joe with the concept first, but Wrigley's made this flavor possible, also available in Diet. The most notable feature of this soda is the high sugar content - about 46 grams of sugar per 12 ounce serving. It seems like this soda also has a huge love it/hate it division within it. There are even websites in your era touting petitions to bring it back!
image source: BUTTER HOT SHOES


7UP GOLD
This is a variety of 7UP marketed as a "spice soda," featuring a cinnamon/caramel-apple flavor reminiscent somewhat of Vernor's and a reddish-brown color. It also features caffiene, which is a huge change up for 7UP. Especially since their big slogan right now is "Never Had It, Never Will" referring to the pep-inducing compound. I guess that explains why they decided to go with "The Wild Side of 7UP" for this 7UP Gold ad campaigh. While I really enjoy the unusual flavor, something tells me I won't see this for very long.


Feel free to go back and save me whenever you get a chance. There's really no hurry. Jules and Verne are fitting in just fine. I really don't like that Flock of Seagulls hair on Jules though. If only I could harness the static electricity it creates to generate 1.21 Jiggawatts...

Great Scott!

Brewhaha: JoZoara Cupping Experience

Phoenixsong here once again! Since the soda posts seem to have grinded to a halt, I thought it might be a nice time to do a small follow-up to my last post. You will recall that we last talked about Murfreesboro's newest and best coffee venue, JoZoara, which is located on The Avenue. Well, I've since joined their Facebook Fan page. JoZoara does a great job of letting their fans know what's going on in the store.

On Wednesday morning, I received a message on my phone about a tasting that would take place about an hour before church. Since JoZoara is on my way to services, this was the perfect opportunity to get some caffeine before teaching my class that night. When I arrived, I met the lovely Amanda. She is a salesperson for Stone Cup Roasting Company, a small coffee company out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I found out that they are the bean distributor for JoZoara and many other small coffee shops in the area.

Amanda was hosting something known as a cupping. Cupping is a process where you allow the grounds to brew in the cup that you will be drinking from. When brewed, you take a spoon, hold your nose close to the cup, and break through the grounds to get a nice sense of the aroma. Once you have the aroma, you remove the majority of the grounds with a spoon and swish the coffee around in your mouth. After you can taste it, you spit it out, like you would when you taste wine. As you can see, it makes quite a fun mess!

I had never done a cupping. In contrast, Amanda had done many, many cuppings to evaluate for defective beans and to be able to profile the flavor of a coffee. We cupped three blends: Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, East Timor, and Sumatra Lintong. The other two blends were fairly good, but I fell in love with the East Timor. I loved it so much that Amanda graciously gave me the rest of the cupping beans (roughly 5 ounces) to try at home! How many coffee shops can you get that kind of personal experience from?! Anyway, the East Timor will undoubtedly be what I review on the next installment of Brewhaha!

Till next time, coffee connoisseurs!

Brewhaha: JoZoara Coffee Shop

Hello, fellow Bevfiends! Phoenixsong here! I'm doing something a little different tonight. Instead of reviewing one coffee, I'm going to review an entire coffeehouse! Enter JoZoara Coffee Shop. I recently came across this fine establishment when a friend of mine from class invited me there to talk about Master's school.

As I walked inside, I was amazed at the spaciousness. Unlike most other shops, they don't try to cram customers into tiny booths or around pint-sized tables. Instead, they give you not only a lot of room to spread out, they also supply large, round tables and sturdy wooden chairs. If wood is not your thing, there are also plenty of comfy leather chairs to take your ease in! The baristas were super friendly, and also very knowledgeable about their product! As we ordered our beverages, we noticed a huge pastry case full of delicious goodies.

After ordering, we were told to be seated and that our beverages would be delivered to us. Almost as soon as we were seated, here came our drinks in large cups. The neat thing about the cups was that they were all the same size, yet had different local businesses and logos on them! What a nice touch!

JoZoara also has live music on Thursday and Saturday nights. I happened to be there during one of these sessions. While the music was nothing special, it was nice background noise as we sipped on our drinks.

As I took a swig of their delicious and full-bodied Sumatra blend, I couldn't help but feel love-struck. This was my first trip to JoZoara, but it certainly won't be my last!

Till next time, coffee connoisseurs!

Fiendish News: Links for the Masses!

Pop from POPS
It has recently come to my attention that there as an amazing location that I will have to visit at some point in my life. Way out on that road of roads, Route 66, there is a location within the confines of Arcadia, Oklahoma referred to as "POPS" that contain within it over 500 different varieties of soda. Being the soda fanatic that I am, I must go there at some point. If not for the soda, then for the 66-foot tall soda bottle landmark. Road trip? Most definitely. Check it out!

photo credit: jenniferrt66

WOOT Enters the Realm of Soda Reviewing
Earlier this week, Woot.com tries it's hand at soda reviewing. And they go all out with the foreign sodas, tasting a bevvy of cola champagnes, whatever Inca Cola is supposed to be, Materva, a couple of Indian Foco bevs, and the Jamacian Ting! Then they proceed to make the most epic multicultural suicide of all time. Check it out!

Vintage Soda Bonanza!

Every wondered what sodas looked like in yesteryear? Luckily for us Flickr user "Roadsidepictures" has compiled a big fat pile of them for our very own perusal! Enjoy such classic gems as RC Cola, Sun Drop, Nesbitt's Orange, the ever-delicious Tahitian Treat, and my personal favorite, Cragmont Diet Orange! Check it out!
photo credit: Roadsidepictures

Can Grips: The Anti-Koozie
Coozi? Cuzi? Kosy? Koozie? However it's spelled, this fancily crafted device has been designed to make it completely irrelevant. Unless they were used in conjunction. (mental note: Make a combination product, market it to complete idiots) Anyways, can grips have been designed to help you hold your soda of choice without actually having to hold it! I imagine this would probably make it stay cold a bit longer as well. Anyways, neat product! Check it out!



The Mildly Mental Moxie Man of Maine!
Just try to say that 5 times fast, I dare you. Seriously, it shouldn't be that hard. Anyways, here's a video of a thick-Bostonian-accented fellow talking of his love for the Moxie while some guy actually attempts to try the stuff. They make some fantastic stuff when it comes to blue cream... but the cola? If only I could find it...

Brewhaha: Seven Hills Butter Rum Blend

No, my dear readers, I did not venture on horseback to Rome to taste this coffee. Instead, this blend ventured on horseback to find me.

Kidding! I ventured to Lexington, Kentucky for spring break. I was then spirited away by my pals to Cincinnati, Ohio for a day. We ended up going to Jungle Jim’s, a delightful international supermarket with everything you could possibly imagine under one roof. Not only did I purchase organic, unbleached almonds, I also invested in a half pound of what promised to be a delightful brew. I was pretty excited, because though I don’t drink, I love the taste and smell of rum. I use rum extract in a few desserts I make, including my favorite one, tiramisu!

Seven Hills is a relatively small coffee company based out of Cincinnati. They supply about 200 stores and restaurants, but their base in mostly in the mid-western states. One pound of any of their blends will cost you $9.00, which seems pretty reasonable. The bag and artwork are a little disappointing. You get what appears to be a paper sack with the cartoon-ish company logo. The clerk even had to write the name of the blend on after I bought it! Let’s just hope the product is better than the container in which it is kept!

Acidity- Not much acidity here. It’s more smooth, with just enough of an acidic property to keep it from tasting flat.

Aroma- The beans were amazing, smelling like they were heavily soaked in rum. In liquid form, it seems to have lost some of the potency, but I still smell rum.

Body- It's got a really good body. In fact, it even has the same type of consistency that you would expect out of a coffee that had heavy whipping cream already in it. Very nice!

Flavor- After showing some promise, this is where Butter Rum Blend fails miserably. Not only does it not taste like rum, it really is not impressive in any way taste wise. It’s a very standard cup of joe.

Buzz factor- I didn’t notice any special buzz from this one.

Overall rating: 7.0 out of 10. I’m really disappointed by the lack of rum taste. So many "flavored" coffees are all aroma and no flavor. This one seems to be in that basket.

Till next time, coffee connoisseurs!