Tea Code Cups

I’ve never liked the little strings that come attached to bagged tea. I appreciate that they make it easy to handle the bag, but more often than not the string slides down into the hot tea as it steeps and needs to be fished out – defeating the purpose of having a string in the first place. The reason for the slide is that the string is hard to secure. The design of these Tea Code Cups neatly solves that problem and makes string tea bags a lot more convenient to use. The cups have what looks like a button on their sides that you can wrap the tea bag string around to hold it in place. The sides of the cups, which come in various sizes, are double walled so they don’t get too hot to handle when you are drinking (or trying to remove the tea bag string). A spoon will work well for fishing out a tea bag, but this type of cup could be a nice addition to the collection of, say, a Lipton lover who wants to stick with the string-ed tea bag no matter what.

There is a cute little animation showing how these cups work here, although if you end up ordering some, I think you’ll find them to be pretty self explanatory.

Coffee, Coffee Recipes, Coffee Reviews, Drinks, Tea, Tea Reviews

Apr 1, 2009

Nicole

1 Comment

Starbucks Brazil Ipanema Bourbon coffee, reviewed

Starbucks Brazil

I’ve been disappointed by a lot of the light roast coffees I’ve had in recent weeks. Many have been really lacking in the flavor department. I can safely say that Starbucks’ Brazil Ipanema Bourbon coffee was not one of these. The light roast coffee – categorized as a mild by Starbucks – is packed with different flavors. It starts off really clean, with a subtle hazelnut taste. There are also some sweet and vaguely fruity notes, and a finish that is a little bit darker, with a hint cocoa or chocolate. It is not woodsy or overly roasty (i.e. burnt) tasting at all. It’s low acidity and is smooth and easy to drink from start to finish. This is a really nice coffee overall and should be popular with all kinds of coffee drinkers.

Incidentally, the coffee is not not pronounced “BOUR-bon” like the liquor. Starbucks says, “Bourbon” (pronounced bur-BONE) refers to the specific variety of coffee plant from which these beans come. Arabica Bourbon is one of the world’s oldest and rarest species of coffee. The Bourbon tree is carefully nurtured to maturity, its prized cherries hand selected to ensure ripeness and peak flavor.