Minibru Coffee Mug, reviewed

A french press is one of my favorite tools to make a great cup of coffee. You can brew any type of bean or roast in there and get good results, and they’re easy to use. The only problem with a french press is that they’re typically designed to brew a whole pot. Now some are smaller than others, but if you only want one cup of coffee you might find yourself looking for an alternative. The Minibru Coffee Mug is one possible solution: a single-serving french press inside of a mug that promises to let you brew a great cup of coffee and drink it, too.

I recently got a Minibru and couldn’t wait to try it out. The instructions are simple: add coarsely ground coffee to the coffee line, add water to the water line, brew for 3 minutes, press and drink. I tried it exactly as written and my first few cups were terrible and incredibly weak. I watched a video on how to use the Minibru and noticed that they were using a lot more coffee than I was, so I decided to deviate from the directions and see if I could encourage a better performance out of the mug.

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Consumer Reports tests K-Cup Alternatives

Single serve coffee makers are, hands down, the most convenient way to make coffee at home. The Keurig machine takes just a few minutes to warm up, the coffee is prepacked and and there is virtually no cleanup. The downside is that K-cups are fairly expensive (unless you are a very savvy shopper) and they can add up quickly if you drink a lot of coffee. Consumer Reports recently (March 2013) set out to see if there are K-cup alternatives that would work as well, but that could save you a little money in the long run.

They estimated that someone who drinks one K-cup a day ends up spending somewhere from $220-$275 on the little cups over the course of the year. They tested both disposable and reusable cups that work with Keurig machines but that are designed to be filled with coffee by the user. The original K-cups were still winners when it came to convenience, but they found at least one good alternative that could save you some cash in the long run.

Simple Cups are disposable cups that you fill with your own coffee. They cost less than the K-cups, but not by much. CR estimated that a cup-a-day drinker would still spend around $185 a year with these, including your own coffee. EZ Cups are reusable cups with disposable filters inside, and you also use your own coffee. They turned out to run about $135 a year, including coffee. Neither model was as easy to use as a K-cup and could be difficult to close.

The winner when it came to saving money and ease of use was the Keurig K-Cup Adapter, with its reusable cup and filter system. It’s only about $18, so your only cost after that is the coffee, at about $80 a year. It does require cleaning, but it offers a good value and was Consumer Reports top pick for a K-cup alternative.

Trader Joe’s Sugar, Chocolate and Coffee Bean Grinder, reviewed

As much as I enjoy a good cup of black coffee, I also love topping a cup of coffee or a shot of espresso off with a dollop of steamed milk or whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon or cocoa powder to add a little extra flavor and just generally dress up the drink. It is one of those little touches that somehow makes the drink seem fancier and me feel like slowing down to enjoy it – as I would do at a coffee shop, but might not necessarily do at home. It was clear that the new Trader Joe’s Sugar, Chocolate and Coffee Bean Grinder is designed to make it easy to add this sort of coffee shop flare to your coffee drinks at home. The grinder looks like a pepper mill, but is filled with white and brown sugar, chocolate and coffee beans. A few twists of the cap and you have a sweet sprinkling on top of your drink! The mix is great, and because it comes out of a pepper grinder, everything has a very coarse texture to it, so you get both an attractive look and a lot of flavor from just a small amount of this mix. The sugar crystals are crunchy, the coffee is subtle and the chocolate just leaves a hint of richness on your tongue as it melts. I’m keeping mine by the coffee maker.

TJ’s also recommends putting this on buttered toast, ice cream or other desserts. I can vouch for how delicious it is on top of buttered toast, and I’ll definitely be up for experimenting with it on other desserts that need a little spike of coffee, chocolate and sugar to dress them up.

Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino Ice Cream, reviewed

Starbucks recently launched a new, drink-inspired line of ice creams to grocery stores nationwide. The super-premium ice creams include flavors like Caramel Macchiato and Java Chip Frappuccino, the latter of which I picked up last week. Similar to its coffee shop counterpart, this flavor has a coffee ice cream base that is loaded with dark chocolate chunks. The Java Chip Frappuccino actually uses chocolate-covered espresso beans, but it’s a minor difference because the flavors of the ice cream and the frappuccino are very, very close. The coffee flavor is clear and smooth, and the chocolate adds a nice richness to the overall taste.

Unfortunately, it shares another characteristic with its namesake: a slight iciness that really isn’t desirable in a super-premium ice cream. It may get this from the relatively small amount of coffee concentrate that is used to flavor the ice cream, but wherever it comes from, you can’t just order it “double-blended” to eliminate the problem. So, in the end, the ice cream is almost too spot-on for the flavor and texture of the frappuccino. It’s good, but not better than some of the other coffee ice cream options out there.

Perk Up Your Trek Mix, reviewed

Perk Up Your Trek Mix is a new blend of trail mix from Trader Joe’s that caught my eye because of the big coffee cup on the front of the package. It’s not exactly coffee flavored, but it does have chocolate covered espresso beans mixed in with roasted and salted almonds and pecans, dried cranberries and dried golden raisins.

The chocolate espresso beans are actually second only to almonds in this mix, so you get a surprisingly good dose of chocolate and caffeine along with your nuts. There is probably more chocolate than espresso, however, as the chocolate covered coffee beans are huge, with a very thick coating of the slightly bitter, but pleasantly fruity and smooth, dark chocolate. The crunch of the espresso beans adds a nice texture to the whole mix, and everything goes together nicely if you mix them all together and much by the handful. Of course, you could pick out the chocolate covered beans and save them for a time when you need a caffeine boost, then eat the nuts and fruit by themselves, too.