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.

Ritter Sport Cappuccino, reviewed

Ritter Sport is a brand of German candy bars that is great for those who like a lot of variety in their chocolate, as their bars are consistently excellent and come in all kinds of flavors.

The Ritter Sport Cappuccino, like their other chocolates, is a square milk chocolate bar made up of smaller squares., each of which has a cappuccino-flavored filling. The filling is like a very dense mousse, light on the tongue but easy to bite into. It has a great coffee flavor, very much like a real cappuccino with notes of fresh coffee and milk. The milk chocolate is very creamy and the whole thing just melts smoothly into your mouth, coming very close to the flavor of a very well-made mocha latte in the end. This is a very rich bar that is definitely satisfying on the chocolate end and the coffee side of things.

Torani Honey Vanilla Syrup, reviewed

I usually drink coffee black, but there are lots of drinks – tasty drinks, I might add – out there that are worth changing things up for every now and then. I prefer to make my own sweetened syrups for coffee when I can, but sometimes the big syrup companies come up with some unusual flavor combinations that I can’t pass by without trying.Torani’s Honey Vanilla Syrup is one of these. It’s a new, seasonal offering from the company and it’s already one of their best sellers.

The syrup definitely lives up to it’s name. It is sweet, surprisingly thick and with a really natural tasting floral honey flavor. The vanilla is an undertone and, again, tastes very natural. It works well with the honey.

The honey flavor does come out well in a finished drink, even over a fairly dark coffee. It makes a great, slightly unusual latte and is delicious in just about all types of tea where the honey can really shine.