Seattle’s Best

A while back, Seattle’s Best sent me a gift card for a drink. I finally got to the one location in NYC – in Manhattan Mall – and asked the lone barista to make me his favorite drink. We got to chatting and he mentioned that Starbucks owns them. That doesn’t bother me – I’m a Starbucks recovered addict (due to lack of funds, haha) – but I found it interesting that the line up of drinks seemed fairly different. He wound up making me a caramel macchiato type drink, iced, which I found overwhelmingly too sweet even after I [...]

Tuesdays with TT: Cafés do Brasil Week

This week is the start of “Cafés do Brasil week” here in NYC to celebrate Brazilian coffee. CT and I were invited to a special brunch at Bistro Cassis to learn about the variety of coffees produced in Brazil. There were representatives on hand from from Brazilian Specialty Foods, Inc. and ApexBrasil(Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency) to teach the small group of us more about Brazilian Coffee. There are actually twelve different coffee regions and we got to sample three of them. We were given a small bag with a map and a “Cafés do Brasil” lapel pin. All [...]

Starbucks Reserve: Guatemala de Flor

Starbucks is back with another entry into its ultra-premium beans product line. You may remember about a year ago, the Feisty Foodie herself received a package of the first Starbucks Reserve coffee , from the Galapagos. That was surprisingly good, and for a reasonably dark roast, not burnt or acrid, to my immense relief. This year’s entry? Guatemala de Flor, gladly accepted from Edelman, Starbucks’ PR firm. Note the same eight-ounce size as before. However, this bag of beans runs $15 on the package, up 20% from the Galapagos of 2010, though “suggested retail” starts at $12.50 once again. The [...]

Peet’s Coffee

When The Feisty Foodie was selected to be part of its Foodbuzz Tastemaker program with Peet’s Coffee, naturally the job of reviewing the coffees fell to me as resident beverage blogger. I’ve written up coffee in the past, and now, it was time to take on Peet’s’ new line of medium-roast coffees. Peet’s has always tended toward the dark roast method, which in the past hasn’t exactly thrilled me; too often that seems to mean “burn the heck out of the beans. But now Peet’s is in grocery stores, pre-ground (sigh) in 12-ounce packages, and they were kind enough to [...]

Almond – Dolce Gusto Foodie Feed Up!

I was recently invited to attend the Dolce Gusto Food Feed Up, to showcase a restaurant that I previously hadn’t heard of, and to introduce us to the Dolce Gusto.  The event was held at Almond in the Flatiron.  I tapped Beer Boor to join me, as he’s the resident beverage/coffee expert, but due to a miscommunication, he was unable to stay for dinner.  However, he will be weighing in at the end, as he was the happy recipient of yet another coffee machine.    No matter, as I wound up sitting with Andrea and Esther, and we benefited from [...]

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