A good flavor, but alas, also stale.

Let’s ignore the staleness for a moment, though.  It’s pre-ground coffee.  Staleness is the rule, not an exception.

It’s smooth and mild for a French Roast.  Smooth, well-balanced acidity, with a dark velvety texture and a touch of chocolate undertones.

Putting it in perspective, this is a really good coffee for it being pre-ground.

If this is what Black Mountain Gold Coffee tastes like stale, I would love to try it when it’s actually fresh.  Sadly, in combing through their website, I can’t find anywhere that you can order the beans unground.

And, their big thing seems to be flavored coffee.

Feh.

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I am happy to say that I’ve successfully reset my palate. 

I have spent the last few weeks drinking office coffee (sparingly, only when I’m desperate), McDonald’s coffee, 7-Eleven coffee, and the occasional Starbucks.  At the office, though, for the most part I actually avoided coffee and drank various teas.

I keep thinking, Should I start up a GroovyBrew Tea site?  Hmm.  Maybe.  But that’s off the subject.  Anyway…

This morning I decided it’s time for some really good coffee, and I have been saving this because I knew it would be, and I was not disappointed.

California Coffee Roaster’s Sumatra Mandehling is smooth and smoky rich without being overpowering.  I ground some up and made my single cup, and sat here and savored it for about 11 minutes before I finally started typing.  It has a full, deep flavor, with wonderful pecan and chocolate notes, and only a hint of acidity.

Did I mention that it’s smooth?

It’s very smooth.

This was a perfect brew to welcome me back to the world of gourmet coffee.  Ah yes.  It’s good to be home.

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I feel bad for what I’m about to say about this coffee, because it was a gift.

Oh well.  I have to be honest.

If you like Southern Comfort liquor in your coffee, then this stuff is for you.  After you brew it up, it tastes EXACTLY like you’d just dumped two jiggers of the stuff into your coffee.

The flavor emulation is perfect, but alas, without the payoff of an alcoholic kick.

Don’t get me wrong.  I like Southern Comfort.  I just don’t like it in my coffee.

Why?  Because I like the taste of coffee.  No, more than like.  I love it.  I love the taste of coffee.

When you trash mess up destroy change the taste of coffee so much that you really can’t taste a coffee flavor anymore, is it really coffee?

Seriously, I want to know.  Because I don’t think it is.  It may have been once, but like a mad scientist changing an animal’s DNA, what you end up with is a mutant.  Something different.

Even as flavored coffees go, this one makes me … ill.

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This coffee features a very sneaky stealth flavor.

The first third of this cup I was thinking, “Eh. Not very impressive.” It’s smooth, subdued, and pleasant, but not outstanding.

Then I took a long distracted sip, let it blossom on my tongue, and realized an outstanding flavor had snuck right up on me.

This falls into a rare class of coffees which taste better the more you drink it. The flavor builds on itself. Powerfully complex, it simmers out a very loving, rich coffee undertone with sweet fruity notes, tinged with the subtlest hint of pecan.

This is an all-day-long coffee, morning straight through afternoon. This is a coffee that could singlehandedly make a Monday at the office much more pleasant.

From the package: “Papua New Guinea. Deliciously captivating, powerfully flavorful. A dark-roasted aromatic with a hint of wine-like apple flavor.”

Now that they mention it, I can kind of detect a green apple nuance in the flavor.

It’s good. In fact I would go so far to say … it’s Groovy.

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Zing!

It’s the first word that popped into my mind upon the first sip of this coffee.

It’s a warm December day here in Texas. The windows are all open and the wind is blowing. My kids and I are all finally recovering from a bug I brought back with me from an airline on Thanksgiving day. And here I am, sitting back and enjoying a bright coffee on a brilliant morning.

Life is good. So is this coffee. The taste is so tangy and alive that it sparkles on the tongue.

The Berres Brothers package reads: “Kenya AA. Refreshingly aromatic, delectably smooth. African beans create a crisp, powerful balance with swirls of sharp.”

Sharp what? I don’t know. That’s literally how it ends. But this coffee is smooth, and the taste is very crisp. The highlights dominate the flavor. It’s sharply sweet with a citrus punch that glides high over the warm roasted nutty flavor of the more umber coffee notes, like a masterful saxophone playing with an aggressive and jazzy base guitar.

This is not morning coffee. This is afternoon coffee, or early-evening-before-the-party coffee.

And, my friends, it is most definitely a very Groovy Brew.

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This arrived unexpectedly in the mail. I remember contacting them back when I was writing a two part article called “The Triumphant Return of Instant Coffee?”

Months later, surprise! And a pleasant surprise it is.

I’ve always thought that packaging coffee extract in single serving packets would be a good idea. Especially if you’re backpacking or in some remote location where brewing a cup of coffee is difficult or a bad idea, it’s nice to know you can get something like this Java Juice to take along because … no matter what, coffee is an imperative. Even at the top of a mountain, or in a submarine. Or on the International Space Station.

The coffee must flow.

They sent me four flavors to try:

• Original
• French Vanilla
• Black Gold
• Swiss Water Decaf

A few minutes ago I opened one of the Original packets and dribbled the uber-black concentrate into 10 ounces of hot filtered water.

Right up front let me tell you it’s good. It has a strong flavor and tastes very fresh. That being said, the flavor of coffee is surprisingly delicate and easy to damage. I’ve tried several top of the line extracts over the years and none of them could be considered a replacement for regular coffee, mainly because of what I call “dilution tang.” Something about adding water to an already brewed suspension of coffee slightly damages the flavor. I mean, you get this even with regular coffee after you add an ice cube to it. So I’m not putting Java Juice down when I say the taste suffers from this dilution tang — it’s just a fact of life. I took a (albeit unnaturally strong) brew of coffee — the extract itself — and added water to it. What I ended up with is a very robust, fresh, flavorful cup of coffee with that tell-tale tang of dilution.

That being said, it tastes VASTLY better than ANY freeze-dried instant coffee, and much better than most pre-ground stale tinned coffees. The dilution tang can be masked by adding a sweetener, and the trade off is that you now have a good coffee that is completely portable. You don’t have to mix it with hot water — cold water works just fine, if you’re into drinking iced coffees — or you could add it to milk to make an instant cappuccino.

On the fly.

Anywhere.

That is where Java Juice really shines. Out camping, hiking, fishing or hunting, anywhere away from home — it’s far better than horrid office or hotel coffee.

I’m now drinking the “Black Gold” and it, too, is very tasty and especially fresh. It’s rich, full bodied, and exceptionally smooth.

I hereby make it official. Java Juice is Groovy. Not to mention very portable.

Other coffee extracts I’ve reviewed: X Cafe & CoolBrew

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As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve taken a break from reviewing. It involves a long business trip and catching a bug. While I’m home now, I’m still not well, and my sense of taste is thoroughly misaligned.

So instead I’m going to make some lists. I mean, why not? Lists are fun … and they might even be useful.

Going back over the last 9 months of reviews, these were my favorite coffees:

• SpecialtyJava.com “New York New York”
• CoffeeBeanDirect.com Dark Costa Rican
• Inland Empire Coffee’s Guatemala Huehuetanango
• Jalima H&A Coffee
• Coffeemaria’s Java Pancour
• Coastal Bean’s Jamaican Blue Mountain
• Stone Creek Cream City Blend
• California Coffee Roasters Costa Rican Tres Rios
• Country Morning Coffee: Columbia

I heartily recommend every one of them. These are the crème de la crème, the coffees that have spoiled me rotten for most of this year.

Now that we’ve covered the best, let’s take a look at the worst…

• Hello Boss Iced Coffee - Literally so bad I had to force myself from blowing chunks.
• Great Value 100% Arabica - Tasted like soap.
• Hillside Coffee and their Hot Cans of Doom - Sprayed me with burning chemicals.
• World Market Chocolate Turtle - Tasted like it included actual turtle shell.
• Casa Coffee Blue Mountain - Reminded me of bug poison.

Some of my readers may remember I had challenged a dozen leading coffee maker manufacturers to prove to me their machines could make a better cup of coffee than my little 49¢ cup top filter. These companies were:

• Black & Decker
• Braun
• Bunn
• Cuisinart
• DeLonghi
• Farberware
• Hamilton Beach
• KitchenAid
• Krups
• Mr. Coffee
• Sunbeam
• West Bend

Not a single one of them wanted to answer the challenge. None. Why? Because none wanted their machines to be showed up by a dime store piece of plastic. None of them wanted to admit it’s the coffee, not the coffee maker, that makes good coffee.

That being said, there is one amazing little device I did discover this year: The Java Wand. If there is one coffee maker that could make a better tasting cup of coffee that my little 49¢ wonder, it would be a coffee press. The Java Wand is a coffee press at the end of a straw. And, no, it does not burn your lips off. Check it out.

So my coffee loving friends, that’s my recap. After I get to feeling better, and can taste properly again, I’ve got several yummy looking coffees all lined up and ready to be reviewed.

Thanks for reading! And thanks for coming back!

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This is an actual scan of the package. Country Morning Coffee - Colombia Roast. It’s such a fresh, small batch roast that each bag is hand labeled with a Sharpie.

Right up front, let me tell you this: It’s wonderful! This is a light-hearted, lovingly roasted bean with a sparkling pure flavor, sprite and sweet, with just enough dark undertones to give it some depth. The aftertaste is pure magic. It’s the most consummate example I have had of a Colombia roast.

I could quite easily drink this coffee all day long, everyday, for 11 days straight.

The woman behind Country Morning Coffee is Elizabeth Wolf. From her website: “I roast my coffees in small 20 lb batches with a gas powered, drum coffee roaster. Small batch roasting and straightforward technology give me more control over the roasting process. Many variables, including the weather can affect how a batch of beans will roast. Small batch roasting allows me to give every roast the meticulous attention they require. After every batch is completed I taste it, guaranteeing our customers the delicious coffee they have come to love.”

Her company motto: “Fresh Coffee is Happy Coffee.”

All I can add to that is: Groovy!

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