It’s November, 2009.  And every November it’s National Novel Writing Month, or as those in the know call it, NaNoWriMo.

What does that mean?  It means there are over 70,000 new or seasoned novelists banging away at their keyboards in a frenzy this month, all trying to make the goal of writing at least 50,000 words before Midnight, November 30th.

Some are fueled by pure inspiration.  Others are fueled by alcohol or other substances.  A small percentage are fueled by tea.  But most, as is my impression, are fueled by coffee.

I’m a writer.  I know a lot of writers.  Just about all of us drink coffee like maniacs.

And this year, my own personal coffee of choice for banging away at my new novel, is this one:  Buddy Brew’s Brazil Cerrado.

It’s a perfect writer’s coffee.  They know my tastes pretty well, and fired these babies up to a full city roast.  Dark, husky, bold and smoky, it brews up black like the darkest typewriter ink, and the flavor features wonderful milk chocolate undertones and finishes with high walnut notes.  It’s so fresh that in my French Press it fizzed like seltzer when I poured the hot water in.  No joke, it was like a science experiment.  My friends, when you get a coffee that does that, you know you have some seriously roasted-day-before-yesterday coffee.

No coffee in the world tastes better than coffee roasted day-before-yesterday.

And to me, nothing fuels a manic tumbling word spilling writing session like fresh, strong coffee.

Not only do I declare the Brazil Cerrado a groovy brew, I hereby personally endorse it to be considered as the official NaNoWriMo coffee.  Not that this means anything – Dave at Buddy Brew has no idea I’m doing this – so don’t expect a discount if you all rush over there and place orders.  Do expect, however, some outrageously awesome coffee.

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Here is a company that is going full blast with its internet marketing.  It seems every type of coffee they roast has a separate brand and its own URL.  No matter which URL for which brand you type in, though, they all lead you to BigCityCoffee.com.

I have liked everything they’ve sent me, but I have to tell you right now, this one I absolutely love.

Rich milk chocolaty tones dominate this smooth, mild coffee — so much so, I can’t find any other words to describe it.  Rich.  Milk chocolaty.  Smooth.  Mild.

Extremely delicious.  A winner.

If it tastes this good pre-packed and pre-ground, I can only image how delicious the fresh roasted beans would taste.  Because you know they sell it that way, too.  And, come to think of it, I won’t imply imagine it.  I’ve just put it on my “things to buy” list.

This is most definitely portion pack groovy.  I would go so far as to say that this has to be the best coffee I have ever tasted to come out of a portion pack.

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No, you’re not imagining things.

This is Weasel Coffee from ThinkGeek.com.  Supposedly the raw beans are eaten by a type of weasel in Vietnam and then puked up, collected, and roasted for your drinking pleasure.

This is a rather special review as:

1) My friend Tim had to talk me into it.

2) We recorded the little adventure.

So instead of writing about it, I present it here as a podcast.  Is Weasel Puke Coffee the best tasting coffee in the world, as some purport?

Listen and find out:  Weasel Puke Coffee

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I messed this coffee up!  Darn it!

Well, I don’t know for sure, because I’m still letting it steep in the French Press.  But I goofed and didn’t boil enough water, and didn’t realize that until I’d already started pouring it in.  So I quickly boiled some more and added it … which usually gives coffee the taint of what I call “dilution tang.”  In essence, it just went from fresh coffee to the equivalent of instant coffee.

We’ll see though.  I’ll subtract any negative tang away from the review.

It should be ready now…

Okay, I poured my cup.  Taking a taste.  And…

Yes, I messed it up.  I taste the tang of dilution as well as a hint of staleness.  The first one is my fault, and the second one is the risk you get when you go with a pre-ground pre-packaged coffee.  It probably wasn’t stale when they sent it to me, but truth be told, this has been sitting in my inbox for quite a while.

Also, Big City Coffee offers this blend as fresh roasted unground beans.

According to their website, this is what you should expect:  “This mellow blend delivers a flavor and aroma that will have you snapping your fingers and movin’ to the groove. The lightly spiced African beans are nicely balanced by the mild Latins. If this was a Martini, it would be shaken, not stirred. We hand select these beans and lovingly artisan roast them in small batches weekly.”

This is a laid back coffee – not quite the light flavor of Kona, it is more spicy and complex – I detect a fairly high acid spike, and a very pleasant dusky wood smoke infusion.  My impression is this would be a good beat poetry coffee, a relaxed yet jazzy combo to fuel some serious art.

Kind of like, in fact, the spunky retro-art on the package label.

Which makes me wonder, did I get that image from the coffee flavor, or subliminally from the packaging?  Hmmm.

To sum up, while I did botch the brewing, I still enjoyed the coffee, and it gave me a good idea of how yummy you can expect the freshly ground version to be.

I’ll call this groovy by default.  I’d be happy to drink it again.

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I have no issues with the FCC’s new guidelines on disclosure for bloggers.  Coffee companies send me coffee to review here.  Some coffee I pay for but most I don’t.

If you see a savage review of an awful coffee (there hasn’t been many) it was a coffee that I paid for.  You don’t see them for coffee that was gifted to me because if I dislike it, I don’t review it.  It’s a fine line to walk, but … you don’t take a gift from someone then turn around and then bite them.  That just not cool.

I’m glad to say that I have never really hated a coffee that a roaster has given me.  So there’s never been a situation that I didn’t warn people away from awful coffee.

Sounds like I’m leading up to something bad, doesn’t it?  Actually, I’m not.  This coffee is wonderful.  If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be reviewing it.

This organic blend from Big City Coffee is a good morning or even all day coffee.  Because of that, it would make a kick-ass office coffee, or a perfect choice for a small cafe to use as their “standard” regular coffee.  It’s a strong, bold, city ++ roast with a nice and complex flavor featuring walnut and pecan notes.  The body is medium, lively, and has a good bite to it, but it’s not bitter.  It’s also fresh, as – unlike the prepackaged coffees this company also sells – this is fresh roasted three times a week in small batches, and sent out immediately.

That is definitely the way to do it.

I would place this as a high-standard everyday coffee and give it the official stamp of groovy.  Good stuff.  I like it!

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My friends over at Buddy Brew Coffee take you behind the scenes!

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“Chickory?”  Not chicory?

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is a bushy perennial herb, also known as “coffeeweed,” the roots of which are baked, ground, and used as a coffee substitute as well as an additive.  It’s popular in India, Southeast Asia and also in … you guessed it … New Orleans.

I remember my dad used to tell me that’s all they could get during WWII, and that he’d actually developed a taste for it.

This explains why it continues on even to this day as a coffee additive.

This Chickadee Brand coffee from BigCityCoffee.com surprised me by being not only palatable, but quite good.  It tastes like a medium bold coffee with chocolate and pecans – and I don’t mean subtle hints of these flavors, either.  It’s quite yummy.

Would I prefer it to normal, everyday coffee?  Well, no.  At least not the stuff I drink.  But compared to something like Folgers?  Yes.

To my taste, I would definitely classify it as a dessert coffee.  Good for late afternoon or right after dinner.

Considering I don’t usually like chicory (or “chickory,” per Big City Coffee), I’d have to say this is pretty a pretty groovy brew.  Portion-pack groovy, no less.

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Coffee snobs (including me) may recoil in horror at a pre-ground portion pack of coffee, but that’s only because we’ve grown used to something that’s above and beyond.

The fact remains that the majority of coffee drinkers still buy their coffees pre-ground.

So here, when I review a pre-ground coffee, I don’t compare it to fresh roasted, fresh ground coffee.  That would be unfair.

When BigCityCoffee.com sent me an assortment to try, I didn’t balk.  I’ll review it in the spirit of those who prefer packaged coffee.  Lord knows I was one of them, once.  Before I was spoiled.

I brewed this pack in my French Press.  It turned out nice, strong, and full bodied.  There’s a warm, light-chocolate wood-smoke taste to it, very inviting and laid back.  There is only a hint of acidity – at first I missed it, not thinking it was there at all.  The flavor has me constantly taking another sip.

This is a good afternoon or even after-desert coffee, and being that you can get it in portion packs, it’s perfect for an office environment.  And while it’s not cutting edge fresh, the one I sampled wasn’t stale.

It was, in fact, quite good!  I liked it and would happily drink it again.

I hereby officially proclaim Tiki Club as portion-pack groovy.

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You’re looking at the Java Wand.

It’s simple, clever, and definitely a groovy little gizmo.

Invented by Nancy Raimondo and marketed via Wisdom Wands, this is — literally — a tiny coffee maker at the end of a glass straw. And before you scoff, trust me, I had some doubts as well. The first thing I thought was that sucking hot coffee through a straw would lead directly to a seared tongue and a ruined day. So I want to state right up front that this is not the case.

How the Java Wand works is simple. It’s a straw with a French press type filter at the end. You put coffee in your mug, add hot water (and whatever else you’d like), put the straw in and stir for a bit, then let it set a few minutes.

Letting it set does two things. One, it lets the coffee steep, and two, it lets it cool a bit.

Here’s a good place to mention that, even when making coffee the normal way, you don’t want to use boiling water. You want it hot, and perhaps close to boiling, but not actually bubbling. With the Java Wand this is doubly true.

So you let the coffee steep a bit, and then you take a careful, experimental sip from the Java Wand. Keep in mind this is exactly how you’d approach a hot cup of coffee. Sip carefully until it cools. The Java Wand works the same way.

That’s all there is to it. You’re drinking coffee.

Take a moment to think about that. What does a coffee maker do, anyway? It mixes hot water with coffee then filters the grounds.

It’s not complicated. It’s not rocket science. The Java Wand is a wonderful reminder of this fact — a return to the basics. People spend hundreds of dollars for machines that do nothing more, really, than this little filtered straw does.

Like I said, even I was skeptical at first. I thought I’d burn my tongue right up front. But no, this is thick quality glass, and it has the same heat-handling properties as a coffee mug. I made my first cup using CoffeeBeanDirect.com Dark Costa Rican (as pictured to the left — that’s the actual first cup I made) and was able to sip on it without any burning of lips or tongue at all. It was delicious, but I’d ground it too fine. So I had to try again.

Wisdom Wands recommends medium ground coffee, about two tablespoons per cup. For the second try that’s what I used.

The next cup turned out perfect. I was impressed and happy with it, and even though it seemed odd to be drinking hot coffee through a straw it didn’t take long to adjust. Especially after cooling a few minutes, you’ll be sucking coffee down without even thinking about it.

Here’s an unexpected side effect, though. I’m one of those people who can drink two large strong cups of coffee and still go to sleep. I have over the years developed a high caffeine tolerance.

But two cups of coffee sucked through the Java Wand had me so wired I was bouncing around like the Energizer Bunny. It took me by surprise. What I figure is that since you’re drinking the whole cup of coffee through the grounds, you must end up with an extra dose of caffeine. In effect, the Java Wand becomes a coffee supercharger.

The next day I took the Java Wand down to the corporate offices to see if it could be used in the fight against horrible office coffee. It seemed perfect for this because you make your own coffee one cup at a time, and it’s so quick it’s like you’re making instant coffee. Also — and this is the key point — you’re free to make your coffee however you like. Stronger, bolder, with your own coffee or theirs. It puts you in control.

I gave it the ultimate test: could it, in fact, improve the taste of plain old Folgers pre-ground canned coffee?

It did! I can’t say it was good, but it was better than before. It was significantly better than the Folgers made in the old rusty Bunn office machine, especially considering most other office denizens think it only takes two tablespoons to produce 12 cups of coffee.

This morning I’m using it as I write this, having made a delicious cup of SpecialtyCoffee.com’s New York New York. This afternoon I plan on trying it with some loose tea leaves. (Yes, tea lovers can use this too.)

I’m thoroughly charmed with this little gizmo. It’s not going to replace my little one cup filter maker at home, but it will be something I use every day at the office. In its own little way, I can honestly say the Java Wand has improved the quality of my life.

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No, I am not insane.  I swear this is true.

My friend Tim and I just came out of a movie theater and went for a coffee.  The nearest Starbucks turned out to be inside a Target store, and in there, we were confronted by three earnest young people in Starbucks uniforms.

Pushing instant coffee.

I knew then what happened.  We were in the correct universe when we entered the theater.  When we exited, though, we stumbled into the wrong universe.

An evil, alternate universe

The same universe where James T. Kirk is a ruthless war monger and Spock’s chin is adorned by a demonic goatee.

And Starbucks sells instant coffee.

Madness!

The three earnest young Starbucks minions espoused the wonderful properties of this revolutionary new thing called instant coffee, like it’s never existed before, and how wonderful it is because of how finely it’s been ground.

And get this – you know what it tastes like?

Instant coffee!

Amazing.

Please, someone light a beacon, and lead me back to the correct universe.  Please?

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