Coffee Beanery's S'Mores

It's summer, and people are sitting around campfires and making S'mores. And for those of you who can't escape into the great wilderness and are stuck at work, perhaps some flavored coffee will lift your spirits and transport you to the campfires of your minds! (Yes, it's Sunday at Shades of Gray, so it's time for another coffee review!)

COFFEE BEANERY: S'MORES
When I reviews Bones's version of s'mores-flavored coffee, I confessed that I have no idea what s'mores are supposed to taste like. I imagine the taste has to be somewhat smoky with strong notes of chocolate, marshmallow, and a little saltiness from the crackers. But, mostly, I would expect a s'more to at least taste smoky and sweet.

And that's what Coffee Beanery's take on this flavored variety delivers. Where Bones leaned heavily on the sweet, the Beanery's variation is heavier on the smoky.... which was initially a little surprising because when I opened the package of pre-ground coffee, a strong sent of marshmallow wafted up from it.

When consumed black, the clearest flavor of the blend is the medium-roasted Arabica beans that form its foundation. Mixed with that is a smokiness that does invoke the sense of drinking this coffee around a campfire and it a surprisingly pleasant edge. There are also faint tastes of vanilla and chocolate and perhaps even a hint of the marshmallow. It's still a little too harsh for me to drink a whole cup black, but if you take your coffee with just a little sugar or a dash of milk, I think you'll find Beanery's S'Mores blend very potable.

When I added Unsweetened Almond Milk to the cup, the smoky flavor was enhanced, as were the vanilla and chocolate notes. The blend became tastier with the almond milk, but it turned fabulous when mixed with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. The coffee flavor and smokiness were muted while the chocolate taste was enhanced. I also thought that I could taste the marshmallow more strongly. As the drink cooled to room temperature, the various sweet flavors grew stronger, with the vanilla and marshmallow flavors really coming through.

When I tried the blend black, chilled, and over ice, the chocolate and vanilla flavors leapt to the front. A little bit of saltiness also crept in. That could have been the Graham crackers finally manifesting, or it could be the sort of thing that happens with a number of flavored blends when they are iced: Flavors turn salty.

The Coffee Beanery sample packs are small and only make a single pot and I wasn't frugal enough to get all the tests in with the coffee iced. I tried it with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer, but I did not have enough coffee to try it with Unsweetened Almond Milk. But, as far as my taste tests went, I liked this blend the best when it was iced, whether black or mixed with the creamer.

This is another hit for Coffee Beanery, although I think the Bones Coffee take on this flavor is superior overall. Your mileage may vary though. The Bones variation skews sweeter with a fainter coffee vibe than this one from Coffee Beanery, so it depends on how you take your coffee.

Sidenote: I just noticed that shipping rates for some Coffee Beanery products through Amazon are REDICULOUS. As much as I love to get a few pennies in Affiliate fees (so if you like the content here, please shop Amazon through the links on the blog), I recommend looking closely before ordering.

Coffee Beanery's Blueberry Cobbler

Welcome to another Sunday and another coffee review here at Shades of Gray! We may soon be coming to an end of this as a weekly feature, as our resident caffeine fiend is running out of interesting blends to try and write about. (But if anyone out there wants to make suggestions for him to try, let us know in the Comments Section!)

A Boy in Blue enjoying coffee! (It might even be blueberry flavored!)

 
COFFEE BEANERY: BLUEBERRY COBBLER

The foundation of this flavored blend is a perfect and mild medium roast. The blueberry flavor is strong but not overpowering, and there are hints of vanilla coming through, like the icing on a blueberry cobbler. This blend was so smooth that I could have consumed it black, so those out there who take their coffee like that with possibly a little sugar, juice, or creamer added will enjoy it, I think.

When I mixed this coffee hot with Unsweetened Almond Milk, the blueberry flavor grew stronger and became an absolute delight. The drink also took on a creamier flavor, which made it even better. I also tried it with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. Not unexpectedly, the hints of vanilla combined with the vanilla flavor of the milk and brought it more strongly to the fore, but blueberry still dominated. With both kinds of milk, the flavors remained pleasantly stable and very tastily mixed with that of coffee as the drink cooled to room temperature.

When I tried this blend with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer, it, well, super-creamy in nature. The flavors of blueberry and vanilla really popped, and the cinnamon that the sell-copy promised would be present also crept in. It was nice hot and it remained so as it cooled to room temperature. 

This blend also worked well when iced. Going in, I wondered if the mild flavor profiles would end up being too washed out when the drink was consumed chilled, but this was not the case. Although it was a little too bland when I tried it black, the flavors of this blend re-emerged perfectly fine once I, in turn, added the milks and the creamer. 

Hot or at room temperature, I liked this blend best when mixed with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. Iced, the flavors came through best when it was mixed with the Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. In all modes in which I tried this blend, the coffee flavor was present to a greater or lesser degree, waxing and waning with the other flavors but never being drowned out. I personally liked this blend best iced with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk , but I enjoyed it no matter how I tried it.

If you want a mild and sweet flavored coffee that will go great with breakfast or an afternoon snack, I think this might be what you're looking for. If you really like blueberries, there's an offering from Bones Coffee that has a stronger Blueberry taste than this coffee.

Coffee Beanery's Hazelnut

This week's coffee review talks about a flavor that is known far and wide and found everywhere coffee can be had.

COFFEE BEANERY: HAZELNUT

If Colombian coffee is the "basic" unflavored coffee, is hazelnut the "basic" of flavored coffee? Or is it just omni-present?

Anywhere they have free coffee creamer (and/or free coffee), you'll find hazelnut-flavored creamer. The only creamer that is more omnipresent is French Vanilla. In college and early in my working life, I was a regular at the 7-Eleven coffee bar, with their "House Blend" with Amaretto creamer, or a mix of Chocolate Caramel and French Vanilla creamers being my go-to drink. Although there were always lots of Hazelnut creamers, it was never a flavor I felt inclined to try.

But, among the flavors in the Coffee Beanery Sample Pack was Hazelnut (subtitled 'MVP of Coffee') so after 30+ years of drinking coffee on a regular basis, I would finally getting around to trying this flavor standard!

As with most of the Coffee Beanery offerings in my review queue, the Hazelnut-flavored blend has as its foundation medium-roast Arabica beans. When I opened the pack, a sweet, nutty aroma filled the air. That aroma hovered around the coffee maker during brewing. 

The smell was so delightful that I wondered if I'd been missing out on Flavor Greatness for all these years? Maybe Hazelnut really IS an MVP of Coffee?

I first tried this blend hot and black. The hazelnut flavor blended nicely with a fairly mild coffee flavor. This was a blend that even someone like me who cuts virtually any coffee with some sort of milk or creamer or booze could tolerate if I had to. And all I needed to make it suitable for my delicate palate was to add a dash of Stevia.

When I added Unsweetened Almond Milk or the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer, the sweet, nutty flavor grew stronger, and the flavors remained stable as the coffee cooled to room temperature. Even better, the delightful smell of hazelnuts rose from the cup as I drank and even after it was empty. Despite this strong aroma, the nutty flavor was never overwhelming. 

Unfortunately, I was so enchanted by Coffee Beanery's Hazelnut blend that I drank so much of it hot or at room temperature that I didn't have enough try the blend iced. Basically, I forgot that Coffee Beanery sample packs are much smaller than the ones I get from the Bones Coffee Company. What I did drink, though, makes me recommend it very highly... and I think that maybe the Beanery people weren't bragging with their tagline: The Hazelnut blend is most certainly an MVP among their offerings.

Is Christy thinking it's nuts to not like Coffee Beanery's Hazelnut?

COFFEE NOSTALGIA POST-SCRIPT

After remembering how often I used to get coffee at 7-Eleven and subsequently realizing that's been at least five years since I last got coffee at one of their stores, I went a little out of my way to get some. At first, nothing seemed to have changed at the long counter with the coffee makers, dispensers, selections of creamers, and cupholders. But then I noticed that they didn't have any of the little Amaretto creamers that I used to get. They didn't even have Amaretto flavoring in the pump bottles. Is there a Amaretto supply chain shortage I hadn't heard about? 

Instead of what I had intended to be a trip down Amaretto memory lane, I instead took the opportunity to try the 7-Eleven version of Hazelnut coffee by way of a Large  House Blend with three little cups of Hazelnut Creamer added. It was delicious. I should have done this years ago! (Once again, I was put in the mindset that coffee snobs may have to get over themselves... the coffee at 7-Eleven and gas stations can be perfectly fine.)

My search for Amaretto at 7-Eleven may have ended in failure, but it's inspired me to go looking for offerings from coffee roasters with that flavor. Hopefully, what I find will match the fond memories of cheap late-night coffee of my younger days rather than the disappointment I experienced when I returned to Starbuck's Pike Place blend after not having it for several years.

Coffee Beanery's Butterscotch Toffee

I wrote some notes on the most recent way I've found pleasure in my caffeine addiction! 

COFFEE BEANERY: BUTTERSCOTCH TOFFEE

There's a subtitle on this medium-roast, all-Arabica blend that describes it as "candy-coated coffee". That certainly sounded promising. But did this blend deliver on that promise?

As the coffee brewed, there was no detectable aroma other than coffee, which is often the case with flavored coffees. There was also no detectable scent as I poured the first cup--other than, of course, coffee.

The taste is what matters, though. While I wouldn't describe this blend as tasting like it was "candy-coated", it did taste like a piece of hard candy had been dissolved in the pot. The Butterscotch Toffee blend is a mild-flavored coffee that tastes as if it's very slightly sweetened. It was so mild that even a pathetic wretch like me--who hardly ever drinks any coffee without adding some form of milk, creamer, booze, or some combination of all of the above--would be able to drink it black if called upon.

This blend was okay when mixed with Unsweetened Almond Milk; in fact, it paradoxically seemed to gain a little more of a bite when the milk was added. This might have been a drawback with other blends, but it worked extremely well here since it's so mellow to begin with.

This blend, however, was excellent when mixed with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. The butterscotch flavor was drawn out and moved to the center of the flavor profile, and here the coffee did indeed seem candy-coated. It was very sweet, but not cloyingly so.

Jimmy soon learned Kim was serious when she said, "Touch my coffee, and I'll end you."

The flavors remained stable as the coffee cooled to room temperature, regardless of what it was mixed with. The mildness of this blend works really well when the coffee has cooled. Drinking the Butterscotch Toffee blend at room temperature with Unsweetened Almond Milk was my favorite out of the ways I tried it.

With that said, though, the Butterscotch Toffee blend is also pretty good iced. The flavor is almost a little too mild when consumed black, but once either Unsweetened Almond Milk or the sugar-free Italian Sweet Creamer has been added, the sweetness of the toffee reemerges. For those who like their iced coffee sweet (but who would like to avoid sugar), I think this could be a good choice.

Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla

It's Sunday morning, so it's time for another coffee review! (As is standard when I do these reviews, I tried the coffee black; then with Unsweetened Almond Milk; and also with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. I also drank it hot, room temperature, and iced in all three modes.)

"Drink coffee like you're one those French girls."

COFFEE BEANERY: FRENCH VANILLA

I may be developing a hot-and-cold relationship with Coffee Beanery... and I'm not referring to drinking their coffee either hot or iced. No... it's because I disliked their French Vanilla blend as almost as much as I loved their Michigan Cherry blend, which I reviewed last week.

French Vanilla-flavored coffee is one of those drinks that comes in as many varieties as there are coffee shops and roasteries. Often--like with this blend from Coffee Beanery--it's a medium-roast that's done with vanilla beans added, or a vanilla flavor infused through other means. Other times--like if you go to Starbucks--the French Vanilla is a medium- or light-roast with some variety of vanilla syrup added, and perhaps a little milk. Heck, the coffee shop might just break out the vanilla flavored almond milk, like they used to at my favorite (now sadly gone) indie coffee stand. (On a similar note, the best French Vanilla coffee I have had anywhere was the stuff they used to serve at Seattle's Best... another coffee outlet which is now gone. Their blend is still available in grocery stores, thought, and I've had the same good experience with it at home as I used to in the shops.)

However it's arrived at, the desired result with a cup of French Vanilla coffee is that it's on the milder side when it comes to the intensity of the coffee, with the vanilla flavor either being there in place of some other sweetener or manifesting itself as a pleasant aftertaste. A smooth, creamy quality is also typcial, hence the reason why it's often made with at least a splash of milk in the cup.

I am a big fan of well-made French Vanilla coffee. I often drink my home-brewed coffee with sugar-free French Vanilla creamer or with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. Unfortunately, what resulted when I brewed a sample package of Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla blend, what resulted was not well-made. If I hadn't read the label, I wouldn't have known it was a medium-roast, nor allegedly French Vanilla.

The coffee smells nice as it brews--when does coffee not smell nice as it brews?-- and it both looks and smells promising as it's poured into the cup. But the flavor? The flavor is that of burned coffee. I couldn't detect any vanilla in the foreground, background, or as an aftertaste. All I got from a black cup of Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla was a burnt flavor with a sour aftertaste that put me in mind of that terrible cup of Starbucks Pike Place blend I had a few months back. Since I rarely drink any coffee black, I thought that was perhaps the reason for my reaction and that it would get better when I added some "mixers" to it.

This turned out to not be the case.

When I tried this brew with the Unsweetened Almond Milk, the aftertaste grew worse than better and it did very little to improve the burned taste. I then tried a cup with sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. This was sweet enough and strongly flavored enough to overcome the basic vileness of the coffee, but it still wasn't very good. It tasted like ashy dirt mixed with Italian Sweet Cream. And there was still no hint of vanilla flavor. Drinking either mixture at room temperature did not improve the taste much, although the aftertaste was a little milder.

In attempt to tease out the vanilla flavor, I broke with the usual protocol here and tried a cup of Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla with some Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and a little Stevia. The only vanilla I could taste was the vanilla in the milk, and the nasty aftertaste was as bad as ever.

This blend did not fare better iced when consumed black. The burned flavor was present, as was the aftertaste; both were milder, as would be expected from an iced coffee, but they were unmistakable. I admit that I didn't even bother trying it with just the Unsweetened Almond Milk, but instead added a little Stevia immediately. The coffee was better tasting this way, but still nothing that I would recommend to anyone else; everything I've complained above was still present although milder. Iced and with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer, is where this blend worked best with the nastier flavors being almost completely washed out. Of course, the reason for this was probably because 1/3rd of the cup was creamer, since I was almost out of the blend at this point. (The Coffee Beanery sample packs only yield one pot, so I only have about two-thirds of the coffee to work with that I've had with many of my other reviews.)

No one around here is dancing with joy after drinking this French Vanilla blend.

So... in the end, I have nothing good to say about Coffee Beanery's French Vanilla blend. It's possible that I somehow screwed up when I brewed the pot upon which this review was based... possible, but not very likely. I made this post as I've made pots of coffee ever since I got that particular coffee maker 2-3 years ago. If you've tried this blend, and you've had a different experience than the one I did, please leave a comment below.

For now, I hope my next sampling of what Coffee Beanery has to offer is more like their Michigan Cherry than their Frend Vanilla. Keep an eye on this space to see if that hope comes true.

Coffee Beanery's Michigan Cherry

After a year of mostly reviewing the wondrous flavored offerings from the Bones Coffee Company, I am close to having covered all of them. With that in mind, I am going to be turning to a different source for stuff to write about while feeding my caffeine addiction: The Coffee Beanery.

 

The Coffee Beanery is a roastery and coffeeshop chain based in Michigan. Founded in 1976, the company presently offers 50+ varieties of flavored and regular coffee that can ordered through the mail or enjoyed at one of their 80 or so retail outlets. You can read a brief history of the company at Wikipedia.

As their logo signals, they're a little more staid in their approach to marketing their products than other roasteries from whom I've been sampling wares. Where I was first attracted to Bones Coffee by their creative packaging and amusingly named blends, Coffee Beanery came to my attention through a lawyer I know who recommended I check out some of their blends. Like their logo, those blends are mostly named in ways that describe exactly what they are, with equally straightforward graphic designs on the packaging. All the blends I've looked at so far have been labeled "100% Arabica Beans".

Much like with the majority of my Bones Coffee reviews, the Coffee Beanery pieces will be based on sample packs. I will state up from that these reviews might be a little more barebones, as the Coffee Beanery's samplers are half the size of those sold by Bones. As a result, I only get one pot of coffee out of each. Maybe I'll exert some self-control and drink the coffee in smaller mugs, or maybe I'll think of some other way to keep things in line with the Bones Coffee and Signature Select reviews. Time will tell!

Right now, at this moment, the review that will launch the quest through the Beanery Realm is of a flavor that I was one-hundred percent certain I was going to love. (It could also lend itself to some off-color references, but I'm far classier than to engage in that sort of thing. Yup. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)

 

COFFEE BEANERY: MICHIGAN CHERRY

I love the taste of cherries. One of the do-it-myself flavored coffees I enjoy is mixing either a light- or medium-roast with sour cherry juice, a dash of Unsweetened Almond Milk, and some Stevia. It works best iced, but it's also pretty good hot or room temperature. 

When I opened the Michigan Cherry sample pack, I felt certain I was going to love the coffee that would be brewed from it; the grounds within gave off a fabulously delicious aroma of cherries. That wonderful smell hovered around the coffeemaker as it brewed, although it was not so strong so as to fill the kitchen nor be detectable down the hall in my office.

The cherry aroma remained strong as I poured to coffee into the cup, and it blended tastily with the medium-roast coffee flavor as I took the first couple sips of the coffee, black. By chance, I got distracted and did not get back to the coffee until it had cooled to room temperature. I tried it like this, and I found that it tasted almost like it had hot. Unlike some other flavored coffees, the Michigan Cherry blend did not shift significantly in flavor between hot and cool... the cherry flavor grew a bit stronger but that was it. 

When consumed with Unsweetened Almond Milk, the cherry flavor was enhanced while the coffee flavor retreated. This was even more true when I drank it with the sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer. Again, the flavors remained stable as the drink cooled, and it was a mellow and pleasurable drink throughout.

If you are drinking Coffee Beanery's Michigan Cherry for the cherry flavor, though, the best way to have it is cold and over ice. The cherry flavor is front and center whether you drink it black or with milk or creamer added.

The one thing that I LOVED about this blend, even more than drinking it, was the aroma. The smell of cherries rose from every cup--whether hot, room temperature, or iced--and it lingered even after the cup was empty. I can't explain how a drink with such a mellow flavor could have such a strong aroma, but I loved it.

When it comes time to replenish my coffee supply, I'll be getting a bag of Coffee Beanery's Michigan Cherry. I want to try this blend with Unsweetened Almond Milk or Unsweetened Chocolate Milk, or a mix of those;, I want to try it iced and with vodka; I want to try this blend mixed with a whole host of other flavors mixed in, and I think they'll all be great!

SHADES OF GRAY COFFEE FACTS #1:

Jackie Kennedy hated bad coffee with an almost psychotic intensity. Every time she drank a cup, her husband, President John F. Kennedy, prayed to God he wouldn't be called upon to nuke Brazil.

What Is Basic Coffee? Read On for the Answer!

In drinking all sorts of different coffees over the past year, I have found the answer to a question I wasn't even considering: What is Basic Coffee?

Basic Coffee is that kind of coffee that tastes like, well, coffee. It doesn't matter who roasted it, it doesn't matter who markets it, or how. It doesn't matter what you put in it. It doesn't matter whether you drink it hot, room temperature, or iced. So long as the coffee flavor isn't completely drowned by milks, creamers and/or booze, Basic Coffee tastes like you think basic coffee tastes like.

I discovered Basic Coffee by accident. Like many great discoveries, I stumbled upon knowledge rather than actively sought it out. Now, I share that knowledge with you! (And for those who can't stand the suspense, Basic Coffee is that which is grown in Colombia.)

That feeling when you want Black Excitement, but all you have is Basic Coffee

 
UNKNOWN BRAND: WHOLE BEANS COLOMBIAN

A friend of mine sent me a bag of medium roast, unground Colombian coffee he got at an indie grocery store in Florida. It came a brown bag with the contents identified by someone handwriting a note on it. This was from the same source, and in the same kind of packaging, as the very excellent Tanzanian Peabody coffee I wrote about a few months ago. Needless to say, I had high hopes for this.

Since this was "just" coffee with no flavors or other fancy flourishes added, the grinding and brewing held no surprises: Just a pleasant coffee smell. The same was true as I poured the first cup. The aroma was pleasant and exactly what I would expect it to be.

I drank the first cup of this coffee, hot and black. It was a decent enough medium roast, and, as anyone who's been reading these articles for a while know, even the mild bite of this coffee was a bit much for me. So I added some sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer, and I found myself enjoying the drink a lot more. The flavor was stable as the coffee cooled to room temperature, and it remained tasty.

Next, I tried it with Unsweetened Almond Milk. There were, once again, no surprises. It was coffee with Unsweetened Almond Milk. It put me in mind of late nights at work. I tried adding half a packet of Stevia to the mix, but it remained a blandly diluted coffee flavor. As it cooled to room temperature, the taste remained just as bland. Trying it with a Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk was better (with no Stevia needed), but it was the flavor of vanilla that brought the drink to life, no so much anything that the coffee had to offer. Nothing here was bad... just not something to shout from the rooftops about.

When I drank this Colombian Antigua blend over ice, the results were the same: "Yup... that's coffee. And that's coffee with stuff added."

As I finished my notes on this blend, I wondered to myself if all the flavored coffees I've been reviewing over the past year (like the many fabulous Bones Coffee offerings) had spoiled me. I didn't THINK normal coffee had been spoiled for me--after all, I didn't find Signature Select's Sun-Kissed Blonde nor Bones Coffee's Costa Rica Single Source blends unremarkable. Sure... I'd gotten into the mindset that drinking coffee had to be an "experience" (which was new), but I still understood that regular coffee is regular coffee. Or did I?

The answer began to dawn on me when I made a mistake and brewed a different pot of coffee than I had intended to. 

COFFEE BEANERY: COLOMBIAN

Shortly after my experience with the freshly ground, unimpressive Colombian coffee discussed above, I accidentally brewed a pot of the single-source Colombian blend from Coffee Beanery. My intent had been to drink and review their Michigan Cherry flavored blend (so my introduction to a new caffeine source would be something I was almost certain to love), but I grabbed the wrong package and realized my mistake too late.

It turned out to be an enlightening experience, because everything about the Colombian blend from Coffee Beanery was EXACTLY like the Colombian. There was nothing terrible about any of the results from what I mixed it with or what temperature I drank it at. This was a fine-tasting, medium roast coffee. In fact, it was pretty much spot-on what I would expect a fine-tasting medium roast coffee to be. 

Just to make sure that I could not detect any major differences in flavor between the Coffee Beanery offering and the Colombian whole beans the friend had sent me, I ground some and brewed a new pot. Again, my reaction was, "Yup. It's coffee. It's not bad, it's not great. It's just average coffee."

I couldn't even discern the difference between freshly ground coffee and pre-ground coffee that aficionados like to talk about. While it's true that Coffee Beanery claims to roast and grind in small batches, and I brewed their Colombian variety on the very same day I received the samples I ordered from them, I should have been able to detect the difference in freshness between the two? Was this confirmation of my long-time stance on snobbish talk about how freshly ground coffee is much better-tasting than pre-ground stuff is just so much psychosomatic claptrap? 

Maybe my taste buds aren't refined enough. Maybe I'm not decanting it properly. But whether it was the very freshly ground Colombian, or the pre-ground Colombian shipped to me through the mail, the tastes were identical.

The conclusion I was coming to was that Colombian coffee is "just coffee" to me... it's a flat baseline against which all other coffees are judged as either inferior or superior. I had just never been aware of this being the case. (I began my coffee-drinking ways with Gevalia Kaffe in Denmark, with what I suspect was a light-roast consisting of a blend of Colombian and other sources. All I knew was that I liked it with milk and sugar.)

I did one more test before making up my mind. For that, I turned to what's been the main go-to supplier of coffee review fodder for the past year: Bones Coffee!

BONES COFFEE COMPANY: COLOMBIA SINGLE ORIGIN

Bones Coffee's Colombia Single Origin came my via their World Tour Sample Pack. It became the third and final component to convincing me that Colombian coffee is the world's most basic coffee.

Why? Because the Colombia Single Origin blend tasted like the Coffee Beanery Colombian blend, which tasted like the no-name Colombian medium-roast beans when they were freshly ground and immediately brewed. When mixed with my standard reviewing additives of Unsweetened Almond Milk, sugar-free Italian Sweet Cream creamer--and even trying it with a few other variations, like Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk, Unsweetened Dark Chocolate Almond Milk, or black with Stevia added--the only reaction I had was, "Yum. This is tasty and completely unremarkable coffee. It's not bad, it's not amazing... it's just basic."

For a more complete evaluation of Bones' Colombia Single Origin, I refer you to the first review in this article. If I were to actually write this one up, I would be saying the exact same things.

THE OFFICIAL BASIC COFFEE

So... having consumed Colombian medium-roast coffee from three different roasteries, and with one of those three being brewed from the much-praised freshly ground beans, and having the exact same thought about all three, I have determined that coffee grown in Colombia is Basic Coffee.

If you're looking for a coffee that's relatively mild and free of any unexpected aftertastes or curious sub-flavors, this is the coffee for you. Colombian delivers the basic coffee experience with frills and no drawbacks. It's probably also the ideal foundation if you're the kind of person who likes creating their own flavored blends or other mad science experiments involving coffee.

(OR IS IT?)

I have declared Colombian coffee to be the world's Basic Coffee, and unofficial polling of followers on my social media accounts established that those who had an opinion didn't disagree with my nomination. That said, if I had begun by coffee-drinking ways with Vietnamese coffee, perhaps THAT would be "Basic Coffee" to me. We'll never know.

If you have any thoughts on what is or isn't Basic Coffee, go ahead and leave a comment below. I'd love to hear what more people think about my conclusions on this question that I don't think anyone even asked.

Juan Valdez and his burros laboring to bring the world tasty (if basic) coffee