Flavia Combo: Barista's Blend with French Vanilla

Hello, how do you do. I don’t think that we’ve met.
My name is Spree and I’m a Minor Threat.

At around the time we here at OCR took a break from updating this blog, baseball was starting, the Stanley Cup Playoffs were beginning to take shape, and the Lakers were imploding. We made the executive decision to focus our attention on fantasy sports and rooting for teams that had no chance to win it all, watching them make early exits.

But now we’re back and ready to continue our discussion of instant coffee in the workplace. First up: Barista’s Blend with French Vanilla.

They’re starting to replace all the Flavia packets with these new Alterra packets. In our office, the Alterra invasion started with the Morning Roast, followed by House Blend, this new Barista’s Blend, and I just recently noticed the new packets for Hazelnut – although I’m willing to make a Flavia Bet with myself that the Alterra Hazelnut instant coffee tastes just as bas as the Flavia Hazelnut instant coffee. Either way, I lose.

When you think of the flavor “Barista’s Blend,” what immediately comes to mind? That’s right – Starbucks. You know what immediately comes to mind whenever I hear the word Starbucks? That one chick on Real World: San Francisco who wanted to get a job as a Starbucks barista and answered all these interview questions about how to make various coffee drinks and I’m sitting there thinking “What the hell is a macchiato?”

Well, if Barista’s Blend is designed to make you think you’re drinking a cup of coffee from Starbucks, I’m here to tell you that the truth is far removed from your imagination. If, however, you heard the words “Barista’s Blend” and immediately think of a hot cup of asphalt and cigarette butts, then this drink is for you.

I can’t even stomach the entire cup, that’s how bad it is. And to inform you of how strong my stomach is, yesterday for lunch I ate a bunch of undercooked chicken from this local Japanese restaurant simply because I was hungry and didn’t feel like throwing it away. Nothing resulted from that chicken, except I have a gap in my memory from 2:30-4:45 p.m.

Do you know what the worst thing is about this new Barista’s Blend? The fact that these packets will probably just sit here for an eternity as no one in their right mind would drink them. Do you know what the best thing is about this new Barista’s Blend? I’ve got my Flavia bet mixture all ready to go.

Enjoy your coffee.

Flavia Combo: Breakfast Blend with French Vanilla

Breakfast blend is one of my morning traditions. It's almost automatic: I arrive at work, put my bag down in my office, go to the lunch room, grab a coffee mug out of the cupboard, and then reach for a breakfast blend. You may notice it is described on the packet as "light roast, mild & refreshing" and I definitely have to agree that it is by far the mildest flavor we have in our arsenal. In fact it's so mild that I typically use only half a creamer pack to go with it at risk of overpowering the coffee taste entirely.

Sometimes mild coffees have a watered down consistency, but that isn't the case with breakfast blend. It still delivers a nice texture even though it doesn't pack a punch. Because it's so light it really will go with any flavor creamer you'd like to put in it and might be in running for the most palatable flavia option to drink without any cream or sugar at all.

One more thing to point out is that breakfast blend has a 2 out of 7 "strength/force" rating from the manufacturer, the lowest out of all the options we have in our office. (Note: we are currently doing research into Flavia's rating system and we will be posting on that soon.)

Given the other options in play in our office and yours, breakfast blend is going to fit the bill for most people and you could certainly do a whole lot worse. It definitely deserves our seal of approval:


Recommendation: Try a breakfast blend with only half the amount of creamer or sweetener you typically use.

Field Trip – Keurig Combo: Newman’s Special Blend with French Vanilla

Office Coffee Romance field trip!

This past weekend I had the pleasure of tasting the instant coffee at my ladyfriend’s office. Check out this fancy machine with its futuristic blue lights. It looks like alien lasers are getting blasted into my paper cup.

The coffee comes in these cupcake stumps and her office has Nestle’s Coffee-mate creamers instead of the International Delight variety at my office. If our faithful readers will recall, one of the nice perks about drinking Flavia every single day is that other types of coffee will taste so much better, even if the other type of coffee is another brand of instant coffee. This Keurig combination is definitely worlds better than what I’ve subjected myself to on a daily basis here in the office.

To start, the coffee is from Paul Newman’s company, Newman’s Own Organics, and therefore it is automatically awesome. People a generation ahead of me will probably conjure up words like “cool” or “suave” or “sexy” whenever they think of Paul Newman. To me, he’s just “awesome” mostly because of his role as Reggie Dunlop in Slap Shot. (Note: Yes, I realize the movie came out in 1977, hence before I was born, but this was my first Paul Newman movie which I watched when I was kid.)

The coffee tastes smooth, there’s no bitter aftertaste, and before I know it my cup is empty – all signs of great instant coffee at the office.

The French vanilla creamer by Coffee-mate is stronger than the International Delight creamer, if that’s any piece of information you think is worth remembering.

My only problem with this coffee is that although the package claims it is “Extra Bold,” there is nothing “bold” about this coffee except for the fact that it claims to be certified organic. The only bold thing about this coffee is that it makes me want to “put on the foil” before going to work.

In tribute of the fact that I continue to refuse to believe that Paul Newman is no longer alive, instead of using our traditional Dos Equis Most Interesting Man logo to indicate good coffee, I’m changing things up a bit today.

Enjoy your coffee.

Flavia Combo: Sumatra with French Vanilla

Check out that sweet picture. For all you Flavia veterans, you’ll notice our office is still rockin’ Sumatra coffee with the old packets. (See the Hazelnut post below for a picture of the “new” packets – which came out a few years ago.) I’m not entirely sure if Flavia coffee has an expiration date and part of me really doesn’t care. I guess the equivalent is like finding some Halloween candy in your desk . . . from Halloween 2007.

The thing about this Sumatra coffee is that it’s a black hole. Any type of cream you put into the coffee will magically disappear without a trace. Ever make a mistake and put nonfat milk into your coffee and the coffee just sucks it up and color remains the same? That’s exactly what it’s like when adding French Vanilla creamer to Sumatra.

It’s nice when a coffee company informs its consumers of the “strength” of a particular type of coffee. It’s also nice when a coffee company indicates the “force” of a particular coffee, although I’m not really sure how one could possibly judge coffee by “force.” It’s absolutely mind-blowing that Flavia combines the two and informs its consumers of the “Strength/Force” of Sumatra. I’m pretty sure we’re just talking about coffee and not Jean-Claude Van Damme.

I’ve never been to Indonesia, but I’m positive their coffee tastes nothing like Flavia’s Sumatra coffee. Although I’ve never been to India, I’m fairly positive the Indian food I ate for lunch yesterday at least resembles the food they serve in parts of India. I’m 100% certain Indonesians don’t like their coffee to taste like the remains of an ash tray in Paris mixed with hot water, because that’s exactly what the Sumatra with French Vanilla tastes like.

This brings me to my final point. Drinking this Sumatra blend does not excite me to have thoughts about traveling to Indonesia to flavor the local coffee. In fact, drinking this Sumatra blend makes me want to dump the entire contents of my cup into my garbage bin that is lined with a thin plastic bag. Since I have no clue whether there’s a hole in the bottom of that garbage bag, I’m consequently risking the possibility that the cleaning guy will remove the plastic bag during the regular course of business and drip coffee all over my office carpet.

Therefore, this Sumatra blend is so bad that it has actually forced me to drink the rest of it since (1) I’m physically incapacitated to walk over to the office kitchen and dump this coffee into the sink and (2) I don’t want to face the possibility of walking into my office tomorrow morning and seeing coffee stains all over my office floor.

In other words, I’m pretty sure the Flavia scientists are high-fiving themselves right now.

Touché, Flavia.

Recommendation: If you want to face the physical dilemma of begrudgingly finishing your ash-tasting coffee or walking however-many steps you have to walk to dump this coffee into your office kitchen’s sink, then Sumatra with French Vanilla is for you.