Flavia Bets

They say that one man's trash is another man's treasure, and that is absolutely true when it comes to the world of workplace coffee. If you've taken the time to try the different coffee options offered at your office, you've probably come across some flavors, creamers, or combinations of the two that you think are terrible. While part of our goal here at OCR is to offer you some of our favorite combinations and steer you away from others we dread, we also understand that everyone has different tastes. You might think Hazelnut with Irish Creme is the worst thing in the world but there are others who drink it on a daily basis, like one of my colleagues. Learning what you like is great, but OCR has uncovered a revolutionary new way for you to finally put your knowledge of what your coworkers like and don't like to use…

The FLAVIA BET.

The idea is simple - the loser of the bet must drink an instant coffee selected by the winner. When you win a Flavia bet, you get the pleasure of watching the loser drink something they would never make for themselves. The great thing about making Flavia bets is that the risk to reward ratio is always pretty good. The worst case scenario is you have to drink a cup of coffee that you don't like; big deal. But on the other hand, if you're the winner, you'll be surprised at how enjoyable it is to watch your coworkers cringe as you serve them a cup of something awful.

Flavia bets can really be made about anything. Here are a few examples of the bets that we have made:

-"I bet you a Flavia that both ___________ and _________ will show up for work on Friday even though they talked about taking the day off. If either of them shows up you win." -- I won that one and made the loser drink a Hazelnut with Irish Creme. The picture above is a good reenactment.

-"I bet you a Flavia that _________ will order a double quarter pounder meal at lunch. If he orders anything else on the menu you win." -- I won that one too and made the same person who lost the bet above drink another Hazelnut.

-"I bet you a Flavia that ___________ won't show up for work on the Monday after his Vegas trip." I lost this one and had to drink an Italian Roast with Creamy Topping.

Flavia Bets can be worked in with money bets too. For our office Superbowl Squares pool, the person with the final score square got to pick a Flavia for the person with the square of the opposite final score (i.e. if the opposing teams had each other's scores). The guy who normally drinks the Hazelnut with Irish Crème lost that one and you should've seen his face when he was forced to drink a Sumatra without cream or sugar.

Recommendation: the next time somebody tells you to "put your money where your mouth is", you can tell them "put your mouth where my Flavia is."

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.