Coffee (48 reviews)
Illy Issimo Latte Macchiato
When I was in college, I had a friend called Chad. Chad worked for Student Associates, which basically meant if there was a promo going on from an outside company, he would be on of the people to work it. Handing out products and flyers and just doing promotion was his gig. Kind of like a hired street team, if you are familiar with that term, a term which I feel died out as soon as people started spending time online on Facebook and Twitter and not on the streets where things used to happen.
One of the companies that he did stuff for was Starbucks. They had him handing out cases of their new Frappuccino in the smallest possible containers. Those lil' baby 4oz containers like V8 comes in. 4 ounces? Am I a child? Nay, I am a man who wears child sized clothing.
So Chad took a case of the stuff and gave it to my roommate, Evan, and I and we didn't know where to start, so we decided to just jump head first into the case and destroyed about half that first day, got sick, and struggled to finish the second half.
This Illy Latte Macchiato tastes a lot like that but less sweet and more coffee taste. It's teetering on the edge of my dislike for coffee and my like for coffee tasting things. It's pretty good. There is just the right amount of sugar to offset the otherwise strong coffee taste. I think this is a good product for people like me that don't hate the taste of coffee in things, but don't like coffee itself, all the way up to coffee lovers.
Good job, Illy. You've got a huge market.
- Website
- http://www.illyusa.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Sugar
- Categories
- Coffee
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 5/20/2011
- Comments
- 1 Comment. Leave a comment.
Bai Low Calorie Antioxidant Infusion Congo Pear
Pears. Pfft. Apple's crappy cousin who always stops by at the worst times and stays way too long and asks you thinks like, "Hey, are you still into that band Bush?". It's not so much insulting as it is a reminder to how dumb you once were and how long it's been since you talked to them. Also, do they still like Bush? Were they asking you because they had something new to inform you about? I don't think Gavin Rossdale has anything new to say about Bush. So pears...
I somehow ended up with this pear drink and I have been reluctant to drink it. Since I'm taking a brief hiatus on pop, I figured today is the day. I cracked it open and liked it. With most of the Bai drinks, it's got the very Stevia undertone with a legit fruit flavor as described. The smell of pear, which never bothered me, is very present when you smell the drink. It's a 50/50 toss up between who wins, sweetness or fruitness. Oh, fruitness isn't a word? I'm sorry, who is reviewing this drink? My cousin? Hey cuz, remember Sponge? That'll get him to shut up for a minute.
This is good, although not the best Bai drink I've had, thus, I will/have rate/rated it as such. If you love pears, you will like this drink, but even though you love pears, you too might be a bit disappointed about the fighting between the flavors. You might want really pear since there aren't a lot of pear drinks out there. I don't know what you want. This might be it. You can't really go wrong with this company, so give it a whirl. You won't be disappointed.
- Website
- http://www.drinkbai.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Erythritol
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 5/17/2011
- Comments
- 1 Comment. Leave a comment.
Bai Antioxidant Infusion Jamaica Blueberry
Recently I got to tour a coffee plantation. After trying Bai I was pumped to see (and try) coffee fruit. Unfortunately it wasn't the season for the fruit, so they weren't ripe yet. Of course that didn't stop me from picking what was available from the plants and the ground. Here is what I discovered: A) Not ripe coffee fruit just tastes like your run of the mill plant you would pull out of the ground. B) The dried out fruit on the ground tastes like old wood. Both were gross.
Bai apparently knows the proper time to harvest their coffee fruit because this does not taste anything like a poinsettia or some old Amish furniture. It's sweet, fruity and the stuff dreams are made out of. This really tastes like I mashed up a whole mess of blueberries and filtered out all the seeds and chunks. Do you realize how many blueberries that would take? I bet at least a five-gallon bucket of them would be needed to fill this bottle. Bai means business. Don't forget that. Ever.
- Website
- http://www.drinkbai.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Evaporated Cane Juice
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 5/6/2011
Simpson Spring Coffee Soda
This smells like dust. I'm not exaggerating, it smells like someone went around the house and dumped a bunch of dust in the bottle. It's really gross.
I had really high hopes for this. I love coffee, and I love soda so I thought this would be awesome. I was so wrong. The smell was actually better than the taste. Monet said this reminded her of instant coffee that has been left out in the sun for a day. To me, it tastes like someone dumped coffee into a bottle of Pepsi.
I tried to give this to my friend Eva after she saw everyone else recoil after drinking it. She refused, but I at least she smelled it. In her words, "It smells bad and like nothing I want to drink."
- Website
- http://www.simpsonspring.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Sugar and/or Dextrose and Fructose
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Derek Neuland on 4/26/2011
- Comments
- 1 Comment. Leave a comment.
Bai Low Calorie Antioxidant Infusion Sumatra Dragonfruit
Every day when I go to work I have to walk past a coffee shop. I do not like coffee, but I do enjoy the smell. It's not one of those "Oh, it brings back so many memories." things, it just smells good to me. I don't want to turn into one of those kids that are way too young to be hooked on the stuff, though. I despise people who say "Oh, I need my coffee," or "I had like 6 cups of coffee today," or the classic "Don't get me wrong, it's not like I haven't had coffee in years and am, for some reason, holding a grudge. I try a sip here and there and it just never gets me.
Here's where I feel I can blend in with society. This Bai stuff has been nothing but incredible. The fruit of the coffee bean can be used to add antioxidants to juice, tons of them according to a (probably biased) scale on the side of the bottle. This dragonfruit flavor is no exception. The Stevia does a good job of not masking the flavor and the flavor itself is a nice, fruity flavor.
I don't see myself drinking coffee in the near or far future, but I do see myself drinking Bai for many years to come. Does that mean that I am going to go into coffee shops with a couple bottles of it, pull out my laptop and work for 8 hours while people are standing next to me awaiting seats in the worst laid out establishment ever? Absolutely not! You can have your seat, addicts.
- Website
- http://www.drinkbai.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Stevia
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 4/10/2011
Bai Low Calorie Antioxidant Infusion Costa Rica Clementine
Coffee as a fruit? The first thing I (unfortunately) thought of was that monkey poop coffee. Oh, you've never heard of it? Some monkey somewhere eats coffee fruit, poops out the coffee beans, and people go crazy-go-nuts over it. It's the world's most expensive coffee. It comes from a monkey's butt and people clamor over it. Gross. I don't like coffee, or things that come out of butts, but this, luckily for me, is neither. It's pretty fantastic. It's got a sweet Stevia taste, but it really allows the clementine flavor to shine through. It's very fruity and very inviting. It's got a great smell and I could easily drink a straight 40 of this stuff. It goes down really smooth and 16.9 ounces is only 10 calories. This is downright healthy for you and is actually 100% of your daily vitamin C intake.
I hate oranges, but love orange juice. I know it's stupid, but there is just so much work and I've got better things to do than peel an orange all friggin' day.
- Website
- http://www.drinkbai.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Erythritol
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Mike Literman on 3/22/2011
Bai Low Calorie Antioxidant Infusion Panama Peach
Today I spent the day in the studio recording with my band. It was awesome and we had a lot of fun. An added bonus was that we were locked away and we missed the complete annoyance of the St Patrick's Day parade on the streets below. We wrapped up a little while ago and I was walking to my car when I noticed some drunken jerk had completely trashed the side of my car (there was a video camera in the parking lot and the driving was definitely a drunk parade goer). So here I sit, hating drunken idiots even more, waiting for the cops. What better way to pass this time then with a drink review?
Bai is turning out to be a pretty incredible company. They use the fruit of the coffee plant in their drinks for its antioxidant properties. You may expect that to be gross, but it doesn't taste like brewed coffee. It actually tastes like a really fruity tea. This one specifically tastes like tea with butt-loads of fresh peach juice added to it. It's good enough that it's helping me calm down. It is also so good that I didn't even realize that this was the diet version until I was halfway done. Yep, sweetened with erythritol and I didn't even realize. That gives it two thumbs up from me.
- Website
- http://www.drinkbai.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Erythritol
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 3/20/2011
Bai Antioxidant Infusion Mango Kauai
Did you know that when coffee is harvested it's a fruit? I certainly had no idea. Apparently it's a fruit and coffee companies discard the skin and the fruit, only keeping the center bean to make the caffeinated drink that billions of people are obsessed with. This may be the most interesting thing that I've learned thus far while being involved with Thirsty Dudes. I personally think coffee is swill. When chocolate is introduced into the mix it's not so bad, but regular coffee is grossville station. This made me very wary of this line of drinks. Coffee and fruit? Ick.
I decided to try this one on for size during dinner tonight. I twisted off the cap and took my customary sniff. Surprisingly it smelled like sweet fruit with no coffee smell to note. For the record I do think that coffee smells incredible, I just can't get down with the taste. I took my first sip and learned some even more interesting facts. The fruit of the coffee plant does not taste a damn thing like what the masses know as coffee. It was as if there was a parade in my mouth. I let the taste linger on my tongue for a bit, so it was a fairly long parade. I'm sure there were people on both sides (getting more and more annoyed by the second) waiting for the parade to end so they could get to their destinations.
The bottle says it's mango flavored, but the label lists both mango and pineapple as ingredients. It really tastes like a perfect blend of those two fruits. My brain wants me to think that the drink is gritty for some reason, but it definitely is not. I think I'm just imagining stray coffee grounds in my juice.
The added bonus of this great tasting drink is that coffee fruit is apparently the ultimate super-fruit. Pomegranate has 65 ORAC units of antioxidants. Acai has 100. Coffee fruit has a shocking 4,000 ORAC units of antioxidants. Any oxidants that were in my body prior to ingesting this have surely been banished to the depths of coffee hell. By coffee hell, I mean some terribly artsy coffee shop where all of the patrons and employees are the most pretentious group of people to ever be assembled. The walls are adorned with terrible art that they think is the deepest thing ever. In their minds they are about to turn the art world on their ear. Really they are just rebelling against their parents, since they still live in their basement, even though they are in their mid forties.
- Website
- http://www.drinkbai.com
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Evaporated Cane Juice
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 3/14/2011
Pacific Simply Coffee Latte
I seem to be reviewing way more coffee drinks than I expected to. This one’s not too bad. It has tons of milk and tons of sugar. Just what the non-coffee drinker ordered. It tastes like coffee flavored toffees. Latte, that means coffee for kids, right? Is it considered a gateway drink to harder coffees? Are there programs at elementary schools to warn against this? They tell horror stories of kids pushing lattes on their classmates on the playground. Then it's them in coffee shops trying mocha on the weekends with their friends. It then cuts to them working in a cubicle downing obscene amounts of black coffee just to make it through the day. A video like that would steer me away from the caffeinated devil.
- Website
- http://www.pacificfoods.com/
- Country
- United States
- Sweetener
- Organic Evaporated Cane Juice
- Categories
- Coffee
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 1/28/2011
Nestle Coffee Crisp
Living on the border of Canada has its advantages. One of them is the awesomeness that is Canadian candy. Seriously, they put the U.S. to shame. When I was in high school/college I knew a ton of people that would take trips up to the Great White North to stock up on confectionery supplies, as well as a lower drinking age and strip clubs. Nowadays there are a ton of convenient stores and gas stations started carrying one of those three.
Even though (for the millionth time) I'm not a big coffee fan, I do enjoy Coffee Crisp. This evening some friends and I went up to Canada to eat at Licks Home Burgers. They seriously have some of the best veggie burgers and onion rings I've ever tasted. We stopped at a corner store to check out the beverage scene up there, and my eyes got pretty huge when I saw this in the cooler. It tastes pretty much like you would expect; chocolate milk with a hint of coffee. It's smooth, but it somehow leaves the impression of the grittiness of the candy bar. Okay it tastes like a liquefied candy bar. Fans of Canadian candy and chocolate milk take note.
- Website
- http://www.nestleusa.com
- Country
- Canada
- Sweetener
- Sugar
- Rating
- Reviewed By
- Jason Draper on 1/20/2011
- Comments
- 1 Comment. Leave a comment.