Driving and Coffee

So I'm on a road trip, out to visit my sister in Iowa. It's about a 9.5 hour drive...which meant, even though I was splitting it roughly in half I would need some coffee.

I took the classic prepare-but-still-plan-to-forage approach: I brought coffee with me at the start (Good old Extra Large Dunkin Donuts with cream&sugar) and planned to hit up gas station coffee along the way.

This plan worked out pretty well. The whole trick was (and is, on a long drive) to pace oneself. Near-constant sipping will keep a steady flow of caffeine into your system, giving you maximum use of the coffee as well as preventing you from running out of the juices of life too quickly.

I found an interesting item on one of my stops for coffee... I think it was at a BP just inside Illinois... it was something to the effect of an Extreme Cappuccino. See, it came out of the machine, but it claimed to have triple the caffeine and triple the flavor...hmmm...had to try it.

It definitely did make me a little jittery, and it did have a way-too-intense vanilla flavor, which had a funky after taste. BUT it was sweet, and kept me from dozing on the last leg of my trip. Not something I'd recommend if you had any other options...but...not bad if you want a break from the over-cooked standard brew coffee.

Tune in next week for my review of the Mean Bean Caffeine Lounge in Delaware, Ohio!

Jason Does a Taste Test of Starbuck's VIA

I was amused to find this post from Coffee Cup News in my Bloglines today, because I had just been in a Starbucks (for the first time in MONTHS) just the other night and saw the VIA instant coffee.

Between you and me, I think Starbucks is generally only a step or two above instant anyway...so I don't really plan on checking this out for myself. But if you've got ten minutes to kill, Jason does a blind taste test and gives you his thoughts not only on the VIA, but instant in general.

Talk about Falling Down on the Job

So for a wide variety of reasons, I haven't been the best coffee blogger ever. Why? you may ask. And I'll tell you...I don't know. It probably has something to do with a temporary feeling of not wanting to open a coffee shop, and the subsequent putting energy into my job. There was a big chunk of time without reliable internet. And really, a lack of stick-to-it-iveness. I allowed myself to get discouraged by a lack of constantly rising numbers.

But screw that. Coffee is great. And I need to write about it. So HA. Watch this space Friday for the new post.