The Big Championship - Round 2!

Round 2 - Starbucks Narino

I got sidetracked, I apologise! Now that the pleasantries are out of the way lets get onto the next round of the big championship. This weeks challenger and competing against last weeks Costa Espresso Coffee, is Starbucks Narino Coffee. There is a lot to be said for Starbucks and their coffee's, most of the time they are over priced and not to standard in my opinion, although they do put in a fair amount of effort in supplying coffee to the people. That being said the ground coffee they sell always seems to smell divine!

Narino Coffee has a smooth flowing taste that just makes the taste buds tingle. Along with that, the smell of the ground coffee in the bag and the fact that when it is brewing, makes you just stop and start randomly smelling the air (Like a dog at a park!). Although it is smooth and has a great smell, this coffee falls hard on the front that its actual taste is just 'meh'! When I opened the packet I thought 'wow this coffee is going to be bursting with flavour', although that statement couldn't have been more wrong. Adding to that is a lingering bitterness on the tongue that does not give a great after taste. Lets dive in more shall we!

The Bitterness of this coffee, is not intense or overly horrible. You first sense the bitterness after you swallow, leaving your mouth in a dry and unappealing way. Yet this was not enough to put me off or make me stop drinking it. The bitterness is more of a low lingering, dry sort, but not to long lasting. This alone makes me not hate the coffee but does put a dampener on it.

The Richness is just the pitfall of this coffee! Don't get me wrong the coffee has a flavour (Obviously), it just isn't the full-bodied, rich and bursting flavour that I would expect. Although a credit to it is the smoothness. As much as this contradicts the bitterness slightly, they don't cross paths. The bitterness hits after you swallow, were as the smoothness appears as you take a sip into your mouth.

The Aroma is where this coffee really excels! The smell that radiates from this coffee is just utterly divine! I had left this coffee in my car overnight just so I wouldn't forget to review it, and the smell the next morning getting into my car!!! Wow I opened the door and it was like a wave of 10 intense coffee shops hit me, and it was beautiful (I want a coffee smelling air freshener for my car... if you can get these tell me!). Now moving on to the judging section, which I'm sure most people are interested in!

Let me welcome JOHNNY BEAN and THE BEANESSEE TWO!!!

Bitterness - 3 out of 5 Beans

Richness - 2 out of 5 Beans

Aroma - 4 out of 5 Beans

**A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.**

The Big Championship - Round 1!

Round 1 - Costa Espresso!

Happy Monday everyone! Hopefully the last time I ever say that! Sorry for the delay, I don't really have much of an excuse bar getting caught up on Arrow, Flash, Supernatural and other TV shows over the weekend and getting abit sidetracked. But watching them gave me a great idea to blog about for the next couple of weeks (first ever topic! I'm so excited! Woop Woop!). Most of the people reading my blog are from the United Kingdom and according to the analytics tracker on the site, also from parts of America and Ireland (I'm shocked it has actually reached far!). But that is great becuase we we all share the same major coffee shops.

So getting down to my idea, I'm going to go out and challenge all the coffee shops and compare them for the world (or small amount of people that care) to see! The plan is to go into each of these coffee shops, have a coffee or 2 depending on how quickly I am able to write up some notes, then buy some of their own ground coffee and try it using my normal method as well. Meaning I get an all round feel for how the coffee of the shop tastes and should taste. All these results are going to be published on Sunday as usual (hopefully!) and will be non-bias and completely based of my tastes alone, although atleast it will be fair. So without further adieu, the first coffee shop to step into the ring, give it up for COSTA!

Costa Espresso coffee is packed with flavour and a delightful aroma to go with, a smell which a coffee shop would expect to have. The flavour of the coffee really hits the tongue and fills the mouth with an intense impact, and the aroma from the ground coffee is so divine and the slow roasting is what has produced that great smell. These quality's are both great, bursting with flavour and an aroma that makes my senses tingle, yet this coffee is just not up to the quality I would expect for a major coffee shop. The unwelcoming after taste not to mention the dry tongue feeling that you get after taking a few sips are not great for a coffee you are paying a lot of money for. That all being said the coffee is nice and with a touch of sugar (which I don't take, I'm sweet enough!) could be fairly enjoyable, but lets dive in deeper.

The Bitterness is its major downfall. It hits as soon as you have swallowed, leaving you with an intensely bitter after taste and a dry tongue to rival sandpaper. As much as the coffee fills your mouth with flavour for the few seconds that it is in there, that flavour quickly betrays you, turning bitter and leaving a dry feeling which lingers far longer than the rich flavour. Making this its biggest downfall.

The Richness is great (not fantastic but better than mediocre), yet as explained above, this lasts for no longer than a few seconds before betraying you. Although in that time this coffee's flavour really blasts around your mouth. It has your typical coffee flavour with a burst of intense sensation which really gets the senses on the tongue going. Yet I would say this is not great for your non intense coffee drinker, although would be good for the morning get me out the door to work coffee drinker!

The Aroma is 50/50, meaning that half of it is great and amazing, when your smelling the ground beans and they are pulling the senses in and making your mouth water with the smell. Then the other half being when the coffee is brewed, this is the complete opposite effect and basically terrible, the smell basically vanishes and their is no pulling on the senses or mouth watering, it is just 'meh'.

As I said I was catching up on TV as my excuse I think it only fitting I use an introduction from one. So let me introduce The WINBEANS and BEANTIEL!

Bitterness - 1 out of 5 Beans

Richness - 3 out of 5 Beans

Aroma - 3 out of 5 Beans

**A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.** 

Sweet Sweet Brown!

Old Brown Java!

I have a bit more to cover this week, so lets get started. I have had a few people ask me about the rating system and how I rate the coffee's, It's simple, the categories are Bitterness, Richness and Aroma. Each of these are rated out of 5, Bitterness is rated on 1 being really Bitter and 5 being little to no bitterness, Richness is done by 1 being not very rich in flavour and 5 being full of flavour and Aroma is done the same by 1 being not very fulfilling to 5 being you want to shove your face in it. Now these are very rough evaluations on the ratings, there is a lot more thought and process goes into it but this is a simplistic view on it.

Now moving on to the most important part, THE COFFEE! This weeks coffee is Old Brown Java, and this coffee has no hidden speciality to it, its just pure java at the heart. This coffee gets its name Old Brown Java because the coffee is matured, giving it a very intense and pure coffee taste along with smell.

The lack of Bitterness in this matured coffee is interesting, I would have thought a matured coffee to have a lot more bitterness to it. You seem to get the bitter sense after you swallow leaving you with a very (and I mean minute (my-nute for the dyslexics)) slight lingering of bitterness on the tongue. This makes it a lovely combination with the Rich and intense matured flavour.

The Richness of this matured coffee is definitely top notch. Even from the smell of the coffee you can tell that it is intense and full of flavour. This is not me saying that it is a very strong coffee and unappealing for the one off coffee drinker, this coffee has a strange combination of intense, full-bodied, smooth and inviting while maintaining very little bitterness to disrupt your taste buds. This coffee is so smooth to drink that I have had a few cups black without milk just to try it, and you wouldn't believe how easy it is to drink (Very easy encase you couldn't believe it).

On to my favourite section the Aroma! The aroma you get of the coffee from the bag is intense and even smells as though it would be matured, although this seems to fade once you make the coffee. That intense and matured smell that you got from the bag vanished, leaving behind a natural coffee smell with a slightly inviting sense to it, making you want to take sip after sip. I love it!

Now I would say I'm running out of ways to introduce my judges ... but I'm not. Welcome the BEANS GOT TALENT JUDGES!

Bitterness - 4 out of 5 Beans

Richness - 4 out of 5 Beans

Aroma - 4 out of 5 Beans

**A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.**

The Crema the Coffee... The Crema the Taste!

Lavazza Super Crema Coffee

Sunday again already! These weeks are beginning to fly in a lot more than I would like (A slow time super power would be good about now!). With work at the moment taking over most aspects of my life, trying to write a post for Wednesday seems to be near impossible. Okie dokie enough ranting, I was asked again to review a persons favourite coffee (I know I'm still shocked I'm getting asked!), so that's what I'm going to do.

Lavazza Super Crema Coffee is deserving of its name, this coffee really is creamy. Even though it is suppose to be an espresso styled coffee, there seems to be very little indication that it is. The coffee from the moment you open the packet has a creamy/chocolaty smell to it and that continues into the taste of the coffee.

The Bitterness of this coffee is basically non-existent and is really only evident at the moment the coffee touches your tongue, after that moment your mouth is filled with this lovely, smooth, creamy chocolate tasting liquid. This is very interesting for an espresso styled coffee as the amount of Bitterness should, in my opinion, be a lot higher or at least linger on the tongue afterwards, this coffee doesn't do that.

The Richness of this coffee comes from the pure creamy flavour that fills and confuses your taste buds. I can honestly say that while I was drinking this coffee I thought that I had put cream into it instead of milk, it was that creamy. The creamy taste of this coffee combined with the lack of bitterness, gives your taste buds a smooth fulfilling sensation every time you take a drink. All these aspects mean that you could drink this coffee all day without ever really feeling like you are drinking coffee.

The Aroma of this coffee is a lot different from the previous coffee's I have reviewed, given that yes the coffee normally will have an earthy smell, or a chocolaty smell or something of that regard, I have never had a coffee smell creamy. When you sit and smell the coffee (yes I do... what of it!) you will just get the normal chocolaty coffee smell but if you be patient and focus on the smells you will find that there is a creamy sensation coming from the beans. That really amazed me about this coffee, and to be honest it left me a bit baffled but wanting to try it, and I'm glad I did.

Well Ive been really into my anime recently and One Piece at the moment ... OMG ... So give it up for THE COFFEE BEAN PIRATES!!!

Bitterness - 5 out of 5 Beans

Richness - 4 out of 5 Beans

Aroma - 4 out of 5 Beans

**A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.**