Via yeah-yeah

[Rick Dreher]

New flavour, coffee hounds: French Roast.

http://www.starbucks.com/coffee/via/instant-coffee/french-roast

Nope, haven't gotten my hands on it yet.

Cheers,

Rick

[Jeffs Eleven]

Did you try the vanilla? bleh! The Xmas blend was good

[Curt Peterson]

Rick – your coffee comments probably span close to 10 years on various boards by now. I love it! Glad to know I'm not the only one with a backcountry coffee addiction :) I genuinely hope you find the perfect cup in the woods someday before your knees refuse to take you to mountain tops.

The new Vias are pretty good. Similar to the Italian bold roast. I think all of the flavored ones are nasty, but the Bold Italian and French Roasts are good. Even in town, if you ask me. Coffee solution found as far as I'm concerned.

Now, if Costco would just carry one of the Bolds instead of just the medium roast I'd be a truly happy hiker.

[Jeff Hollis]

Just curios if anybody else on this forum roasts their own coffee? I have been doing it for awhile now and find it quite enjoying if not challenging. People say that fresh roasted is much better than the store bought because coffee becomes stale within 14 days regardless of how it is packaged. I don't know for sure that is true, I do know I had to go about 7 months without fresh roast when my roaster broke and I was never happy with any store bought coffee.

I have some new green beans from Ecuador, Guatemala, Columbia, and Ethiopia, so many choices and its time to roast.

Jeff

[D G]

I've been roasting my own coffee for about 4 years now I think. I use an iroast. I can tell the difference for sure.

sweetmarias.com (no affiliation) is THE place to go for home roasting supplies and green beans.

[Jeff Hollis]

I have an iRoast2 and use Sweet Marias as well, one of the best resources for roasting on the internet and good source for green beans. No affiliation either!

How do you do your coffee on the trail? Bring a grinder or pre-grind? How do you prepare, I use the MSR mugmate.

[D G]

I like cowboy coffee. I'd love to be able to grind on the trail but can't justify the weight of a hand grinder so I pre-grind. But my trips are typically overnights or weekend trips.

[Rick Dreher]

Hi Curt,

Guilty as charged! :-)

In the crazy juggling act with taste, efficiency, weight-bulk, fuss I've settled on Via as a nice backcountry solution. I like press coffee the best when camping, but it's really inefficient and messy so I reserve it for car camping.

Agreed on Costco! Carry something dark, for Peet's sake (yeah, shameless) you guys.

Cheers,

Rick

p.s. Just say "nein!" to flavored coffees [shudder].

[Rick Dreher]

Hi Jeff,

Yup, occasionally roast it in an air-popper and grind it up right then and there. Wonderful complexity that can't be matched! And purportedly, green beans age like wine–I've had "aged Sumatra" that's amazing.

Would like to investigate a bigger volume roaster sometime, but I'm afraid of being declared light-industrial by my neighbors.

cheers,

Rick

[Gary Dunckel]

I went to my local Starbuck's today to pick up a couple pounds of beans. The manager gave me a sample cup of a soon-to-be-released "birthday" blend. It's a special product to honor their 40th anniversary of being in business. It's an interesting bold blend of coffees from Africa, Asia, and Latin America–very tasty, if you like a strong coffee taste. The best part is that they will have it in Via form as well. It will be sold starting March 8, and it will be a limited one-time run. I plan to be there early, to score a year's supply of Birthday Blend Via…

[Rick Dreher]

Thanks to Gary's sleuthing I'm in possession of a 12-pack of Via "Tribute." It's darker and richer than the Colombian, perhaps a bit less dark than the Italian (although I don't have any handy for a side-by-side comparison) and is blended to give it a slight tanginess behind the dark-roast Sumatra. The expiration date on mine is November 2011, in case anybody wants to stock up for the summer hiking season (they say it will have a limited run).

This distracted me from trying the French roast. Next time.

Cheers,

Rick (why are my hands shaking?)

[Anonymous]

"Agreed on Costco! Carry something dark, for Peet's sake (yeah, shameless) you guys."

Oh yeah. Just imagine what Peets could do with the Via concept. I drool at the prospect.

[Anonymous]

" I think all of the flavored ones are nasty, but the Bold Italian and French Roasts are good."

Not to mention heavier.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Anyone else hear the rumors that SB's talking a sale of Peet's? Ooh…this could be an interesting sale if it happens.

[Anonymous]

"Anyone else hear the rumors that SB's talking a sale of Peet's?"

Who is SB? I didn't know anybody owned Peets. Tell me it ain't so.

[Jeffs Eleven]

Starbucks

Do they own Peets? that'd be crazy. Like Whole Foods owning Trader Joe's

[BlackHatGuy]

The two companies are reportedly in talks about a sale/merger.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

The history of Peets and SB's is actually pretty interesting to read – they are a lot more connected than most would think. If a merger really does happen it could be interesting – at least to coffee nerds like me ;-)

(I was a long time barista for many years….I live and breathe coffee!)

[Rick Dreher]

Yup, it's a tangled past. Starbucks once owned them, the sold everything but Peet's to Howard Schultz. So the original Starbucks became Peet's while Starbucks was "reborn" under Howard Schultz into what they are today. Whew!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2014528527_peets18.html

I'm able to note having been a Starbucks and a Peet's customer when they each had just one store. That was weeks and weeks ago.

Cheers,

Rick

[Casey Bowden]

>> So the original Starbucks became Peet's while Starbucks was "reborn" under Howard Schultz into what they are today. Whew!

????

Peet's started in 1966 in Berkeley. The same store is still there and a few times a month I indulge in a medium flat whole milk latte. My 80+ year old neighbor used to date Alfred Peet.

Starbucks started in 1971. The three founders knew Alfred Peet personally and bought their beans from Peet's during that first year.

[Rick Dreher]

Yup. And one of the three founders (Zev Siegl) was a teacher at my junior high school. The Peet's acquisition was in 1984:

"In 1984, the original owners of Starbucks, led by Baldwin, took the opportunity to purchase Peet's (Baldwin still works there). In 1987, they sold the Starbucks chain to Schultz's Il Giornale, which rebranded the Il Giornale outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand."

Ah, coffee.

Rick

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Coffee is such a lovely thing.

Getting my jitters on right now…ahhhhhh!

[Rick Dreher]

"Coffee is such a lovely thing."

If only this came in a wood-fired, carbon fiber & titanium version… :-)

[Anonymous]

"The history of Peets and SB's is actually pretty interesting to read – they are a lot more connected than most would think."

I'm totally familiar with the history back in the 80's. I worked with the husband of the SB VP who was sent down to help digest, er, I mean integrate Peets back in the mid 80's. It was a real culture clash back then, and I, for one, am eternally grateful that it didn't work out. It would have been the end of one of the greatest coffee traditions in the US. What I fail to see is how it would work out any better this time around. They are two totally different animals. Starbucks has pretty much gone the corporate route and produces mostly industrial quality coffee, with the exception of their Clover brewing machines, which they lifted from a small company up here in Seattle. Peets, while not quite up to the standard they had back in the late 60's/early 70's, still produces a world class product, not to mention the quiet, civilized ambience of their coffee houses, where you can actually hear yourself think as you savor an Arabian Mocha Sanani French press on a misty PNW morning. About the only benefit I see is that Peets might get access to the Clover machines and produce my dream cup of coffee, a Clover brewed Mocha Sanani, Jamaican Blue Mountain, or Kona. Other than that, I shall be profoundly depressed if the deal goes through. :(

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

I know it sounds catty but wow, Peet's can be sooooo quiet – like being in an old school library. Weird and all. I much prefer the liveliness of the SB's – but that is my preference. Where I live we have a great set of SB's in town and both are very community oriented. It depends on where one lives though…..other towns not like that.

On coffee….I like lattes. Never was much of a black coffee drinker though supposedly for years I did a great job of making it – enough that the coffehouse I ran (an indie) won many awards.

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