it’s never too early for iced coffee!  Obviously the summer months are the best time to enjoy a nice big glass of iced coffee but we’ve started the party early here in Jersey.  Gorgeous weather this past weekend and forecasts of 80 degrees have us stocking up on ice.  So far we’ve made a nice pitcher of our Iced Coffee Blend and a second pitcher of Dark Costa Rican Tarrazu.

What’s your favorite coffee to drink iced?  Most people prefer dark roast coffees – they tend to hold their flavor longer as the ice melts.  Lighter roasts and flavored coffees can be delicious ice cold as well, but it helps to brew the coffee stronger than usual.  Another trick is to fill ice cube trays with coffee instead of water.

Feel free to comment on what coffees you love iced or any tricks you have for making that perfect batch of cool, refreshing iced coffee.  Anyone use CBD coffee for iced lattes and cappuccinos?

You may be wondering what Mad Marchness flavored coffee tastes like.  Names like French Vanilla and Hawaiian Hazelnut are easy.  Even coffees like Jamaican Me Crazy and Vermont Maple Crunch are fairly easy to infer what they taste like.  But what the heck does Mad Marchness taste like?

For that answer we need to take a trip… to the bar.

For many people, St. Patrick’s Day is equated with drinking.  While I am not Irish, I will admit that going to the bar after the parade was my favorite part of the holiday after I turned 21.  For me, it just wasn’t a successful St. Patrick’s Day without drinking at least one Irish Car Bomb.  What is an Irish Car Bomb?  It’s a beer cocktail of immense magnitude.  My dad refers to the drink as a boilermaker — dropping a shot of liquor into a beer.  What distinguishes an Irish Car Bomb are the ingredients:  You start with a shot glass of Irish Cream (usually Bailey’s brand)  with a layer of  Irish Whiskey floating across the top (typically Jameson Irish Whiskey but it’s your choice  — I know better than to argue with someone over which Irish Whiskey is best).  Next you drop the shot glass into a nice big glass of Guinness Stout and drink it “bomb” style… that means chugging it as fast as you can.

Mad Marchness is a wicked little combination of Chocolate Stout flavor, Irish Cream flavor and yes, Whiskey flavor.  It won’t get you drunk, but it also won’t leave you hung over.  When we first tested our coffee version of an Irish Car Bomb we were very surprised at how well chocolate, liqueur, and whiskey flavors complimented coffee.  Even people who never had the alcoholic beverage still enjoyed their Mad Marchness.  Who would have thought that a popular bar drink would make for such a popular coffee?  Especially a bar drink that is so intensely delicious at night then immensely regrettable the next morning.  Mad Marchness has become so popular we had to also offer it as a tea.

Try Mad Marchness soon, it will soon disappear from the website again until next year.  Just remember, if you’re going to drink it “bomb style” let it cool first.  Chugging scalding hot coffee is NOT recommended.

Ever notice that green gets all the attention on St. Patrick’s Day?

Yes, we know it’s called the Emerald Isle and there’s no denying that it’s great fun to celebrate the holiday decked out in all green. Drinking green milk shakes and green beer, and eating snacks mysteriously dyed green has become a strange but festive tradition.

But green, white and orange are equally represented on the flag of Ireland – where are these other colors? Why do white and orange get left out of the fun??

Call us hippies if you want, but we believe in equality — Our Irish Pride Tea is Green, White and Orange!

GREEN: There are many green teas, but Dragonwell Lung Ching is often considered the quintessential green tea. Full flavored, with less of a vegetal taste than other greens, Dragonwell is the perfect base for our Irish Pride tea.

WHITE: Next we mix in our premium Peony White tea. White teas are made by picking only the youngest leaves and buds then steaming and drying immediately, before oxidation can occur. This process leaves the tea with a subtle, earthy flavor. Mixed with the Dragonwell green tea, Peony White makes for a balanced cup — perfect for anyone who is used to hearty black teas but wants to try something new.

ORANGE: The final piece to our St. Paddy’s Day puzzle is orange. Real orange peel and a splash of orange flavor make the green and white teas come alive.

The key to a truly great tea blend is simplicity. Sure we could have added random flower petals, extra flavors and maybe some herbs you never heard of which would raise the price and “ooh factor” of the tea but add little to no actual taste. Much like the flag of Ireland, green, white and orange are all you need.

Represent all your true colors with Irish Pride Tea now before it’s too late. This tea is available on the web for a limited time — unlike that green food dye, that stuff stains!

Many of our Facebook friends have been asking about the Ekobrew K-Cup reusable filter.  One of the big questions is whether or not they’re easy to clean.  The makers of Ekobrew use its ability to be quickly cleaned as one of its main selling points, but we weren’t going to simply take their word for it — We put it to the test.

The first thing we noticed is that the bottom of the Ekobrew has no cracks, crevices or smalls spaces for wet grinds to get crammed in, trapped forever.  This is very different from other brands we tested – brands that left us rinsing, re-rinsing, and rinsing some more.  After all, the little cups are too small to scrub so we had to scrape the grinds out of the cracks with a fork like some sorta early primate that just learned to use tools.

Next we filled our Ekobrew and made a quick cup of coffee on our office Keurig (yes, even we have a Keurig but if you call us out on it we will claim it’s only for research purposes).  The photo below is the Ekobrew immediately after brewing, filled with wet grinds.

Step 1 to cleaning the Ekobrew: 1 quick tap over the trash (or storage container if you reuse your spent grinds for  composting) to get the majority of the grinds out.

As you can see, there is a layer of grinds still on the bottom.  Worried?  Don’t be…

Step 2: Rinse.  I held the Ekobrew under the faucet while Marcie timed me.  I let the water fall down into the cup first, then turned it around a few times letting the water flow through the mesh on the sides and bottom of the cup.  The filter was completely clean after 25.5 seconds.

Completely clean in under 30 seconds with no scrubbing or scraping with make-shift tools necessary.  That’s not too bad, especially if you’re like me in the morning –  Before I get that first cup of coffee I make early primates look like Einstein.

I know it was long time ago , but we had a Chili cook off back in October and boy was it fun! We had a fixins’ bar with white cheddar cheese, sliced avacado, green onions, sour cream, fresh limes, Fritos and tortilla chips!

This is the chili that took the win. Mike, our flavor czar, made a General Tso’s chili, it was awesome. Sweet, spicy and just plain amazing.

Anthony  made a BBQ vegetarian chili. It had a ton of layered flavors and didn’t taste a thing like it was vegetarian.

Niki made a pumpkin chili! She used pumpkin beer, our own pumpkin spice coffee and pumpkin puree. This is one of the chili’s that was empty at the end of the contest.

Diane made a white grilled chicken chili that was really tasty…her’s went super fast.

Here is Meg’s Vegan Bulgar Wheat Chili. It was chock full of veggies and super spicy. Meg made so much chili it overflowed her crock pot!

Josh made his Dad’s famous chili. This one was emptied in no time.

David who made chili for the first time ever made a red chicken chili.

Here is Molly’s tofu chili…she was not very happy with the results…since it came out more like a soup.

Marcie made a traditional beef chili using beer, coco and Dark Costa Rican.