coffee

Green Mountain Coffee Tasting

24 Comments

This evening Hubz and I headed out to the Green Mountain Coffee Visitor Center at the Waterbury Train Station for a tasting of Green Mountain Coffee’s limited edition Spring Revival Blend. We began with a nice reception filled with a variety of yummy looking goodies most of which were unfortunately not vegan.

Aren’t all of these desserts beautiful? I wish that they had been vegan but at least they were nice to look at.  Among the beautiful desserts and other savory dishes we found one we could eat, a mushroom bruschetta- it was amazing!

After the reception it was time to get ready for the tasting which you could view live on UStream. We sipped some water and waited around at the nicely decorated tasting tables.

Wasn’t Hubz looking pretty sharp in his new(ish) shirt?

Hubby and I both really enjoyed this coffee and the Hubz isn’t event a coffee drinker! Here is the UStream Video and you can hear my muffled comments which were kindly repeated by our hosts.

We were sent home with a few goodie bags that included a sample of the Spring Revival Coffee to try at home.  I also received one bag that had K-Cups for the office.  Inside the bags there was this awesome fair trade coffee sticker as well as information about the coffee and World Fair Trade Day (May 8, 2010).

Also included were step by step cards on how to do your own tasting at home as well as information on everyday brewing.

Since Green Mountain Coffee was kind enough to send me home with an extra bag of goodies I thought who better than to give it to but one of my readers? So if you would like a chance to win a Green Mountain Coffee bag of goodies which includes a bag of ground Limited Edition Spring Revival, a fair trade coffee sticker, coffee tasting cards and a few informational pieces keep on reading to see how you can enter.

To enter: (Please enter by noon onMay 8th, 2010 – World Fair Trade Day)- GIVEAWAY CLOSED! – THE WINNER IS ENTRY #11: ANGIE BISHOP

There are a number of ways to enter however for each to qualify you MUST leave a SEPARATE comment for each individual entry.

1. Visit the Green Mountain Coffee Site and let me know of something new you learned or a coffee that interest you.

2. Follow Green Mountain Coffee on twitter

3. Become a fan of Green Mountain Coffee on Facebook

4. Follow me on Twitter.

5. Become a fan of Cook.Vegan.Lover. on Facebook.

6. Tweet about this giveaway “I want to win Fair Trade Ltd. Ed. Spring Revival @GreenMntCoffee on @cookveganlover  http://wp.me/pFVWo-J0”

7. Blog about this giveaway.

'SNice- Vegan Breakfast in NYC

4 Comments

This past weekend while we were visiting the Big Apple my hubby and I met up with some of my girlfriends for breakfast at ‘SNice in Chelsea. To our disappointment we were unable to get sandwiches (which all sounded amazing) until 11am and we were too hungry to wait an hour so we decided to start with some lattes.  After sipping on our lattes for a while hubz and I decided to split the tofu scramble wrap which was not bad and pretty filling.  The GF’s went with a bagel with cream cheese and the other granola with fruit, yogurt and honey.  

Everything at ‘SNice is vegetarian and all vegan options are marked accordingly. The menu is mostly that of salads and sandwiches with bagels and breakfast sandwiches in the morning.  The place was pretty quiet for the sit in crowd until around 11am however there was always a line at the counter for take out bagels and coffee. I really would like to return during lunch ours to try one of their yummy salads or sandwiches.  There is also a location in Brooklyn which I understand has a similar menu. 

Delicious Soy Latte

 

Tofu Scramble Wrap

Review: SoyGo Coffee Creamer

3 Comments

SoyGo sent me a sample of their coffee creamer to try.  This coffee cream is great for people on the go because you can just throw it in your bag or purse.  When you have coffee at work or out on the town you can pull this out and put it in your coffee.  I don’t know about coffee shops where you live but many that I visit either don’t have soy milk or charge extra for soy milk to be added. 

Click to View SoyGo Website


I bring these on trips with me so that I can add a little creamer to my (usually) horrible cup of hotel coffee.  I also love that it gives coffee a nice sweet flavor and isn’t as heavy as liquid soy creamer.  I am not a huge creamer fan usually but I love this when I am craving something sweet.

Review: Caffe Ibis

1 Comment

 

Click to Visit Caffe Ibis Website

Caffe Ibis, located in Logan Utah, was great and sent me four samples of their organic coffees. The four coffees I tried were:
1. Organic Mayan Sunrise Blend- I really loved this coffee it was a great morning coffee that is a blend of dark and light roasts.
2. Organic Aztec Blend- what I loved about this coffee was that it is smooth, sweet and spicy.
3. Organic French Roast Blend- this coffee is rich caramelly, and smooth.
4. Organic Highland Sumatra Dark- This is my absolute favorite of the 4- it is a light french roast that is full bodied and has light acidity.

I drink a lot of coffee and I loved these coffees. The other thing that influences my coffee purchases are the companies ethical practices. Caffee Ibis has great ethical practices that are both socially and environmentally responsible:

Caffe Ibis Mission

“Our mission for thirty years has been to be “unbeatable for quality and freshness, while supporting social and environmental responsibility.” Caffe Ibis endeavors to:

1. Provide customers with mountain grown and mountain roasted specialty arabica coffee with unbeatable quality and freshness.
2. Provide due respect and fair compensation for the people whose labor brings us our exceptional organic coffees.
3. Respect and safeguard the environment that provides the extraordinary growing conditions true specialty organic coffee requires
4. Utilize buying practices that support shade grown and organic coffee, a sustainable coffee future, and social and environmental responsibility.
5. Honor and respect our partners in this endeavor, and the employees and customers of Caffe Ibis Coffee.

We believe that by adhering to the above principles that we will show returns that justify the costs incurred in presenting our goods and services along with the additional costs of future growth.” Source

To find out where you can get yourself Caffe Ibis Coffee you can visit their website or you can order direct from their website. 

Disclaimer: Caffe Ibis provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review in return for the free product.

12 Days of Giveaways – Barrington Coffee Roasters

9 Comments

 

Result:2- The Winner is Sarah from See Sarah Eat

________________________________________________________________________________

Barrington Coffee Roasting Company sent me some great samples of their coffee.    One of the things that I love about this company comes from their mission statement:

We applaud the individuals that grow our coffees by paying dearly for the fruits of their labor and singing their praises on our website. We believe that directly supporting quality driven producers is the ideal manner in which to promote sound, responsible growing practices, economic sustainability, and ultimately the best quality coffee.

Not only does the Barrington Coffee Roasting Company have great ethical practices but it has great coffee.  If you would like your chance to try their Berkshire Blend leave me a comment by December 9,2009 at 8pm. Sorry this giveaway is only open to US residence.

Blogger Disclosure: Cooking For a Vegan Lover received this product free from Barrington Coffee Roasters

12 Days of Giveaways Day 4- Green Mountain Coffee

26 Comments

True Random Number Generator

Min: Max:

Result: 11 – The winner is Meagan!

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

____________________________________________________________________________

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters recently sent me a sampler pack of their Fairtrade Organic coffees.  Maybe it’s because I’m from Vermont but I love GMCR and have a few cups a day a week at work (my favorite is the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle).   The new (to me) flavors I was able to try were:

  • Fair Trade Organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe: Prized by connoisseurs for its delicate fragrance of orange blossoms, with an elegantly sweet and clean finish 
  • Fair Trade Organic French Roast: Dark and complex. Roasted and blended for bold but sweet intensity. 
  • Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve: Offers lush, ripe fruit notes and syrupy richness. 

My favorite of these three is the Sumatran Reserve it has great flavor and is just delicious.  I am giving you the chance to try this wonderful Fair Trade Organic Sumatran Reserve- please leave a comment by 8am on December 8, 2009 if you would like to win.

Blogger Disclosure: Cooking For a Vegan Lover received this product free from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

Also check out my recipe  for Pulled ‘Shroom Sandwich featured on this Meatless Monday here.