Feature: Tim Hwang Drinks The Entire Berkman Coffee Supply For You
Since becoming a newly-minted full time employee of the Berkman Center for Internets and Society, I’ve become obsessed with the fascinatingly ungreen and terrifyingly advanced Keurig brand line of products that dispense coffee from those plastic containers that I can only assume are filled with magical pixie dust. Luckily, Berkman boasts a huge number of flavors, and I figured that it’s obvious for self-enrichment purposes to get around to tasting them all. The copy is reliably awesome, and the flavors virtually (?) indistinguishable. USBFB features our commentary, reviews, and incisive analysis every Tuesday until we’re exhausted. No coffee left behind.
This week: ESPRESSO BLEND, which the packaging describes as “Deep, dark and dynamically rich with toasty aromatics.” Intriguing! Toasty?
Espresso Blend is perhaps one of Berkman’s most popular Keurig plastic pods. In fact, by the time of writing, the box pictured above had been completely emptied of its contents, which suggests that this deep, dark, and dynamically rich coffee is being brewed at a rate of about one cup an hour on average. That’s alot of jolts.
And, on an initial taste, it’s clear why the world’s smartest minds on the Internet prefer it: Keurig Espresso Blend is some top-shelf shit.
Using the wine-tasting standards, Espresso Blend is amazing: the taste sensation is a cosmic explosion of dark roast fiesta in your mouth. It hits heavy and bitter, to let you know that it isn’t messing around, and then pulls back to reveal some subtle undertones of buttery, oaky, and faint hints of overripe lemon.
The fragrance, while not totally “toasty” as the packaging suggests, vaguely evokes burnt pancakes and sad mornings alone in sweatpants, which isn’t altogether unpleasant, really, when you just need to get your jolt and start kicking some fat ass on work.
The appearance is black. Or blackish-brown. I don’t know. Anyways, it’s a normal coffee color.
The only downside of this Berkman offering? Finish. Two hours out on consuming Espresso Blend will deliver some truly nasty career-prospect-killing coffee breath. Luckily, it’s fair trade, which I guess makes me feel a little better about it.
Rating: A-, truly the chartreuse Vespa of plastic-pod insta coffee.
