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. Previously: Espresso Blend and Hazelnut.
This week: ITALIAN ROAST. Like most of the Keurig coffee pod offerings, the entire experience of the beverage is authoritatively promised in three capitalized words on the front of the box. ROBUST. SWEET. RICH, it says.
And it’s true. Italian Roast Blend is all these things. And so much more.
Namely, amusing packaging.
The design of the label suggests (non-credibly) that the coffee will carry us on the wings of caffeine to a flavor voyage on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. On either side of the big “ITALIAN ROAST” headline, there are yellowed silhouettes of dudes in gondolas, which I assume suggests that the coffee is Venice-themed. Ah, coffee — just like the Italians do it.
Actually: this ends up meshing a little schizophrenically with the Keurig pods themselves, which reproduce the design, only with a little standarized banner running around the edge of the pod that says “Handcrafted Coffee From The Pacific Northwest”
The Tully’s Coffee brand also introduces a totally great like data graphic of a little flavor spectrum with an arrow that points out where the beverage lies in the cosmology of coffee. Bizarrely, this little slider seems to suggest, that A) “Spirited” is the opposite of “Grand” as far as coffee goes, and B) out of the set of “Grand” things, the grandest thing is “Extra Bold.” And this is what Italian Roast is.
There is a word for this: insane.
Going off the accepted wine-tasting standards, it turns out that Italian Roast is not the xtreme extra bold adventure that it’s cracked out to be. Which just goes to show that you can’t believe everything that you read. That being said, it’s a respectable and funky offering for the stylish career man or woman on the go. I am aware of the rules of the office, putting that pod into the machine seems to say, but am edgy enough to go on a flavor voyage during work hours. The taste is soft, buttery almost, resolving from a light burnt oaky flavor to a bolder bitterness. It drinks great hot or cold.
The fragrance is another big bonus. It’s strong, to be sure, but Italian Roast is a bouquet of heavy, bracing scents — I can’t tell what it is. But it is robust, sweet, and rich.
The color is lighter than what we’ve seen before. Sure, it’s brown. Or brownish black. I don’t know — it looks like coffee. And I’m still debating whether or not it’s just that the Keurig machine is broken, but there’s some suggestion of yellow at the edges, and you can see the chunky coffee sediment swirling around at the bottom. This part is kind of gross.
The best feature of Tully Italian Roast is the finish. The impending coffee breath resolves into a harmless smokiness that dies out after an hour or so, leaving you fresh and ready for your next delicious cup.
Rating: B+, while it isn’t the best we’ve tasted — Italian Roast still kind of makes me feel like a young lad in a gondola. From the Pacific Northwest.
