Keurig K-Cup Review - Wolfgang Puck After Dark

I made the mistake of brewing this cup of coffee for our live recording of the Tabletop Bellhop Gaming podcast last night. Things were running late and I was actually making this after the show started. My co-host Sean  was keeping the fans busy while I made this coffee.

When going to make it I first grabbed another Folgers pod. I figured I reviewed Folgers already yesterday so wanted something different. The next one I grabbed was some kind of Breakfast Blend. At this point it was 9:40pm and I figured I didn't need a breakfast blend. The final pod I grabbed was a Wolfgang Puck After Dark. It was definitely after dark, this should have been perfect.

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Wolfgang Puck After Dark:

Scent: Almost nothing. Seriously. Every coffee should smell like coffee. They should smell strongly of coffee. The smell should permeate the room, potentially even filling the house. This brew I could barely distinguish with my nose over my mug. That should have been the first sign to me. I missed it.

Look: Despite using the strong setting on my Keurig (I always use the strong setting), this wasn't a very dark pour. It was also very hazy. Holding my mug up to the light I saw that this coffee looked a lot more Tea like than coffee like. It was actually a red colour. It looked like a colour I like to see in my Beer and not my coffee. This would have been clue two. I missed this one yet.

Black: On a positive note, I can drink this coffee black. The problem is, that I can do this because it has almost no taste. This is one of the most watery brews I've had in my life. Not only did it kinda look like tea it tasted like it too, and I don't like tea.

Milk and Sugar: I didn't bother. No dairy or sweetener was going to improve this mess. 

Verdict: Hell no!

Did you figure out the clues before I did? Right in the middle of the start of our live stream I ended up googling this coffee. Trying ot figure out what flavour it was supposed to be and if it was supposed to taste this bad. That's when I discovered that I had brewed a big old mug of decaffeinated coffee. Blech. No wonder it had no taste.

Now I hope I'm not the only one who didn't realize that After Dark means no caffeine so you can drink it late at night and still sleep. Here I thought After Dark meant, I'm staying up late, give me some damn caffeine.

Lesson learned. I hope that this serves as a warning to other people out there who are unaware of this naming convention.

Keurig K-Cup Review - Folgers Classic Roast

The local Home Hardware has a fantastic selection of K-Cups. For a while now I've been meaning to go in there and buy a bunch of individual cups in order to try all the flavours and see which ones I like the best. I finally picked up a handful today.

In order to track what I think of each of these I created an excel file. While working on that I had the thought that since I'm going to be basically reviewing each of these coffees, why not publish my reviews somewhere. So here we are.

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Folgers Classic Roast

Scent: Wow does this coffee ever smell good. Not only that it filled the house with fresh coffee smell. Not fancy coffee smell, just good old fashioned regular coffee smell. 

I was reminded of those old commercials where you see various members of the family waking up to the smell of coffee, taking a deep breath in and smiling. Come to think of it those may have been commercials for Folgers (with flavour crystals).

Black: Unfortunately that amazing scent did not carry over to the taste. This coffee is way, way too bitter for me, at least black. It's also somewhat tart. The bitterness lingers and sticks in the back of your throat. I can still taste it minutes after taking a drink.

With Milk and Sugar: Not much better. More drinkable to me, but now my coffee is watery. It's like all the actual coffee flavour is washed away and all that's left is that bitter aftertaste. Yes even with milk and suggest that lingering nastiness is still there.

Verdict: Not for me, 

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