Tag: Caffeine Lover

TrueStart Ground Coffee Cafetière & Coffee Gift Set

Birthday Gifts, Christmas, coffee, Family Life, Food & Drink, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Gifts for teachers, Home, secret santa

Disclaimer – We have received this item for free or on a loan basis for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

There are some sacred things in this life, and the first cup of coffee in the morning is probably high up on most people’s wish list!  What better gift to buy a caffeine lover than a whole set of coffee and a cafetière too, all in this pretty presentation box, ready to wrap and hand over.

TrueStart have a range of coffees available by both strength (strong, smooth, decaf, half cafe) and type (instant, coffee bags, ground, beans etc). They also have a starter packs, gifts packs and accessories, so a natural progression at Christmas time is to have a Coffee Starter Pack. You can create your own starter pack too, which is what we were sent when we received this cafetière (in grey but blue is available too) and two coffees. I chose the TrueStart Super Blend coffee with a strength of 8, and the TrueStart Energising Colombian ground coffee with a strength of 7. I can’t stress how cute it is to have the box arrive with the handle of the cafetière as the handle to the gift box, making it easier to carry!

The glass cafetière has 1 litre capacity, which is enough for 8 cups of coffee and has a stainless steel finish. It needs to be hand washed because the glass is delicate, so not suitable for the dishwasher nor the oven.  It’s a lovely, classic design which comes in both grey and dark blue so suits many kitchens. I have a pet peeve with cafetières that they’re either too small and you can’t get enough cups out of them, or they’re too big and therefore just functional and don’t look pretty enough for modern kitchens. This one looks lovely though, and would sit nicely on any worktop.

We tried both coffees (multiple times!) in our house. We chose stronger coffees with more aromatic tastes so the Super Blend and Energising Colombian were perfect for us. They both had a strong, bold taste which lasted throughout the whole cup of coffee, and because you can make up to 8 cups in one cafetière, we were able to drink a second cup quite quickly afterwards and each cup kept it’s integrity.  Delicious!

If your’e not used to a cafetière, this is a great starter pack, and they’re really easy to use and keep clean. In fact, I would say it’s the most fun way of making coffee, and you can alter the strength of the coffee easily depending on how much you add to the jug.  I loved the coffee, which is carefully selected and curated by the TrueStart coffee company since 2015 who take coffee very seriously. It’s a great size for a gift as well, or for students going off to university and needing the whole kit that’s the right size for their room.  The ability to choose which coffee you want also makes it perfect for gifting and I will be looking at these as gifts at Christmas too!

Available from £30.00 at:

https://www.truestartcoffee.com/products/ground-coffee-starter-pack

Pact Coffee Advent Calendar

advent calendar, Christmas, coffee, Family Life, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Home

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Coffee makes a lot of people happy. I have an office which runs on either coffee, chocolate (or both) and the discussions around the finer points of both food stuffs are both daily and endless. Which is better, filtered or cafetiere coffee? South American or Kenyan? Dark roasted or lightly roasted? (apparently that’s a thing) and more importantly, where do you buy your coffee from?

Pact Coffee, the British coffee roasters have brought out their most extravagant coffee advent calendar to date.  Packed with 25 different coffee roasts, I wondered how it was going to arrive with enough coffee included in each day to allow at least one cup of coffee to be made. Surely they weren’t little windows like the chocolate calendars have?  Well, last week a box arrived and my questions were answered. Inside the slightly bigger than shoebox sized calendar were 25 filed packets of individually sourced coffees from around the world. If you can’t get your head around how they’re presented, have a look at the photo and it makes sense!

Now you might be wondering why there are 25 packets and not the usual 24? Well Pact Coffee have decided to include their Special Christmas Blend so that you can sit back on Christmas Day and enjoy a coffee, in the knowledge that you have spent the whole of December sampling everything from specialty coffees to luxury and rare coffees. Sourced from 8 countries and all carefully selected, the coffees showcase the best of stock that Pact have to offer. On the inside of the lid is a QR code so that you can access the menu online and choose to buy the coffee at a later date. There’s up to 200 different roasts to choose from online at any time and the menu changes over the year too.

For example, Day 1 is the Kiri coffee. The card has the packet attached, clearly stating that it’s Day 1 (so if they become slightly dislodged in the box, you can still match them up). The card explains that Kiri is grown by a collective of smallholder farmers in Kenya and on the back it gives more of a background – hints of blackcurrant jam, light roast and even the variety.  It’s grown in the high altitudes and the cooperative who grow it operates with a luxuriously lengthy washing process.

I tried several of the coffees over the weekend, but there are so many, it’s best to follow them in order and one a day if you want to get the full benefit! The best one out of the handful I tried was Kibirizi Washed. The Rwandan coffee has a hint of orange marmalade and is only lightly roasted with a silky mouthfeel. Divine!

If you’re not into advent calendars then this would make a lovely gift for a family or to create conversation in the office before you purchase a Pact Coffee subscription. It’s really easy to find the roasts online to be able to pick out anything you want from their menu, and the variety of coffees is a great way to sample something other than your usual. Coffee lovers will adore it!

Currently available for £29.95 at: https://www.pactcoffee.com/christmas/ground-pact-coffee-advent-calendar-23

GRIND Coffee and Henry Holland

Birthday Gifts, coffee, Family Life, Food & Drink, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, Gifts for teachers, Home, Home & Garden, Plastic free, Subscription Boxes

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Coffee lovers everywhere are aware of GRIND, the Shoreditch based independent coffee company who have gone astronomical in the last few years.  If you’re not aware of them, then where have you been?

GRIND pride themselves on being, “The planet’s favourite coffee” after opening a Shoreditch coffee shop, then having fresh roasted coffee delivered to your door. No doubt the pandemic helped with the popularity of home delivered coffee but since then, GRIND have launched a Nespresso compatible pod which biodegrade in a matter of weeks, launched a charity (The Better Coffee Foundation) and now have a collaboration with artists, including Henry Holland. 

We were sent a lovely sample of their House Blend straight from their Shoreditch office, and along with it, one of the Henry Holland special edition coffee tin. There are other homeware items available too, and there will be more in the future which compliment your coffee tastes and kitchen together.

The Home Roast flavour of coffee is what Cheddar is to cheese – if you’re a lover of the stuff, you’ll go for the best available out there and ignore the cheap imitations whilst at the same time you can’t not like it.  The Home Roast is a rich flavour without any of the bells and whistles often added (or claimed to have) from other roaster. It’s just good, honest coffee anyone can enjoy with the versatility to be used in any type of latte, cappuccino or anything else you want to try. Actually, this would be a good coffee for an awesome tiramisu wouldn’t it?

The Henry Holland Coffee tin is not only handy but beautiful. Before today, in our house we only kept the opened coffee in their resealable packets, leaving them open to the moisture in the air. Now, we have the perfect sealed tin to keep coffee fresh and it’s got all the feels of a trendy kitchen too!  Able to store the GRIND bag of coffee (225 grams worth) it fits nicely in the mug cupboard or behind the kettle for daily use.

Henry Holland also produces a limited edition coffee mug, which is currently out of stock. I’m sure there will be more products and more collaborations in the future though!

GRIND Coffee and Henry Holland Tin (you can choose your coffee) available for £14.00 at: https://grind.co.uk/products/henry-holland-whole-bean-and-ground