Peet’s Coffee Review March 2019
Peet’s Coffee, established in 1966 prides itself on their commitment to crafting exceptional coffee. Their founder, Alfred Peet opened his company with the intention of introducing dark, freshly roasted beans to the ever-growing coffee market. Today the company has transformed to offer a wide range of products from teas to grounds, fresh bean and even a coffee subscription delivery service. All of the products and programs offered at Peet’s Coffee are grounded in a guiding principle: the commitment to using only selectively sourced beans that are handcrafted and roasted to perfection and delivered fresh.
For each Peet’s Coffee subscription, you have the option of selecting coffee, K Cup pods, tea or espresso capsules. For a coffee subscription, they go into even further detail, asking how you prepare your coffee, with options to select from including whole beans, ground drip, ground espresso, ground press pot/percolator or ground commercial brewer. For my subscription, I chose to have whole beans delivered, knowing that with the arsenal of coffee creation gear I had at home would provide ample opportunity to sample the product in a variety of forms: classic brew, strong brew, iced and even in a latte form.
For the month of March, the second month in my 3-month subscription, the explorer series selection of beans this month was a limited release dark roasted Rwanda Ejo Heza. My initial feeling definitely surprised as Rwanda is not a place that springs to mind when I think of coffee! Knowing I had similar feelings of intrigue matched with slight hesitation last month and was left completely gobsmacked at the flavour helped to push that thought aside and left me ready to dive in.
So, what exactly is a dark roasted Rwanda Ejo Heza? The flavours identified on the bag were “rich red fruits and smooth butterscotch notes.” Which again left me scratching my head as the description sounded more like something I’d read on the side of a bottle of red, not a bag of beans. Again, this description was very unlike my usual go-to choices for my morning brew. However, knowing how much I enjoyed the previous bag, which pushed my taste boundaries, I was interested in testing the coffee infused waters yet again.
As for the taste? Well, these beans mean business! With my first sip, I knew that yet again Peet’s Coffee had hit it out of the park. This is a complex cup of coffee. With each brew consisting of a variety of fruits and flavours, with each sip, you pick up on something different, almost creating a different cup for you each morning. The coffee is rich and full-bodied and definitely bursting with complex fruit sweetness. This is a complete 180 from my usual “notes of chocolate” coffee that I gravitate towards.
To learn more about Peet’s Coffee I strongly suggest you hop over to their website: www.peets.com as it is by far one of the more expansive websites I have ever seen for a food product. In addition to detailed information about the monthly selection of beans, there is information about the company history, their principles, where to find their products (USA only).
This month I decided to pop over to the website to gain a bit more knowledge on this region and the beans they farmed. The Rwanda Ejo Heza farm is a collective staffed by a group of women, on a high altitude farm with rich soil. Peets Coffee notes that over 300 women have banded together as a “sub-cooperative,” farming as a collective, meeting weekly to pursue goals, and even establishing their own micro-lending bank to promote personal businesses. Every dollar that is paid for the beans goes directly to the women who grow them, which in turn becomes a rich community investment. The aptly named, Ejo Heza, translates o “bright future,” an appropriate label for a cup of coffee that not only tastes great but pays it forward to developing the local community.
If you are interested in starting up a coffee bean subscription but find the available choices overwhelming and need a guiding hand to get you started, Peet’s Coffee has your back. Easily accessible via the website is a handy “Find Your Match” interactive survey that will ask you a few key questions and point you towards your ideal package. So far, 2 months into my 3-month subscription plan I am loving what has arrived and it is definitely making me aware of how little I really knew about the world of coffee. Before I thought beans were simply beans and took no real notice of the flavour notes listed other than a quick glance at the light-dark roasting rating. Having had 2 months of coffee that were selected outside of my go-to range of flavours I am confident in saying I was a complete novice and unaware of what else existed in the realm of coffee. The subscription service from Peet’s Coffee has provided a way for me to expand my taste buds, my knowledge of coffee and is an easy way to dip your toe into trying new flavours. I look forward to finding out what will be in my mailbox next month!
Jennifer Hulley – http://jenniferhulley.com