Got Watery Coffee?

A coffee fix is not a coffee fix, until you’ve experienced fresh roasted coffee delivered to your home, ground how you like it, or in the natural state of whole-beans.  To boot, there are many people out there who believe they are drinking high quality coffee every morning, but in reality they’ve only tasted the Hershey’s of chocolate, the okay stuff that tastes good, but not great until trying the higher end,  exotic Truffles of Belgium. These are rare encounters during the holidays and far more expensive than the standard Kisses people see in supermarket stands. Likewise with coffee.

But great quality coffee isn’t all that expensive, once you actually try it and see the value you’re getting for your buck.  Some people might call getting coffee delivered a luxury or privilege, but the truth is that  anyone can have quality Fair-Trade Organic coffee delivered to their home, in a manner that’s easy on the wallet, and simple to order.

If you never saw yourself as an online shopper, here’s why you should buy Peak Coffee online:

A) Rewards – you get $5.00 Rewards into your “virtual wallet” when you buy a certain amount of coffee and tea, what they call your personal “Peak Coffee & Tea Rewards account.

B) Quality customer service – Their 100% guarantee + I heard a story one time from the Peak roaster master; a customer in North Carolina didn’t get their coffee and tea on time because of some error in part of the U.S. Postal Service. Once it arrived, Peter (founder) gave away the order, and a full refund.

C) Year-round coupons – Peak Coffee & Tea gives out newsletter exclusive coupons all yea round. As long as you’re signed up for their newsletter, you won’t have a hard time keeping up with their generous discounts and specials.

D) Water coffee is history – this is one of Peak’s biggest pet-peeves, which is why Peter has written all over the web-site his philosophy about coffee. “It should never be bitter of over-roasted, that charred taste we all know to well from expensive chain cafes.” And watery coffee is quite simply coffee that hasn’t been taken care of properly or brewed the right way.” That fake stuff gives me a funny feeling.”

If you’re ambitious, you can sign up for a free Peak Coffee & Tea account, get a 10% discount on your first order, and try Peak’s French Roast Coffee Blend; this coffee is bold, yet somehow stands up to Peter’s (never watery, never bitter) standard.  Check it out here.

My Favorite Coffee Mug

Don’t deny it. You have a favorite coffee mug or tea cup you use on a daily basis. You know exactly where it sits in your cabinet and clean it routinely for the next days use. I am the same way.

Given the amount of tea and coffee that I consume (which you may know by now is a lot)  you think I would have  this high-tech tea/coffee cup with super powers that self-heats and automatically refill itself. But really, I picked this mug up at my local dentists office. Yup, a free coffee mug, from the dentist.

I think it was a gift or something because they were out of toothbrushes. Don’t get me wrong, I love this mug because it’s huge, and it gets the job done. It’s porcelain too. Porcelain mugs are not porous and maintain their contents temperature, which preserves the flavor longer, whereas, Styrofoam and paper cups seem to affect the aftertaste. Plus, they’re not good for  the environment, very wasteful. Here is another reason we love to brew our coffee and tea from home, everyday no exceptions (accept the occasional road-trip, coffee stop.

If you’re a commuter via automobile or public transportation, and prefer the drive-thru lane, I always make this suggestion to my friends and family:  Brew your coffee or tea in the morning before heading out, and use a stainless steel travel mug.  Stainless steel travel mugs are great for two reasons:

1) Heat preserving

2) Money saving

All that money I used to spend on drive-thru watered down or overly strong/bitter tasting coffee I could have been spending on high-quality organic coffee beans, and saving half the money, literally.

(Do the math: $1.50/cup of coffee at the cafe or drive-thru lane, at 4 cups per week (I know, you drink more cups than that!)  for example = $6. And that’s only 4 cups of coffee. $6 for 4 cups of coffee! Hmmm, something doesn’t sit right. Here’s the gold…  Buy fair-trade organic, fresh roasted coffee online for $11/Lb which brews 43 cups), and you’re set for the entire month. That’s only $11 for 43 cups of coffee. And don’t tell me the drive-thru or the Keureg in your office saves you time or money. No way!

However, you have a good point. What about shipping?  Shipping typically comes to $5-$10, so now we’re talking $21 of so, right? Well, no need to worry.

$21 will still only buy you 14 cups of coffee at the cafe or coffee shop! What a rip off! Why drink (in my opinion, the horrible) office coffee when you can rack up a lifetime rewards points and have the freshest coffee and tea delivered to your home.

When I say rewards points, I mean that when you buy Peak coffees and teas online, you essentially get free rewards money delivered in your online coffee and tea account. You can read more about them here.

Once I switched from buying coffee and outside my house to ordering online and brewing my own, I began enjoying my coffee and tea wayyyy more.  Common sense to me! My opinion.

Do you have a favorite coffee mug? Tea cup? Post a picture here, Twitter, or our Facebook wall. Don’t be shy, for heaven sake I use a dentists mug!

Do you use the drive-thru lane? Are you thinking of switching to the more cost-efficient, home-brewing technique? (the best, and only way to drink coffee and tea! You know what goes in it, you brew it, you know the strength!)

You don’t plan on stopping drinking coffee or tea right. Why would you with all the great health benefits they have to offer. Its a life long habit to be proud of!

Check out Travel mugs at Peak Coffee & Tea’s online store. Oh, and of course, our wonderful whole-bean coffee, and loose leaf tea – we ship all over!

Peak Community of Passionate Coffee and Tea Drinkers

Welcome to the Peak Community Blog of Passionate Coffee and Tea Drinkers

When I opened Peak coffee and tea, I wanted to help customers enjoy excellent coffee and tea and make a difference in the lives of young people in my home village in Kenya, through Leaders of A New Generation.

I have always loved to talk and connect with people, but operating Peak allowed me to discover my passion even more. I have met a lot of interesting and passionate people and in the process learned a lot. I have learned, though it may sound obvious, that we all have a lot in common; we all want happiness, hope, love, faith, family, and fulfillment through our passion or work. I have also met people who are doing amazing work to make a difference in the lives of others.

This year as I reflected on how far Peak has come and the road ahead, my vision became clearer. I felt compelled to develop Peak as a community of passionate coffee and tea drinkers who are inspired to make a difference in other people’s lives.

This blog is the Peak community. I invite you to join us. To join, create a WordPress username and password and then sign up in this blogs email listing in order to receive blog updates.

I will use this Peak Community blog to initiate discussions on coffee, tea, and making a difference.

I encourage you to participate in the discussions, post your thoughts, stories, and ideas as well and especially to let other members know about any non-profit organizations you may be involved with or interesting things you are doing to make a difference.

Every three months, Peak will select a non-profit organization featured by members of this blog, create a coffee or tea blend for that organization and donate 10% in sales proceeds. I am really excited about creating this community.

I hope you will join us. Check out my personal blog, Inspired to make a difference.

 Check out my Inspired to make a difference. blog.

Irish Breakfast Green Tea

Irish Breakfast Green Tea is a pure green tea with a toasty blend with some chutzpah. The blend is from variety of green tea from Japan, China, and Kenya. Irish Breakfast green has refreshing undertones and a lively finish perfect for mornings or afternoon tea.

Irish tea is usually served three times per day. 11:00 in the morning, 3:00-5:00 in the afternoon, and 6:00 for “high tea.” Irish Black Tea is usually taken with milk due to it’s strength. Some lemon or sugar might be added to mellow out the flavor, however, you will find Irish Green Tea is quite tasty by it’s self. If you’re not big on green tea, this tea will satisfy for your urge for something a little different.

The day that St. Patrick escaped being capture and enslaved represents a milestone in Ireland. Chicago dyes their rivers green. Cities embark on street-wide parades. Irish girls where green ribbons in their hair.

I like a good celebration, but today I am relaxing in good spirit; sipping my Irish Breakfast Green come noon; and hunting down a lucky four-leafed clover, which my chances are 10,000 to 1.

How are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?

Have a peak: Irish Breakfast Green Tea

#thingsthatgotogether

Hello fellow tweeters and those soon-to-be, look what’s trending now:  #thingsthatdontgotogether

Check out this page while it’s still trending on twitter and you will notice that it’s flooded not-so-nice tweets and occasional comments that prove helpful, like, “a smart person that doesn’t apply themselves.” We can agree on that. Smart people who don’t t apply themselves don’t go well together. So we created a potent mix of things that compliment each other for the better.

Here are 10 #thingsthatgotogether:

1. Morning and oatmeal

2. Kenyan Tea and a splash of whole milk.

3. A tree’s shade, and sunshine.

4. A good days work & home sweet home.

5. Fairtrade and Organic

6. People in need, and People who help.

7. Kids and Education

8. The telephone/skype, and old time friends.

9. Healthy Diet and Exercise

10. A positive message, and a megaphone.

So what do you think go’s well together? PB & J? Check out #thingsthatgotogether and let us know what come up with. Find us at @peakcoffeetea.

I don’t care if you live in Alaska, Peak wants you to know about them.

While it’s no secret that Peak wants you to know about them, Peak Coffee & Tea takes pride in their large shipments of single origin coffee beans. Why? Because these beans come green, organic and fairtrade, the raw form,  followed by a indigenous roast style cultivated from no-other than Peak’s Northern, MA shop,  and that makes people happy from Massachusetts all they way across country. Wherever else reciprocation deems itself from our hardworking coffee farmers worldwide, coffee lovers seem to seek out Peak’s fresh roasted beans.

Seemingly small, Peak’s little shop turns out big earthy styles, and blends that can suite the single-origin connoisseur an expanding palate. Seeing customers from Hawaii ordering the all mighty Dark Roast, Georgia, Sumatra Mandheling, and California their Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, is overwhelmingly awesome.

While most coffee roasters support claims all to similar – “our coffees are roasted with the finest ingredients around the world, or “we import our coffee beans from only the best coffee farms;” or something along the lines of “small-batch roasting,” the people at Peak believe that building a “love-to-know relationship” is where Peak customer’s stream their happiness.

I admit, Peak uses 100% Arabica coffee beans, imports the best beans we can find, has excellent customer service, and roast in small batches, but we’re happy to know our customers, on a personal level, every one of them.

That’s right. We want to know you. Don’t believe me? Shoot me an email at dracowsky@peakcoffeeandtea.com or pop a tweet over @peakcoffeetea.

Current coffee favorites: Ethiopia Yirgacheffe FTO , Sumatra Mandheling FTO, Dark Roast Blend FTO, Kenya AA.

Lovers Leap

Here are some belated lover to lover and prospective arrow-in-the heart acts of brevity.

For that special person:

a) Surprise them with a dinner reservation.

b) Write a love note, and sneak it into your valentine’s car. (tape it to the steering wheel, be sneaky, don’t get caught! Tell them to meet at ‘his/her favorite date spot’ after work.’ If the car is not an option, put it on their door knob where they’re sure to find it.)

c) Give a gift – a “free – home cooked meal, your place, @ 8:30, tonight.” (a card will do, cook pasta. Women and men love pasta. If diabetes is an issue, go for salmon & salad w/ white wine.)

d) It doesn’t matter what we do, we are together.

e) Relax, brew some tea – Lovers Leap or Kama Sutra, and let it flow wherever conversation takes it.

f) Single folks – get out there. One he or she alone in a bookstore = “It’s Valentines Day, and I’m single.” So go to the mall, and relax, it’s just a holiday.

Which will you do? I have a feeling this list could be much better. Give me some ideas! Add to the list!

Simply Hibiscus

Even those artificially flavored beverages just don’t do a justice. Supermarkets and convenience stores always have at least one isle or cooler dedicated to those chemical compounds and sugar-packed plastic bottles and cans… cases of them… and really cheap.

Why go herbal?

Sugary drinks spike your blood sugar levels which basically send your energy levels soaring, but only for a short period of time, and then…… you crash.

You feel worse than before even drinking that Coca-Cola or energy drink.

I remember consuming energy drinks in the morning before classes or meetings only to find myself more tired and irritable.

The Problem:

Unhealthy low nutrient options are affordable and WAY too available. Healthy choices for the most part cost more money. So the unhealthy is recession proof.

The Solution:

Instead of spending a few dollars on a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper, channel your money into healthful spending! For example I am spending a few dollars/ounce on herbal loose teas which will brew me about 20 cups. No sugar. No caffiene. Loads of vitamins and minerals.

Hibiscus Tea is one of my favorites.

My energy levels are higher and my mind seems clearer after a week of consumption (1-2 cups/day). For this I attribute the high vitamin C + antioxidant content.

I remember saying to myself, “maybe it’s the good old placebo effect.” I’m still skeptical.

And now: a disclaimer.

Hibiscus tea is known to lower blood pressure & cholesterol levels. I get mine from Peak (of course because I work for Peak). It’s just the best tea.  Grab an ounce or two of Hibiscus tea here.

They’ll ship it. Or you can pick it up locally.