COFFEE TASTE TEST

Saturday morning. I'm sitting at the PC with my cup of decaf - freshly brewed. A mixture of Kirkland's Dark Roast and Peet's Major Dickason's. A combination my husband, Gary came up with. A pretty good one, too. Not only is the full bodied flavor good , but by combining Kirkland and Major Dickason's , we save on the cost of coffee as it lasts much longer.

For years we were strictly Starbuck's coffee drinkers, but Gary never cared for what he called, "the bitter aftertaste" of Starbucks , so we finally agreed to find a specialty coffee we both could savor. Because we drink decaf, our choices were somewhat limited as most blends are caffineated. None the less, we pursued our coffee hunt , and for months partook in our own private 'coffee of the week' taste test. We drank cup after cup of varied coffee's , including Kona, Craven's , Tully's; Ultimately it was Peet's that met our criteria, "bold, but not bitter".

The irony in our choice of Peet's, is Peet's and Starbucks have a shared hisory. Alfred Peet introduced specialty coffee to Seattle; The founders of Starbucks worked at Peet's so they could learn all they could about how to roast, buy and sell specialty coffee, and Jerry Baldwin, an original founder of Starbucks is still director of Pete's.

According to the "Passion for Coffee" web site, Pete's coffee tends to be a little darker than Starbucks House Blend because it is roasted longer.

" That's okay", my husband would say, " I still choose Pete's. Roasted longer is fine. It's the bitter after taste (of Starbucks) that I don't like".

I'm reminded of the famous Coke vs Pepsi taste test and conclude taste, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder (or in this case, mouth of the partaker of drink).