The Coffee Experience

Valentines Day Coffee Deals 2014

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Valentine's Day Coffee

Whether your Valentines Day is being spent with a significant other or alone with the new House of Cards season on Netflix, I’ve got great news: there are some awesome coffee deals to be had. The list below should help keep you on a great caffeine high throughout the day, at little or no cost.

  • Starbucks is offering a buy-1-get-1 free deal on all lattes.
  • The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is having a buy-1-get-1 free on all drinks.
  • Caribou Coffee is having a buy-1-get-1-free on all drinks.
  • Dutch Bros. is using Valentines day to give back to local communities. Bring in canned food and make someone else’s Valentine’s Day! Bonus: free Dutch Valentines Cards here.
  • While not exactly coffee, if you buy a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, they’ll give you 12 Valentine’s Day cards – each good for one free donut! I hear these go great with a cup of joe.
  • Lia Griffith is giving away some free printable Valentine’s Day coffee cup wraps. A nice last-minute touch to surprise your special someone in the morning.

If you find other freebies out there, feel free to comment and let me know. Have a great Valentines Day and enjoy your free coffee!

The Coffee Guy

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Dumb Starbucks is Dumb, but Illustrates a Good Point

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Screen Shot 2014-02-11 at 6.45.12 PM
An instagram photo @tonx tweeted while in line

Last week the media was abuzz about a new coffee shop in LA. While the coffee itself was nothing too special, the name was provocative to say the least. “Dumb Starbucks” had a near-identical menu to the coffee giant, with one exception: the word dumb preceded every drink. And while I imagine it was silly to order a Dumb Grande Dumb Latte, I couldn’t help but chuckle. How was this legal? According to a well written FAQ available in the Dumb Store, the shop falls under a “parody art” loophole in the law. By their own claim, Dumb Starbucks isn’t a coffee shop; instead, it is a parody art gallery where the art in question is the coffee being sold.

Starbucks eventually responded, saying: “We are evaluating next steps and while we appreciate the humor, they cannot use our name, which is a protected trademark.” And, as expected, Dumb Starbucks got shut down yesterday by the LA County department of health services.

As it turns out, this was all an elaborate prank from Comedy Central’s Nathan Fielder to promote his upcoming new show, Nathan For You. While this initial stage of the joke is complete, he plans to take Dumb Starbucks to Brooklyn next. I’m hoping I can make it down there and get some live coverage of the shenanigans whenever they end up unfolding.

The attraction generated a host of media coverage, everywhere from USA Today to The Verge. A name well known to the specialty coffee community threw in his two cents as well: tonx co-founder Tony Konecny. He actually got eyes-on the store and shot the instagram photo above before tweeting:

 

 

In my view, Dumb Starbucks is pretty dumb. But they illustrate a great point: people enjoy making fun of anything too ubiquitous or too large. Perhaps the tide is turning for Starbucks and other similar coffee giants. And man, what I would give to have tonx beans available at your corner cafe.

Stay tuned for more coverage down the road.

The Coffee Guy

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A Christmas Story With Your Coffee

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During Christmas time, nothing goes with coffee better than a story.

I’ve been having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit. In an effort to fix this, I decided to write a short story based on Capital Light’s Christmas song, “His Favorite Christmas Story.” If you haven’t heard it, please buy it on iTunes or listen to it on Spotify. I love this song and thought that perhaps I could build on the lyrics with my own take. I changed a few things, but kept the spirit of the song very much intact. Feel free to share this with others, and have a Merry Christmas!

Click the link below to read the story!

Continue reading A Christmas Story With Your Coffee →

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