Grounds for Burnt Offerings

So after the whole deal with Java Java and Ikea Coffee I decided to revisit each once again and then make my final conclusion on whether Ikea would be a source of espresso for me.

So the first thing I did this past week, was to give the Bryggkaffe Mellanrost or as I also like to call it, Ikea Coffee another chance. This time I ground the coffee even finer, put it in my Krupp espresso maker and I actually made a latte with it. OK now before you get on me and my Krupp espresso please realize I got it 10 years ago when I didn’t know much about making lattes, and it sat in its box for almost 2 years before I finally busted it out. I will probably get a new one next year for reasons I don’t want to explain at the moment… but I digress… So I steamed the milk and all that, added sugar to my taste… and found out that the latte really wasn’t to my taste. I then took a step further and blended my fine coffee beans with some other coffee beans that I have and that didn’t work either. I found that the flavor of the Ikea Coffee really strong and quickly overpowered the other coffee flavors… so that was that. I took the remaining Ikea Coffee and dumped the contents into the trash. I don’t think I will be buying Ikea Coffee again.

Now here is the Java Java story. It just so happened that today I needed to go back to Ikea to get some stuff and since I had an extra dollar in my pocket and so I decided why not. Since I am here, and its only a dollar for a 12 oz so I should at least try one last time and if I didn’t like the coffee, that I can truly say that I tried and gave it all I had and throwing away a dollar is better than throwing away four.

So I when up to the counter to place my order. It came to exactly one dollar, including tax, so that was nice. I asked for whole milk but all the use is 2% (or skim) milk and fat free. At least they didn’t offer to pour half & half into the 2% to make whole. I then asked the lady to make it a double short (8 oz) instead of the 12 oz. It was a bit scary watching the one lady make the coffee because I am used to getting coffee from baristas and I actually considered telling them to hold my order and give me my dollar back… but I fought that impulse. I instead asked her how her day was going and she was really nice and friendly so I felt that I would support her in my own way by graciously accepting the latte.

It turns out that the latte was much better than I had expected or hoped. Certainly a vast improvement from the last time, many months ago when I had a latte there. Not that it was the greatest latte I had, but simply considering the circumstances and certainly the price, it was OK. I think the biggest difference this time around as opposed to the previous times is that instead of ordering the 12 oz, I asked them to reduce the milk and give me an 8 oz. And I am thinking that I probably could even have asked them to make it a 6 oz, but…

I guess my final conclusion is as follows. I really dislike the Ikea Coffee brand that Ikea gets from this particular roaster in the Netherlands. The flavor is just not to my taste. Maybe someone else would differ with this view. On the other hand, the Java Java Coffee that Ikea serves in their cafeteria area is OK, considering the price… and if you’re going to order it, I’d suggest that you ask them to give you a double shot latte that is between 6 and 8 oz latte rather than sticking to the standard 12 oz.

I will be revising this posting once again sometime in the future, but this time it will be an Ikea location outside the US.