Here we come to the first “coffee product” review! As opposed to a “cupping” – a coffee bean preparation and tasting, which I will also begin including shortly – the coffee product review is a category for coffee-based items that go beyond the basic beans. With the approach of summer, I plan to cover a wide variety of canned and bottled coffee beverages. This will also eventually include coffee foods, candies, spa goods, etc. I’ll also likely toss in a few reviews of “coffee-flavored” items, like lipgloss, tobacco – why not?
I may as well come out and say, in case there is any doubt as to the point: I have something of an anything-goes coffee philosophy. I’m not the die-hard single-origin purist, though I can appreciate that aspect, certainly. I don’t subscribe to any one specific roaster, processing method, espresso machine maker, and so on, the way some baristas devote themselves to one school of the bean. I have preferences like anyone else, but I’m at a very developmental stage in my coffee career, and I’m attempting to be open to everything. I consider coffee a strong influence in my lifestyle, not just a job obligation, nor science project, nor my religion by far. It has its own serving in my service, and that’ll serve for now.
If anyone cares to recommend a coffee or coffeesque product to put to the test, please send ‘em my way.
Good, now that we’ve cleared that… On to the review!
Review – Joe Fizz Coffee Soda
12 Fl oz glass bottle for $1.99
Order & Inquire at http://www.purjava.com/
“Made with 100% Real Honduran Coffee,” the retro-cute brown and white label proudly informs. Still cool from the fridge, I twisted off the golden bottle cap and took that first swallow.
For a moment, my mouth wondered what I’d done to it, because there was certainly conflict between the mind and tongue. That initial sip was strange, the darkness of the coffee and crispness of the chilled carbonated water seeming foreign and astringent. To tell the truth, this was likely more a psychosomatic discord than a quality of the drink – I saw a soda bottle, I felt those tiny soda bubbles in the murky body, and caught the punch of the cane sugar sweetener, which left me unprepared for the powerful, robust coffee whammy. The brisk temperature at which it was imbibed (the cheery label also chirps orders to “serve ice cold!”) clearly added to the impact.
Subsequent tasting, however, better unified the texture and flavors on the palate. The brew was creamy, rich, and decidedly dense despite the micro-bubbles, with solid notes of caramel and molasses. Honduran can be a very complex coffee, but I couldn’t discern those complexities with these few elements at their loudest, something I attribute to the roast, cold brew, and cane sugar. It was as if natural rootbeer had gone on a full-tilt bender and drunkenly mated with coffee, down to the delicately slippery foam wash where the surface of the liquid met the surfaces of glass, then cheek. After swallowing, the residue clung to my tongue, the pungent aroma of the drink filling the back of my mouth with an impression of tobacco.
Throughout drinking Joe Fizz, I thought that it tasted like a toddy (cold-brewed coffee concentrate) Italian soda (soda water drink typically made with a flavored syrup), mixed with turbinado sugar (more commonly known as Sugar in the Raw). It didn’t surprise me to find that PurJava’s specialty is their Honduran dark roast coffee concentrate. The low acidity and relatively mellow caffeine of toddy is also present in Joe Fizz. Later, I put my toddy notion to the test, mixing a double portion of toddy with soda water and melting some turbinado sugar in hot water before mixing it with the rest. Well, the toddy I used wasn’t made from Honduran beans, but sure enough… A markedly similar result.
The staunch blackness of the coffee and the potency of the cane sugar were just smooth enough for a pleasant experience, but it wasn’t really refreshing. I’d recommend nursing it with a glass of water at hand to truly savor the bottle. Ice may also improve the experience by diffusing some of the sugary and stern as it melts. If you want a flavorful jolt, not jurisprudence, pounding the bottle back like a frat pledge would certainly open your eyes and give you a bit of a headrush with much more class than any energy drink. The caffeine itself in this brew, however, is as smooth as it is bracing, which is a charming aspect of its own. The more I drank, the more I came to like Joe Fizz, but I’d had my fill by the end of the bottle. I could see how you could acquire a regular taste for Joe Fizz, but you’d need to have a sweet tooth and a strong stomach.
Buzz Level: Firm But Gentle Eye-Widener
Overall: A surprisingly endearing product that grew on me, but also a rather heady beverage that makes it an unlikely candidate for daily drinking.
PurJava also makes liquid-center chocolates and coffee-flavored caramel corn, which clearly need further investigation… I may contact the company directly to see if I can learn more about them, as their (ugly if functional) little web page suggests that there’s more to their company – much like that first awkward sip of Joe Fizz – than the immediate impression.
