Coffee | Coffee Cuppa

Caribou Coffee in the World of Gourmet Coffee Sellers

Second among the world’s two leading coffee retailers is Caribou Coffee, a specialty coffee house operator that sells coffee, along with tea, bakery and other items, at more than 460 stores throughout the United States.

Caribou Coffee was initiated by John and Kim Puckett in 1992 in Minnesota. In 1998, Crescent Capital, based in the American state of Atlanta, bought Caribou Coffee and made it a big name in the world of coffee house operators.

In September 2005, Caribou was turned into a publicly traded company. Today, it has over 5000 employees working countrywide and the company’s motto is ‘be excellent, not average’.

Products of Caribou Coffee

Starting as a coffee retailer, the products of Caribou Coffee now include a whole range of gourmet products including (besides coffee beans and blends) cold coffee drinks, blended drinks, tea and some clothing items like shirts, along with accessories. The specialty of Caribou, however, still remains its coffee products.

Caribou also outranked the world’s top ranked coffee retailer, Starbucks Coffee, in a national taste test, carried out for the quality of flavor and composition of coffee brands. Caribou also licenses third parties, allowing them to use its brand on food and merchandise items that meet its criteria of quality.

Caribou Coffee’s Role in Environmental Amelioration

Besides making gourmet coffee production a commercial success, Caribou Coffee has been concerned with producing eco-friendly coffee in order to support the efforts of environmental amelioration. It has become a parent with the Rainforest Alliance and also stands as the first coffee-producing company that voluntarily sponsors the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Producer Support Fund.

Caribou’s Partnerships

Caribou Coffee has business partnerships with several well-known companies including Coca-Cola North America, Frontier Airlines, General Mills, Kemps, Life Time Fitness, Mall of America, USA Today, and Wandering Wifi. Other partners of Caribou include Keurig and Rainforest Alliance.

The company is especially interested in involving communities that work for social welfare, especially in the categories of breast cancer, children’s literacy, and the environment.

Investment and Controversy

Caribou Coffee has lately been surrounded by much controversy due to the heavy investment of the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain, which is one of its leading stockholders.

The controversy got really heated when Yousaf al-Qaradawi, an Islamic Egyptian scholar, became the bank’s Chairman of the Board in 2002. He had already been banned from entering the United States because of his views. When Qaradawi stepped down from the chairmanship later that year, the controversy surrounding Caribou Coffee cooled down.

Black Coffee, The Most Popular Drink in the World

This is one statement that coffee lovers all over the world would fully agree with. There are many very popular beverages such as beer, wine and tea, but not one would come even close to the popularity of black coffee.

Everything connected with this beverage is sinfully pleasant – its rich taste, its flavor, its smell – everything. Besides, every time you have a cup of black coffee you instantly feel on top of the world.

If you are a coffee lover, you would totally agree with me when I say that coffee is one of the best stimulants and mood elevators ever known to humankind that does not fall under the category of harmful or illegal drugs. Yes, there is caffeine in it – but then you have caffeine in tea as well, but you would never be satisfied substituting a steaming cup of coffee with that of any type of tea.

You might not be aware of it, but there are more than forty types of coffee producing plants out there, out of which only two are popularly used for the brew you are so familiar with – one is the Arabica and the other one is the Coffee Robusta, with the former recognized as the better among the two.

How to Make a Great Cup of Black Coffee?

Coffee is a very simple beverage but it is not really simple to make the perfect cup. Connoisseurs of coffee would be very particular with the way their coffee tastes and to get that perfect taste and smell combination, you need to know a few basic things about brewing coffee.

First of all pay attention to the water – it should taste good (when you drink it plain) and it should be cold when put in the pot or coffee maker. This gives the coffee a fresh and rich taste. Avoid soft water when making coffee, as this would result in a flat tasting brew.

Have your coffee making machine free of any dirt and residue, as this would heavily interfere with the taste of the coffee and not in a good way. Check the filters daily, as well as the mugs and all the other parts of the machine, because if anything has stale remains of coffee or dust, it would spoil the taste of your coffee.