It was almost a running joke among my coworkers that I’d sooner than later die of a heart attack due to a caffeine overdose. Apparently my body needs at least 8 hours of sleep to function properly, if not more – at least so I thought. Since getting 8 hours of sleep would require me to either cut down on working out or go to bed right after eating, and neither of those sound like very good options.

As it always is with substances, resistance builds up, so on bad days I’d need 3 cans of energy drinks just to remain functional (and still far from optimal). I got fed up with that eventually (and judging from the signals, my body too), and I decided to go no-caffeine on my birthday. I didn’t decide how long I’d keep it up, but the bare minimum is a month.

I was a bit surprised the other day when i went to the local Starbucks and saw that they have a new special coffee out-it’s been i-don’t-even-know-how-long since they last had one. The Brazil roast or blend or whatever you want to call it is supposedly a mild blend, so i didn’t really have high expectations for it.

I prefer dark, full bodied roasts. Brazil is definitely not one of those, but it smells sweet, almost like honey, and freshly brewed it doesn’t even feel all too mild. Of course it’s not a stinging harsh thing like the French roast, but there’s a however quickly fading touch that i consider the real face of every coffee, that moment when you can feel its aroma all at once.

After the mild Breakfast blend, even the medium House blend feels bold. It’s as typical a Starbucks coffee as can be.

The steam is sweet and has something in it that reminds me of the warmth of an maple. The coffee itself is nicely sharp and crispy, but at the same time has the same warm taste to it, which turns out to be more like cocoa than maple. It’s more sweet and way bolder than i expected it to be, and that surprise is one of the few good things that happened to me today. I’ll enjoy drinking this coffee for a week (until it runs out).

I was not a bit hesitant to give the Breakfast blend a try (the same goes for the House blend). Why? Because i like bold coffee, and the Breakfast blend is labelled as “mild”. My first impression is that though it smells and looks like coffee and gives the impression of a coffee when tasted, i at first had trouble identifying what taste it is exactly. It has a fresh, sweet aroma, but that as well feels so… familiar? humble? quiet? that i got used to it in the matter of moments. The taste is likewise quiet, the usual “coffee punch” is more like a “coffee fondle”–it’s soft and clean. A bit of citrusy freshness, and the rest is just the coffee. I’m surprised though how long the taste lingers after a good cup, it’s so mild i expected it to vanish right away. I don’t yet know how well this blend will be able to wake me up. It’ll be tested tonight.

It’s getting cold outside, and more and more i start to favor hot coffee instead of cold again. Now the local Starbucks has this new blend i haven’t seen before in the past two years, an autumn special called, very imaginatively, Autumn blend.

The fresh brew has this slightly burnt, well roasted, thick (or rather, as the packaging puts it, syrupy) warm aroma. It’s actually a bit darker than i thought it’d be, but there is also a sweet but crisp touch to it that softens it.

At first i was surprised how familiar it tastes. If you search the blog archives for “Starbucks” you’ll see that i already tried most if not all of the bold (and bolder) coffees, so there’s plenty to compare it with. Looking at the packaging though it says that it’s a blend of Guatemala Antigua and Sumatra produced beans, both of which i already wrote about. As the scent suggested, it’s indeed quite a dark roast, though nowhere as much as the French roast. What’s surprising is that unlike the Guatemala Antigua, the aftertaste is rather smooth and sweet. Much smoother and sweeter than I’d expect.

This blend is nothing unusual, i’d have expected something more special for a special blend, but it’s good and warms well on chilly autumn evenings.