Caribou Coffee Case Study

I bought this product at my local Caribou Coffee shop because I was intrigued by it. I had never heard of tilleul before. Tilleul, it turns out, is a French combination of linden flowers and leaves, apparently a specialty of the village of Carpentras, and is used to make traditional beverages there. Caribou Coffee takes tilleul and prepares it with peppermint for this beverage to give it a bit more flavor. The taste is about what you can expect from any tea with peppermint in it-sharp, crisp, and refreshing. If you enjoy mint tea (and I do), you can expect to enjoy Caribou Coffee 's Tilleul with Mint Tea. However, I was disappointed that the mint flavor seemed to predominate. Mint tends to do that, I realize, but I was hoping to be able to

If you do that every day, you can knock $1460 off your credit card balance for the year, or apply an extra payment to your mortgage. Or take a vacation. Sounds great! Unfortunately this dictum ignores the fact that coffee is an addiction, and most of us need that morning jolt to make us even moderately productive during the typical day. Sure, you might get rich, but who wants to hang out with a grumpy millionaire? Coffee is a necessity for a greater part of the population, so to preserve your money and your sanity you have to become a wise coffee drinker. When you spring for a paper cup full of Starbuck 's coffee, a large percentage of your four bucks is paying for that green and black logo. It 's just coffee, after all; why should it be so expensive? If you 're like me, you 're just in it for the caffeine anyway--flavor is a bonus. I 'm not suggesting you sink to the level of Maxwell House or Sanka; there are some very flavorful coffees available that are quite reasonable. My favorite is Bustelo, a rich coffee imported from Cuba and widely available in the U.S. I used to buy it in my local grocery store for about $2.99 for a 10-ounce brick. But over the past year or two the store price rose above $3.00, so I switched to Cafe Caribe, which is roasted and blended by a Brooklyn company for the Hispanic market and is still under $3.00 a brick. But I could do even better. A quick online search turned up several sources of cheap coffee that don 't sacrifice taste: Coffee Bean Direct (www.coffeebeandirect.com) offers 42 varieties of roasted whole beans, not including decaffeinated versions. On the low side, whole bean Colombian Supremo can be purchased in 25-pound bags for $89.50 ( which works out to $3.58 per pound), and whole bean Dark Celebes Kalossi in a 25-pound bag maxes out