If you’ve got a Keurig® K-Cup® or Vue® brewer, there are lots of options for trying something new to “Renew Your Brew.” Things like flavored coffees – Limited Edition Island Coconut comes to mind – and Brew Over Ice flavors like lemonade, iced coffee, and iced tea. (You did know that every Keurig® brewer can make iced beverages, right?)

The point is, single-serve packs are a really convenient way to enjoy a great cup of coffee any time of day. But being able to use your brewer to make iced coffee, iced tea, lemonade and other fruit drinks is a little like discovering that your washing machine can also fold and do ironing. Sigh…if only.

So in case you need a little more motivation, here are 10 Ways to Renew Your Brew that you may see floating around as you travel through cyberspace in the next few weeks. And if you do try something new – beverage related or not – please leave a comment; we’d love to hear about it.

10 Ways to Renew Your Brew

1. Start chillin’ with your Keurig® brewer. Enjoy iced coffee, iced tea, and more.

2. Raise a mug to Mom. Order a special Mother’s Day Brewer Bundle to make her morning easy.

3. Think outside the bean. Try Brew Over Ice lemonade by Green Mountain Naturals® and other fruit brews.

4. Stockpile your favorite flavors with 15% off storewide, now through May 7. Just use keycode RENEWBREW at check-out.

5. Give a gift of good taste to someone special (see #4 regarding storewide sale).

6. Take a sip to paradise with Green Mountain Coffee® Island Coconut® seasonal coffee.

7. Get a special delivery. Café Express® members enjoy regular automatic delivery of their favorite items AND save 15% on every order.

8. Get a newer brewer. Check out the Keurig® Vue® V500.

9. Make time for tea with Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings K-Cup® and Vue® packs.

10. Try something new to you. Fair Trade Certified™ selections, Tully’s Hawaiian Blend, and more!

You know where to find all these great options, but here’s a shortcut to get you started: www.GreenMountainCoffee.com

Happiness comes from lots of things in life; a smile from a stranger, an email from a friend, or your favorite seasonal Green Mountain Coffee® flavors - like Fair Trade Gingerbread and Fair Trade Spicy Eggnog - coming back into rotation.

I'd never made whoopie pies before, but I had my heart set on creating them using Fair Trade Gingerbread coffee since the moment we decided that would be this month's flavor. Can I tell you a secret? Whoopie Pies are now a full on obsession!

They're way easier than I ever imagined. You'll be able to bake up a dozen saucer-sized whoopie pies with tangy, creamy filling in no time at all. They'll make a fabulous impression beside all the sugar cookies and shortbread that make an appearance this time of year.

Imagine the oohs and ahs you'll garner when you present a tray of these festive Gingerbread Coffee Whoopie pies with Gingerbread Cream Cheese filling decorated with red, white, and green sprinkles!

Fair Trade Gingerbread Coffee Whoopie Pies with Gingerbread Cream Cheese Filling

Makes 12 saucer-sized pies

Ingredients

For the Pies

• 1/4 cup Green Mountain Coffee Fair Trade Gingerbread Coffee
• 1/4 cup butter flavored shortening
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (also known as graham flour)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup full flavor molasses
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

For the Filling

• 1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
• 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons Fair Trade Gingerbread Coffee
• Holiday Sprinkles (optional)

Directions

For the Pies

Brew one 4 oz cup of Green Mountain Coffee Fair Trade Gingerbread Coffee and set aside to cool. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, add vegetable shortening and softened butter, and mix on medium speed until well combined, scraping the sides of the bowl a few times. Add brown sugar and beat again until well mixed, then do the same with the egg.

In a separate medium mixing bowl, combine whole wheat pastry flour, kosher salt, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Stir with a whisk for one minute (this aerates the flour so there is no need to sift), then set aside.

Add half the flour mixture to the butter mixture in the large mixing bowl and mix on low speed to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl often. When fully incorporated, add molasses to the mixture and mix on low speed again until fully combined.

Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix on low again. Scrape the sides of the bowl and make sure all the flour is mixed in. When this is done, add the buttermilk and cooled coffee and mix on low speed until these last two ingredients are well mixed-in.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, then, using a large cookie scoop or an ice cream scoop, spoon 6 portions of batter onto the sheet, well spaced apart as they will spread.

Remove cream cheese for the filling from the refrigerator at this time and leave it on the counter. It will soften while you bake off the pies. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove immediately.

Allow to cool on the baking sheet for a moment, then carefully peel the parchment paper away from each pie half. Place the cookie on a cooling rack to continue cooling, and continue baking the rest of the pies.

For the Filling

Once all the pies are baked and are cooling, begin to make the filling. In a medium bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whip cream cheese on high for about a minute.

One cup at a time, sift the powdered sugar and add it to the cream cheese, mixing on low at first, then on high to fully incorporate and whip.

When all the powdered sugar is mixed in, add vanilla extract and Fair Trade Gingerbread Coffee to the mixture. Whip on medium speed until the filling reaches the consistency you'd like.

If you find the filling too thick for your liking, add half and half or whipping cream one tablespoon at a time, mixing after each tablespoon, until you reach your desired consistency.

Spoon filling onto one half of a whoopie pie and spread with the back of the spoon in a circular motion towards the outside of the cookie. Top with a second cookie and press slightly so that the filling is visible from the edges.

If you would like, hold the pie over a baking tray and lightly coat the filling with holiday sprinkles. The tray will catch any sprinkles that don't stick to the filling and make for easy clean up.

Refrigerate the pies until ready to serve, up to two days.

[Psst - if you go over to Bluebonnets & Brownies, there's a Gingerbread coffee giveaway going on, too!  Go on over and check-it out!]

It’s National Coffee Day!  While you know we’d use any excuse – finished breakfast, found a lost sock, waiting for a haircut, you get the idea – to enjoy a good cup of coffee, today is the day that no excuses are necessary!  To celebrate, we’re all brewing up our favorite coffees, just the way we like them.  But how does our blogger team like to take their coffee?  We weren’t so, so we asked!

Roger - "I like very strong, dark roasted coffee and I drink it black as night."

Missy -  "I like iced coffee year-round and take it as follows… strict guidelines, you know."

• - Full cup of ice
• - One shot of Dark Magic® Espresso Blend
• - Smidgen of Wild Mountain Blueberry™, double brewed
• - Fill to the brim with Nantucket Blend® coffee
• - Top with a little cream and simple syrup

Winston - "My wife says I am an old man and stuck in my ways. I'm only 47 and I disagree, I just like what I like. At night before bed, I put out my French press, my whipped honey, the blue mug that my aunt made, and I fill the kettle with enough water for the pot. When I get up (and I get up pretty early) it's all ready for me. I like Ethiopian Yirgacheffe in a French press, served with honey and half and half. I know, it's heresy to use condiments in such a nice clean coffee like that. But I'm 47 and I can have my coffee any way I like it."

Amanda - “I love the unaltered taste and aroma of black coffee. No sugar, no cream masking the flavors of a great Sumatran or Kenyan. Every now and then though, I enjoy a splash of almond milk (lactose and I don’t mix), whose nutty flavor brings out the earthy notes in my coffee.”

Kristen - "I don’t drink coffee, but I’ll happily say that I take ice cream with my coffee – who doesn’t love an affogato?  Coffee and ice cream? The perfect combination."

Imagine a lazy late-summer weekend, with warm winds whipping the white caps up and down the New Hampshire coast, and acres of options for fresh-from-the-ocean culinary delights. Not too bad, right? The only thing that would improve the image is an oasis of free freshly brewed hot and iced gourmet coffee served up by our knowledgeable and enthusiastic sampling team.

Now you’re in the frame of mind – you’re walking along Ocean Boulevard at the Hampton Beach Seafood Festival, and there, like a mirage, in stark contrast to the multiple white tents of vendors selling everything from driftwood art to emu oil soap, is our giant green and blue Green Mountain Coffee® tent, doling out thousands of complementary cups of great Keurig® Brewed® coffees.

The tent is alive with activity as many people, like you, were drawn there, enticed by the lure of specialty coffee. You enter the massive booth, and read about coffee harvesting and processing.  Who knew?  You choose from one of the 12 Green Mountain Coffee® varieties being offered (ooh, Dark Magic®, good choice – I was thinking the same thing!). You take a goofy picture with your friends inside our 9 ft. tall My Coffee Moment coffee cup-shaped photo booth, and can’t wait to share the picture on your Facebook wall Monday morning. You take a caffeinated coffee quiz and get some fun prizes for showing your java knowledge. Suddenly your good day just got a whole lot better…nice! So good to see you, thanks for stopping by.

And if we missed you at Hampton Beach (maybe fried dough and lobster quesadillas aren’t your thing), hopefully we’ll see you in our backyard, Burlington, Vermont, for a rocking good time at this weekend’s Grand Point North Festival!

These days, a healthy choice doesn't have to be a hard decision between what's good, and what's good for you. 

That's why we're thrilled to introduce Wellness Brewed™ beverages, a new line of K-Cup® packs that are a delicious complement to your wellness lifestyle. Taking care of yourself can be as easy as the touch of a button on your Keurig® brewer, and as satisfying as knowing you've done the right thing.  Because when wellness is balanced by goodness, both your body and your tastebuds benefit.

This new collection of six beverages includes two new Brew Over Ice favorites, Strawberry Pomegranate and Acai Berry from Vitamin Burst™, as well as Fair Trade Certified™ Green Mountain Coffee® Antioxidant Blend,  Green Mountain Coffee® Focus Blend™, and two Celestial Seasonings® Antioxidant Max™ Green Teas that are available in Blackberry Pomegranate and Blood Orange Star Fruit flavors. Shop now and explore these wonderfully craveable beverages!

They're here: the dog days of summer. If you're like me, you're craving fall (and Fair Trade Pumpkin Spice K-Cup® packs) like crazy. But we're not quite there. These last few weeks of summer's warmth and late sunsets are just the time to savor Green Mountain Coffee's Brew Over Ice flavors.

Around our house, we adore all the Brew Over Ice choices, from Nantucket Blend Iced Coffee to Strawberry Pomegranate Vitamin Burst™, but we decided to harness the inherent dessert qualities of Brew Over Ice Hazelnut coffee to make one last summery treat - Brew Over Ice Hazelnut and Cream Ice Pops! Just a few simple ingredients and one press of your Keurig® brewer's button will have you on the way to an indulgent sweet treat that's easy too. We love this novel approach to "iced" coffee. I can see making many more ice pops this way with all the Brew Over Ice flavors! I used my Zoku Pop Maker to create these ice pops, but you can use any ice pop mold you like. It'll just take longer to freeze each layer.

Green Mountain Coffee® Brew Over Ice Hazelnut & Cream Ice Pops

makes 4 ice pops

Ingredients

6 oz Green Mountain Coffee® Brew Over Ice Hazelnut coffee

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

6 oz Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss Vanilla Creamer

Directions

Brew one 6 oz cup of Green Mountain Coffee® Brew Over Ice Hazelnut coffee in your Keurig® brewer. Pour the cup into a small saucepan and add sugar.

Stir the coffee-sugar mixture frequently over medium heat until the sugar has dissolved completely. Pour the coffee back into a ceramic mug and place it in the refrigerator. Allow the coffee to cool completely before you make the ice pops. When the coffee is cool, use a measuring cup or funnel to pour coffee into each pop mold about 1/3 of the way up.

Place in the freezer and allow to freeze completely before starting the next layer.

When the first layer is frozen, repeat this step with Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss creamer, pouring it on top of the first layer, another 1/3 of the way up the pop mold. Place back in the freezer and allow to freeze completely.

Once the second layer is frozen, finish with another coffee layer.

If you'd rather have ice pops in a hurry, and don't care about the striped look, simply mix the coffee and creamer together and freeze all at once.

 Some things just belong together: peanut butter and jelly, sugar and spice, Sting and Trudy, salt and pepper, Sweet and Creamy Nutty Hazelnut Iced Coffee and French Vanilla iced coffee….

 Trust me, that last pair needs to be added to this list as another perfect combination.

 Why?

As some of you already know, I love a good glass of Brew Over Ice coffee in the summer, and I’m always searching for new ways to drink it. It was a stroke of genius (or maybe just a mild heat stroke) that inspired me to combine two of my beloved icy brews into one fabulous summer indulgence: the Creamy Vanilla Hazelnut Iced Coffee.

 It’s simple to make, and even simpler to drink, and perfectly blends two of my favorite flavors, vanilla and Hazelnut. Here’s the easy recipe.

1. Brew 2 K-Cup® packs of Sweet and Creamy Nutty Hazelnut Iced Coffee on the 6 oz. setting without ice into a mug (or cup) and then carefully pour the brew into a standard ice-cube tray (remember: it's hot).
2. Place into the freezer and wait until the Sweet and Creamy Cubes are frozen.
3. Take your frozen Sweet and Creamy cubes and put them in a 16 oz. plastic tumbler (as you would with normal ice cubes for any Brew Over Ice beverage), and place under your Keurig® brewer.
4. Pop a Green Mountain Coffee® French Vanilla Iced Coffee K-Cup® pack into your brewer and brew at the 6 oz. setting, over the Sweet and Creamy Cubes. As the coffee brews, it will melt some of the Sweet and Creamy cubes, expertly blending the Hazelnut and French Vanilla flavors. Add simple syrup to taste.

And that’s it! You have yourself a delightful Creamy Vanilla Hazelnut Iced Coffee! It’s easy, pretty, delicious… A perfect summer pairing!

Wow – we couldn’t have asked for a better day yesterday! It was a sunny, hot day – making it perfect for a good old-fashioned carwash! The cars kept rolling in– keeping our employees busy scrubbing and spraying and scooping (free Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream that is) all afternoon. No wonder this is my favorite day of the year!

Although the carwash was busy, car detailing really pulled in the traffic! The detail line was full for the whole 4 hours. With a suggested donation of $25 per car, we couldn’t be more thankful for Gigi’s Cleaning Company for donating their equipment and time to detail these cars.

Grounds for Health is still counting up the donations, but we know this year’s pull will continue to support their important work within coffee-growing communities!

Below are some photos with some highlights from the day.

Safety first! Stretching to stay limber during their volunteer shift!

We’re watching our emissions – the carwash was a  “No Idle Zone”

 For a brief moment, we had a “sprinkler” situation:

As always, one of the great highlights was a visit from Ben and Jerry themselves! (pictured with Grounds for Health Executive Director August Burns):

And of course – the entertainment! Love to listen to The Growlers while washing!

This Thursday (8/16/12), we’ll be hosting our 6^th annual carwash to raise money for the Waterbury, Vermont-based nonprofit Grounds for Health, an organization that aims to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in coffee-growing communities.

Employees will be hosing down and washing cars behind the Green Mountain Coffee Visitor Center and Café in Waterbury from 12 p.m. - 4 p.m . The carwash is free, but donations are strongly encouraged (especially if you’d like your car detailed by Gigi’s Cleaning Company)! They’ll be free Ben and Jerry’s ice cream as well as music by The Growlers.

In addition, to hosting this annual carwash, we’ve also been a long-time supporter of Grounds for Health through past grants. We most recently awarded Grounds for Health a three-year $900,000 grant that will help them to further develop their existing cervical cancer prevention programs in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Tanzania, and expand its program into Peru. We're excited to continue to support Grounds For Health's efforts to establish sustainable and effective cervical cancer prevention and treatment programs in coffee-growing communities. The partnerships Grounds for Health forges with coffee cooperatives help break down barriers that stand between women and the care they need.

If you’re in the area on Thursday, be sure to stop by the carwash to show your support and have some fun!

Let's face it: If coffee is your thing chances are you rarely make it through a day without at least one cup. More often than not, I like to follow up that initial cup of coffee with another - perhaps a different flavor to mix things up or even opting for an iced coffee instead. However, there do come the rare instances when those first two volleys of caffeine simply aren't enough. In these desperate times, you may find yourself staring at that fateful third cup of coffee - the moment I've come to call "the point of no return."  Here are few that've hit me over the years:

Is that the sunrise?
In college, pulling an all nighter is about as routine as ordering pizza for the fourth meal in a row or debating whether that wrinkled t-shirt is really dirty enough to justify making a trip down to the laundry room - it happens a lot, is what I'm saying. The crazy thing is that when you're an undergrad, as tired as you might be for going a whole 24 hours without sleep, you can usually find enough energy to drag yourself to an 8 AM class and still make it to a late night meal before falling into a coma-like state for an extended period of time.

However, during the postgrad days of working 9 to 5, pulling an all-nighter is a far riskier proposition. If you find yourself wondering how the sun managed to come up before you made it home after a night out, you can bet there's a third cup of coffee (at least) in your future.

There's 506 miles to Chicago...
Going on a cross-country road trip is about as American as apple pie, but this heavily romanticized adventure doesn't make it any less dauntingly monotonous when you've been on the road for eight hours and you still have hundreds of miles left to go. Whether you're trying to make a trip from New York to Chicago or are planning a tour of the Southwest, nothing helps make sitting in a car for an 18-hour period bearable like multiple cups of caffeinated goodness.

One fine cup of coffee
Sometimes that third cup of coffee isn't about recovering from the night of one-too-many-beers or completely a test of your endurance, it's just because you've been handed one fine cup of coffee and you just want it. There are a seemingly limitless number of coffee varieties, flavors and methods of preparation, and when you find the one that's perfect for your palette, it can be like falling in love for the first time all over again. For those special moments, go ahead and indulge - have another cup of coffee.

Who doesn’t love a potluck?

It’s the trifecta of good things: Friends, mingling, and great food – the signature items that you bring plus a slew of dishes you’d have never thought to make yourself.  A buffet of creativity that you get to enjoy with your best buds.  Win, win, win all around.

Those are just some of the reasons why we’re excitedly packing our bags for this weekend’s Big Summer Potluck, an annual gathering of food lovers put on by The Ivory Hut and Three Many Cooks.  It’s three days jam-packed with schmoozing with old and new friends, workshops galore, and of course, dishes from some of the best cooks around – the hosts and attendees!  Some of our very own K-Cup^® Ambassadors will even be on the ground, taking the weekend in for all its foodie worth and sharing the K-Cup^® love.    

So, what does a coffee company bring to a potluck?  We do have a lot of spectacular recipes using Green Mountain Coffee^® varieties thanks to Bluebonnets & Brownies, so we have some options. 

But let’s be honest: when it’s 8 AM on Saturday and you’re in need of a revelation, what do you want?  Coffee – hot and caffeinated.  When it’s 3 PM in the summer after a full day of inspiring workshops, what do you need? Coffee – cool and creamy.  Iced, hot, and creatively mixed (we’re talking to you, K-Cup^®  Mixologists!) we’ll be bringing a pallet of Green Mountain Coffee^® K-Cup^® packs for Big Summer Potluck guests to enjoy throughout the day.     

If you can’t make it to Big Summer Potluck, don’t worry!  Follow the weekend activity on Twitter with hasttag #bsp3 and have your own potluck at home! What’s your go-to potluck dish?  Wild Mountain Blueberry™ Pound Cake is a showstopper with crowds!

With summer now in full swing I must admit I have found myself struggling to keep my cool when it is 95 ̊degrees outside. Add to that 80-90% humidity and you have all the ingredients for a sweaty afternoon. This past weekend I developed a recipe of my own to add some refreshment to these seemingly endless days of heat of humidity. Drum roll please! Introducing the French Vanilla Coffee Gelato!  Please see the recipe below and let me know what you think! 

French Vanilla Coffee Gelato
 

1- Green Mountain Coffee® French Vanilla Iced Coffee K-Cup® pack on 4 oz. setting
1/2 C sugar
2 2/3 C milk - 2% or whole is best
2/3C heavy cream

• Brew K-Cup® pack on 4 oz setting.
• Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
• Measure out milk and cream and add cooled coffee to mixture. Mix well.
• Add mixture to ice cream maker. Prepare according to directions provided with your ice cream maker.

Enjoy!

 

Alright, let’s admit it: There are some things in life that just go well together. We here at Green Mountain Coffee® particularly enjoy the combination of cream and coffee (or a nice Brew Over Ice beverage) to help us deal with a particularly hot day. This Fourth of July we’ve decided to share a favorite way to enjoy coffee and or fruit flavored treats on a day that calls for cold refreshment. Introducing the Café Vanilla Pop and the Sweet Raspberry Tea Pop! We hope you will make these popsicle recipes a part of your Fourth of July celebration.

Café Vanilla Pop Recipe

• 1 Café Escapes® Café Vanilla K-Cup® pack, brewed using the 4 oz. setting
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 cup of ice

Stir sugar into hot coffee until dissolved.

Add ice & blend in blender.

Pour blended mix into popsicle mold, freeze and enjoy!

*Additions (mini choc. chips) Add handful before freezing popsicles.

Sweet Raspberry Tea Pop Recipe

• 1 Celestial Seasonings® Sweet Raspberry Iced Tea K-Cup® pack, brewed using the 4 oz. setting
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 cup of ice

Stir sugar into hot tea until dissolved.

Add ice & blend in blender.

Pour blended mix into popsicle mold, freeze and enjoy!

- Psst - remember to check out our Fourth of July Storewide Sale for some great deals on these Popsicle ingredients!

Here on the PR team, we’re all super excited about a recent…doctor’s visit.

Before you assume I’m about to go seriously TMI and tell you about my last physical, let me assure you that I’m not talking about my general practitioner…or any old doctor. I’m talking about THE doctor: Dr. Gadget. Last Friday, the “Guru of Giveaways” featured Keurig® Platinum Brewer and Brew Over Ice K-Cup® packs on The View’s hottest summertime gadgets segment.

 “What it’s all about is this new system that they’ve got with the K-Cup®!” Dr. Gadget said, demonstrating how to Brew Over Ice with Whoopi Goldberg and Elizabeth Hasselback.

Both Elizabeth and Dr. Gadget noted that the Brew Over Ice K-Cup® packs, ranging in variety from Celestial Seasonings® Perfect Iced Teas to The Original Donut Shop® Sweet & Creamy iced coffee, are specially formulated to retain their flavor when brewed directly over ice.

“You guys know how when you take coffee and put it over ice it gets all watered down?” Dr. Gadget asked the cheering crowd. “Well, not anymore!”

And here in Vermont where the mercury has been regularly rising to a staggering 99°F lately, we are so thankful for that.

The lucky studio audience on set that day got a brewer and K-Cup® packs to take home. No surprise there, as Dr. Gadget gives away more than $200,000 worth of products on average to The View’s audiences, according to his website. He even coined the phrase, “Everybody Gets One!” (Seriously, he did. I thought it was Oprah, too.) Anyway, we’re all thrilled to have the doctor’s approval; he even described Brew Over Ice as “perfectly blended” with a “great formula”!

Want to beat the heat in your area? Get in on this cool (literally) summertime trend ASAP! I’ve been sipping away on my Sweet & Creamy Nutty Hazelnut iced coffee in the office every day, and I think you need some in your life. You can get this tasty summer cool-down in a cup at our website, and check us out on The View in the clip below—we come in at 2:32.

Stay cool!

Yesterday was not only the first official day of summer, but here in Vermont the temperature reached a record-breaking 95 degrees! While we native Vermonters are used to winter conditions – it can snow anytime between November and April around these parts – this heat wave is really throwing us for a loop. We know how to keep warm with a down snowsuit, a hand-knit hat, and a steamy mug of coffee but keeping cool is a new phenomenon altogether.

As someone who drives a non-air-conditioned truck, and whose house is kept cool by a series of fans and open windows, beating the heat can be a bit of an art form. These past two days have seen me relying on my Keurig® brewer to chill me out, brewing cup after cup (after cup, after cup) of my favorite Brew Over Ice iced beverages.  I’ve been drinking my favorite summer treat, Brew Over Ice Nantucket Blend Iced Coffee, to both cool me down, and perk me up.  Until today.

You can imagine my horror today when I realized I was not the only one at the office using Brew Over Ice to beat this week’s heat – when I went to the break room to make myself a cup, I discovered the box of Nantucket Blend Iced coffee was completely empty! After frantically searching for just one more K-Cup® pack, I had to accept that I was going to find a different way to refresh myself.

I decided to try and fend off my disappointment, and the high temperatures, with the Original Donut Shop’s new Sweet and Creamy Nutty Hazelnut Iced Coffee. After all, it was sitting right next to my beloved Nantucket Blend on the shelf. I filled up my plastic cup with ice, popped the K-Cup® pack in the brewer, and pressed the 8-oz. brew setting. I took a curious first sip, and then another deep slurp. The mix of toasty hazelnut and coffee flavors, and the sweet cream notes was the perfect way to beat the heat, and give me that afternoon perk I craved.

I think I’ve just found the best way for a Vermonter to keep cool in the summer months - how are you beating the heat today?

If I haven't mentioned it before (and I'm almost sure that I have), I love sports and games of all kinds. From ice hockey to Risk, I'm always willing to go play most anything. Because of this inherent passion of mine, I'm also always on the lookout for the next major sporting event that I can sink my teeth into. Even if it's a game I’m not usually particularly passionate about - I'm eager to sit down, and start cheering for a side.

This summer is particularly exciting for me because the Euro Cup 2012 will be happening from June 8 through July 1, which is the second largest soccer event in the world, just behind the world cup.  It’s an entire month of top-tier international competition - so naturally, I couldn't be happier. The tournament occurs every four years between the highest-ranked teams in Europe, which means that you're dealing with the majority of the greatest national teams in the world. This year, the Euro is being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine.

I've been looking forward to this championship since the World Cup ended in 2010, so when the opening day games kicked off, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, the time difference between the U.S. and Eastern Europe means that most of the matches occur during the middle of the work day, so I have to listen to, or follow, the games online at work. However, this is much better than the regular season when games are on Saturday mornings at 6 A.M. EST, only a good stiff cup of coffee will keep your interest from lagging. Now on the weekends you’ll find me in a bar or pub flailing my arms and cheering at the television with whomever else happens to be around in the early afternoons.

There are usually never many people  with whom to share my enthusiasm for watching soccer in particular (this is the state of soccer fandom in America, after all), but since starting my job here at Green Mountain Coffee® a few months ago I’ve been astounded at the number of people, like me, who are into sports of all kinds. It gives me an outlet to vent my frustrations or joy at recent outcomes, so I don’t have to bottle them up, which means that eventually they get unleashed on some poor unsuspecting soul. Thankfully, the other day I also managed to find a couple of German tourists who were intently watching as their national team battled Portugal. I'm personally a big fan of Germany's youthful energy and powerful players, so I sat down next to them and we began talking about the match.

Within a half hour or so, we’d become fast friends and were sharing our predictions about which teams we thought would advance, which players we thought were overrated and our past memories of watching the Euro.

If there was ever proof of how  mutual passions, like watching the Euro Cup, can bring people of vastly different backgrounds together, this was it. Germany won the match and we agreed to meet up the next day at the same bar to watch Spain vs. Italy.

Despite the recent rains, I have been able to enjoy the sunny days Vermont has had in May to prepare my gardens for the summer and fall.

This past weekend, I got a brief reprieve from the weather long enough to head out into the backyard to weed and map out my garden plans. I turned on the radio just loud enough to hear at the garden below, put on my garden shoes and gloves, and began clearing away the brush that had accumulated over the past year.

I've only been trying my hand at gardening at home for the past couple of years, so I still consider myself somewhat of a beginner. In the past, my green thumb experience included watering my indoor spider plants occasionally and growing a couple of potted herbs. However, I've graduated to cultivating a small garden of Gladiolas, daisies, bleeding hearts, dahlias and an area for some strawberries - not bad for someone who couldn’t recognize the names of simple flowers before.

By about midday, I had the garden cleaned up and ready for planting. I spent about an hour or so transplanting flowers and plants that were given to me from my mother’s garden as well as planting some new bulbs I had purchased. I only hope the plants take and the bulbs come up.

I realized later in the afternoon that I had neglected to put on enough sun screen and my fair skin was turning a bright shade of pink.

To relieve my skin from the sun, I ran inside and opened the refrigerator; first to feel the cool air and second to grab the iced coffee I had made earlier in the morning using my French press. I am particular about my coffee and enjoy the process of grinding and brewing it myself. This morning, I knew I would enjoy an iced coffee after gardening so I increased the ratio of coffee to water and added a few extra scoops of freshly ground Nantucket Blend®. This would ensure that after I added ice that I would not dilute the great blend.

That cup of iced coffee was the perfect conclusion to a day of hard work in the yard. The caffeine perked me up a bit so that I could finish cleaning up my garden supplies. Afterward, I grabbed my recent travel magazine, poured another refreshing Green Mountain Coffee® iced coffee and spent the remainder of the afternoon lounging on my back patio in the shade. Here's hoping the weather is nice next weekend so I can start on my tomato garden.

I’m often overwhelmed with the plethora of shiny, and normally quite costly, tools and other manly pieces of machinery that are advertised as being the perfect gift for your dad on father’s day, so I lean towards a few more unconventional ideas. Showing dad you care is a lot easier than you may think and it doesn’t have to involve spending a lot of money, just some time out of your day. For instance preparing your father’s coffee just the way he likes it and then helping him take care of those little projects he never has time to get to around the house would say a lot.

This requires knowing just what he likes, the subtleties of his favorite style -- could be a dark or light roast, creamy or black, sweet or bitter, frothy or iced. It can be a difficult thing to get right, but if you can pull that off, delivered to him in his favorite mug without him saying so much as a word, he’ll be quite pleasantly surprised. And even more so when you suggest tackling the unfinished stone wall together that your mother requested around the garden ages ago. Though that only starts after you’ve all enjoyed the breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon you knew he’d love, of course.

It’s hard to show just how much you care and the effort you’re willing to put forth on their behalf by simply buying them something, even if it is something that you know they’ll love. As the people that have raised and cared for us all our lives our parents deserve to understand just how much we appreciate everything they’ve done. Treat your father better this year than ever before, it can never be too much. And it all starts by waking up to the smell of coffee and bacon wafting into their room.

If you need help making that special cup of coffee we’ve enlisted some help for you in our Deal of the Week.

And here’s a sampling of some of the good recipes from our blog that you could treat them to:

• Wild Mountain Blueberry Pound Cake
• Fair Trade Island Coconut Cookies
• Fair Trade Coffee Marinated Steak

I’ve written about the advantages of moving in with my girlfriend Lena recently, but I failed to mention that we also live with a couple of extra roommates, Matt and Kathleen. Kathleen is 25, only a couple of years older than me and Lena, and works as a manager at a restaurant in town. Matt is 31 and is one of the top chefs at a different restaurant nearby. While it might seem like an inconvenient situation for a couple to share an apartment with two other people, it's actually worked out much better than expected - just like moving in with Lena!

First of all, having two roommates that work in the restaurant industry means that our schedules rarely line up. As a result, we usually only see each other two or three times a week for brief periods, which means that we never feel like we're on top of each other in the apartment.

While we all appreciate the way our schedules allow us all to have free reign of the apartment at different times, it also makes it difficult for us to hang out and bond like regular roommates. Even when we make plans to see each other, there's usually some sort of last-minute restaurant emergency that keeps either Matt or Kathleen away for the night. However, we managed to line up our work schedules this week so we could all sit down to the first roommate dinner in the apartment.

Considering that Matt is a chef at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, it was only natural that he cook up something extra delicious for dinner. I came home from work to the intoxicating aromas of fresh stuffing, roasting pork, buttery potatoes, and all manner of herbs and spices. When Lena and Kathleen arrived, we sat down at the table together for the first time, popped a bottle of wine and let the evening take us where it may.

Several servings and glasses of wine later, we were all swapping stories about our families, childhoods, annoying jobs we had worked and plans for the future. The wine had made us a little sleepy, but we didn't want to cut the night short, so we threw on the Keurig® brewer and brewed some strong coffee to keep us going.

Before long we were talking and drinking coffee well into the evening. The hot beverages got us in the mood for some dessert, so we finished up the evening heading to the local ice cream shop for some after dinner treats. I really hope that we can find time in our busy schedules to make roommate dinner night a regular tradition.

Gathered via an extremely informal, impromptu poll around the office about what people liked best about Memorial Day weekend, aside from the fact that it’s a long weekend and paid holiday of course!

1. Having a BBQ (or picnic):
   • Naturally, there were many mentions regarding cook-outs and grilling. Just about everyone had some iteration of it. Some people were a little more enthusiastic and detailed about it than others though, going so far as to say “a clambake at the beach or “a fat juicy steak on the grill cooked just so”, possibly bordering on being a little overzealous in some cases. People love their food!
2. Being with friends and family:
   • This common theme ties in nicely with pretty much everything else about the holiday, the, generally, more pleasant weather, outdoor opportunities and the typical events warrant spending quality time with loved ones.
3. Strawberry shortcake:
   • This classic summer treat deserves its own place in the lineup, it’s delicious. enough said!
4. Fireworks:
   • Always fun, even if slightly dangerous, but it’s a holiday and the weather is nice enough to spend it outside, so fireworks are an obvious possibility. Please just be safe, we like you all to be healthy, happy people.
5. Beginning to plant the garden, window boxes, spring flowers:
   • This was an extremely popular response, with good reason. The sun is finally shining strongly and the world is a verdant green and in bloom around you, so it’s an appropriate time to enjoy in that fresh spring vigor and get dirty working in the garden.
6. Parades:
   • Exciting to watch and good for people of ages. Everything from a young girl walking her cows, which are 3 times her size, to the older veterans riding in classic cars, to people hanging out of the back of a hay wagon being pulled behind an enormous tractor(at least where I’m from).
7. Flying candy:
   • An essential part of any parade in my book, though I’m told that this may not be a universal trait of these sorts of events nationwide. If you’re unfamiliar with this tradition, it’s basically centered around throwing candy from the vehicles and floats in the parade to the observers. Obviously a nice gesture!
8. The start of the summer feeling:
   • Something triggers in the body right around this holiday in conjunction with the weather that says that it’s time for fun, boating, swimming, and laying in the hammock, etc…
9. Icy beverages:
   • Marketing completely aside, the increasing warmth and humidity bring with them a desire for more refreshing, cooler drinks. Iced coffee and Iced tea taking the place of their normal counterparts.
10. Going camping:
    • Again tied to the agreeableness of the weather, is the opening up of the camping season. Time for bug spray, camp fires, hot dogs, and s’mores!

Enjoy the holiday and cross your fingers for nice weather!

If you’re looking for ideas and/or a good deal on iced beverages you should check out what we’ve got going on the website. (GreenMountainCoffee.com)