Many of our customers have asked this question so I decided to post the Keurig recommended process for de-scaling their coffee systems.

For Your Keurig Platimun, Special Edition, Ultra, and Elite brewing systems;

A. Prepare

Step 1: Make sure you have 48 ounces of white vinegar on hand. You will also need an
empty sink and a ceramic mug(Do not use a paper cup).

Step 2: Empty the water in the reservoir.

B. Fill And Clean

Step 1: Pour the vinegar into the Water Reservoir and fill it to the top edge of the clear viewing area.

Step 2: Place a ceramic cup into the Drip Tray and run a brew cycle. DO NOT USE A
K-CUP....Just press the Large Cup Button. Pour the contents of the cup into
the sink.

Step 3: Repeat the brew process until the Water Reservoir is empty, pouring the
contents of the cup into the sink after each cycle.

Step 4: Now fill the contents of the reservoir with fresh water and let the brewer stand for 4 hours while still on.

C. Rinse

Step 1: Ensure the Water Reservoir is filled with fresh water.

Step 2: Place a ceramic cup on the Drip Tray and run a regular brew cycle. Pour the
contents of the cup into the sink.

Step 3: Repeat the brew process until the water reservoir is empty.

Step 4: You may need to perform additional brew cycles if you notice any additional.
tastes.

So there you have it... :)

There are several reasons that tea can be bitter. It can be can be related to the water, the brewing time, the cleanliness of your teapot, and even the tea itself.
The chemical that makes tea bitter is called tannin. It’s a chemical compound with an astringent quality. It has a drying effect and is the element that can make your mouth pucker when you drink tea. The tannin is released when you put hot water on the tea leaves. To prevent your tea from being bitter, you need to minimize the amount of tannin released into the tea you drink. Here are some factors to consider.
The tea: the first thing you want to consider is the quality and type of tea you are brewing. Teabags are usually made from the “fannings” and dust of the tea that has been processed in larger pieces for loose leaf packaging. Smaller pieces make a larger overall surface area for the tea to release tannins from. In other words, you will get more tannin per second from teabags than from loose tea. Furthermore, the tiny pieces expose more surface area to the air during storage, making it more vulnerable to getting stale faster. In addition, many teabags are often made with inferior quality tea to begin with.
Cleanliness: Did you ever notice those brownish stains on the inside of your teapot? That’s traces of tannin. If you let it build up, it will eventually start to affect the flavor of your tea. To prevent this, rinse out your teapot with warm water as soon as it’s empty. After it’s cooled, wash it inside and out with baking soda on the corner of a washcloth. Soaps can leave a lingering residue that affect the taste of your tea, but baking soda rinses clean and is the natural enemy of tannin since it is alkaline. Use the brush for cleaning the nipples on baby bottles to get down into the spout and clean it.
The water: Taste the water you are using to make your tea. If you wouldn’t drink it, don’t make your tea with it. You can use a good spring or filtered water, but don’t use one that is distilled. Distilled water has an absence of minerals altogether and will make you tea taste flat like pasta does when you cook it without salt.
The brewing temperature: No this is a tricky bit here. In general you brew black teas with water that has come to a “full rolling boil” and green or white teas at 140o to 175o F. But. There are some teas that don’t follow that general rule, so read the label on the tea container and follow the directions recommended by the tea company. They want their tea to taste as good as possible so their directions are probably going to be right.
The amount of tea used: This is another tricky one. In general you want one teaspoon or one teabag of tea for each six fluid ounces of hot water used. Measure how many ounces your teapot or teacup holds then divide the number by six. That will tell you how many teaspoons of tea to use. However, some teas need a little more or less, so, again, read the box or the tin and see what the company recommends. Also, if this proportion doesn’t taste strong enough to you, don’t increase the amount of tea. Buy a stronger tea to begin with such as a nice Assam. They’re naturally stronger and richer in flavor.
The brewing time: Now we get to the number one factor in bitter tea—the brewing time. The longer the tea steeps, the more tannin is released. Teabags have tiny pieces for quick brewing, which means the tannins are released much faster. Most teabags should be removed from the hot water within 40 to 60 seconds. Loose green tea should be removed in 1 to 3 minutes, black tea in 4, and oolong in 3 to 4. Herbal teas can steep as long as you like. They have no true tea in them and therefore no tannin. However, again, read the instructions on the box before you brew because some teas do not follow the standard rules.
If you use loose tea, you need to have a tea ball or an infuser or some other method of removing the leaves from the water before the tea turns bitter. If you use an infuser, you must use one large enough to let the leaves unfurl. The whole leaves have been curled and they need room to open. Some people find it better to use a large cheesecloth bag that can be washed without detergent and reused. It gives the tea more room. If you have neither an infuser nor a cheesecloth bag, you can decant the tea into another teapot using a tea strainer.
How do I fix bitter tea? No amount of sugar can fix bitter tea. Instead you get tea that is both bitter and sweet, nice for chocolate, but not so much for tea. To make already brewed tea less bitter, add a very small pinch of baking soda. As mentioned above, baking soda counter acts the tannins, but if you add more than just a tiny bit, your tea will taste like baking soda.
So, next time you make a pot of tea, remember, the right tea, the right water, the right temperature, the right brewing time, and a sparkling clean teapot. But if you forget, add a pinch of baking soda.

At timeless classic, Timothy's Original Donut Blend will conjure memories of simple days. This inviting cup of coffee is a nostalgic trip to the days of traditional dount shops, where freshly brewed coffee was a staple.

Smooth and bright, with good body and a clean finish, Timothy's Original Donut Blend is not just a cup of coffee... it's one of life's simple pleasures. So sit back, relax and celebrate simplicity a familiar favorite.

Look for this new coffee arriving the first week of August.

We're so excited to bring to you an American tradition, Maxwell House coffee. For the first time Maxwell House is offering their 100% Arabica coffee's in both regular and decaffeinated for sale in Pod form. Kraft a fortune 500 company who also owns Maxwell House has made a major commitment to the Pod industry by offering their coffee for use in almost all Pod machines. Each Pod is individually wrapped for freshness so opening up one Pod is like opening up a can of Maxwell House coffee for the first time. The smell of fresh roasted coffee just fills the room. Since listing these on http://www.coffeewhiz.com/ yesterday we have sold 100's and they are flying out the door. For more information visit http://www.coffeewhiz.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=210 or simply call 800-922-9924 or email customerservice@coffeewhiz.com . In addition we offer online chat as well.

Green Mountain Coffee® has once again joined a nationwide effort to keep America's waterways clean. As a sponsor of American Rivers’ National River Cleanup™, employee volunteers will use paid time off to clean a section of the Winooski River from July 20-24, 2009.
Volunteers will pick up litter in and around a 5-mile stretch of the Winooski, from the Middlesex Dam to the Bolton Dam and beyond. They will use canoes donated by Umiak Outdoor Outfitters in Stowe to reach trash that is submerged.
This is the fifth year the Green Mountain Coffee brand has sponsored the national effort. Last year, heavy summer rains caused employees to shift their focus from the Winooski River to the Little River State Park and the nearby village of Hancock, where they helped families recover from extensive flood damage.
"We’re hoping for clearer skies this year,” says Paul Comey, Vice President of Environmental Affairs for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. "We’re all anxious to get back on the river and do our part. National River Cleanup is one of our most popular employee volunteer opportunities.”
National River Cleanup is part of the Company’s Community Action For Employees (CAFESM) Program, which allows employees to spend up to 52 hours per year volunteering for nonprofit and community-based organizations during normal work hours. In fiscal 2008, employees volunteered 6,208 hours in total, a record for the Company.
National River Cleanup is considered the most successful stream cleanup program in the country. Since its inception in 1991, more than 600,000 volunteers have participated in thousands of cleanups across the country, covering more than 100,000 miles of waterways. For more information or to find a cleanup near you, please visit http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.AmericanRivers.org%2Fcleanup&esheet=6004768&lan=en_US&anchor=www.AmericanRivers.org%2Fcleanup&index=1.
In the case of inclement weather, the rain dates for the Winooski River Cleanup will be August 10-14.
GMCR routinely posts information that may be of importance to investors in the Investor Services section of its web site, including news releases and its complete financial statements, as filed with the SEC. The Company encourages investors to consult this section of its web site regularly for important information and news. Additionally, by subscribing to the Company’s automatic email news release delivery, individuals can receive news directly from GMCR as it is released.

Many coffee drinkers go out of their way to get "fair trade" and "eco-friendly" coffee, but is that pricey jolt of joe really any better for the environment than the 75-cent paper cup of gut-rot from the corner deli?

After oil, coffee is the most traded commodity in the world. It's produced commercially on 25 million acres in 82 countries, and the United States consumes 8.7 million pounds of it annually, according to the Department of Agriculture.

But not all coffee should be treated equally.

In some parts of the world, forests — our first line of defense against global warming — are being cleared to increase the yield of the coffee crop.

Some types of coffee are produced under strict environmental or labor standards, but caffeine addicts have to pay more for them. The most common kinds are "Fair Trade," organic and "shade-grown" coffees.

Coffee grown with a Fair Trade certification helps ensure that farmers in developing countries are paid fairly for their toil and hopefully won't have to resort to unscrupulous growing practices detrimental to the environment.

Organic coffee is grown without the use of harmful pesticides or fertilizers, a green way to go for any crop.

Then there is shade-grown coffee. Otherwise known as "bird friendly" since it's helpful to migratory fowl, it's grown under canopy trees where the natural shade shelters the coffee plants during the growing season. This could be a win-win situation for growers and the environment.

"In Colombia, fruit trees are used to shade the coffee," says Mehlman. "This produces double yield for the same acreage, fruit and coffee."

Unfortunately, shade-grown coffee yields are lower than open-field sun cultivation, so the price is often higher. The increased demand for cheap coffee has resulted in the clearing of rainforests and an increase in the usage of chemicals and pesticides.

"Because it's such a staple in our lives, it's important to make smart choices to have a smart impact," says Carmen K. Iezzi, executive director of the Fair Trade Federation, the trade association that strengthens and promotes North American organizations that are fully committed to fair trade. "It's a holistic process; our members want to produce sustainably without compromising future generations' ability to grow."

Even if you decide to pay the extra for the java grown fairly and organically, there's another side to your morning coffee that keeps it from being green.

"We as a country use 23 billion paper coffee cups a year," explains Nicko Fusso of Sustainability Is Sexy, a Seattle-based non-profit organization devoted to getting as many coffee drinkers as possible to tote their own reusable cups.

"To make that many cups, we'll consume 9.4 million trees and 363 million gallons of water," adds Nicko. "That's enough energy to power 77,000 homes for a year."
With 150 million people drinking 3.1 cups per day, and many of those cups grabbed on-the-go, the number of single-use coffee cups going in the trash is staggering.
And paper coffee cups aren't about to go away.

"It's not the cup that's the problem, it's the habit," says Bob Lilienfeld, editor of The Use Less Stuff Report [http://use-less-stuff.com], a Rochester, Mich.-based online newsletter. "In one word, it's about convenience. We tend to move toward anything that makes it easier for us to save time and effort. But there is a cost."
At least one coffee-cup giant agrees.

"Every choice has a trade-off," explains Angie Gorman, director of communications for the Solo Cup Company, based in Highland Park, Ill. "You have an impact on the front end when manufacturing the cup, or at the end of that cup's useful life. Reducing waste is important, but a better way to reduce waste is to expand the country's composting and recycling infrastructure."

Still, Gorman insists there's a need for disposable coffee cups.

"Single-use cups offer a convenient and sanitary way to serve beverages to the public," she points out.

Lilienfeld doesn't dispute that.

"There are times when you have no other option, like at the theater or a ball game," he says. "You can't bring your own cup into these venues."

Cup manufacturers like Solo are working aggressively to find more sustainable solutions, such as increasing the use of post-consumer fiber when making the cups.

Most cups are lined with polyethylene, preventing them from being recycled, but new cups are being made of plant-based materials so they can be composted. The bad news is they'll only do so properly in a commercial composting facility.

Between the millions of acres being abused to grow our beans and the paper cups we carry around like trophies, how do can keep our morning coffee green?
Well, it begins with the coffee drinker.

"Consumers who enjoy convenience but want to make a difference can take two key actions," says Gorman. "First, they can understand the options in single-use food-service products, such as compostable, and their inherent trade-offs so informed choices can be made.

"Second, they can request that local restaurants collect recyclable and compostable materials and contact their community and state leaders to ask for their support of the expansion of recycling and commercial composting facilities."

To find a recycler in your area, check out http://www.earth911.com/; for a commercial compost facility, try http://www.findacomposter.com/. To see how many pounds of garbage you produce with your caffeine fix, go to www.dzignism.com/projects/coffee.waste.
One thing's for sure — we're not giving up drinking coffee. Paper cups aren't going away, and it may be a while before commercial composting is available everywhere.
The greenest way to get your kick is to pay extra for fair-trade, organic or shade-grown coffee — and, when you can, carry your own mug.

Source Fox News Corp.

Over the past year or so we have been working extremely hard her at the wiz in trying to find the right loose Green, Black, White and Oolong Teas to bring to http://www.coffeewhiz.com/ and we believe we're off to a great start. Starting today you will find our first of many loose teas' arriving at coffeewhiz.com. Our first loose tea products are all Organic and they include
Tea Affair Organic Wild Mountain Green Loose Tea Tea Affair Organic Echinacea Green Loose Tea Tea Affair Ayurvedic De-Tox Loose Tea Tea Affair Ayurvedic Shiva Loose Tea and Tea Affair Ayurvedic Uma Loose Tea. You can read more about each tea on our website at http://www.coffeewhiz.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=206 .

We all know the benefits of Green Tea and with each passing day new health benefits emerge. Just recently we heard that Green Tea will help prostrate cancer and just the other day we hear that Green Tea can help prevent skin cancer as well. I will be posting more about the health benefits in the weeks to come.

In addition to the tea we will be adding many different loose tea brewing devices. Look for these in the days to come. If you have any questions, comments or concerns I would be anxious to hear them.

Here is a artical I found from a University of South Florida Press Release. All of our Coffee Lovers should be thrilled with this news.

In what could be a ginormous boost to the coffee industry, scientists are saying that drinking five cups of coffee a day, could reverse memory problems associated with Alzheimer's disease.
The study- which was carried by University of South Florida researchers on mice who were exhibiting signs of dementia- also showed that caffeine helped slow the production of the protein plaques which show up in people who develop the disease. The scientists gave half the mice drinking water laced with caffeine equaling the amount found in about 5 cups of coffee. The other half got plain water.
They tested the mice two months later on memory and thinking, and the caffeinated mice did much better than their non-caffeinated test subjects. The brains of the caffeinated mice also showed a 50% reduction in the protein which creates the dementia. This is particularly exciting because currently there are no drugs that reverse the progression of Alzheimer's, only drugs that can slow it down.
All you tea drinkers; don't get too excited. Tea also offered a benefit from caffeine, but you'd have to drink 20 cups of the stuff to equal the benefits of coffee.

Here is a link to the University of South Florida press release.

Authorize.net coffeewiz.com's payment service categorizes downtime events as 'a perfect storm'

Authorize.net has posted an explanation of what happened over the weekend to bring its services down. Users of the service can access the information from the 'Announcements' menu in the authorize.net dashboard.
In this document, they call the situation a "perfect storm" of events. The fire at Fisher Plaza happened late at night (11:10 pm PT on July 2nd) at the start of a long holiday weekend when many Authorize.net IT engineers were off on holiday, and it took time to get them all back to work the problem. The Seattle Fire Department wouldn't allow operation of the backup generators due to their proximity to the fire location, nor would they allow customers into the damaged building to access hardware. These factors were outside of Authorize.net's control.

Of more concern is the question of a back-up data center. Authorize.net states that they were approaching capacity of their current backup data center and they were in the midst of transitioning to a new one: a true "hot" site (in other words, real-time synchronization), so that the Authorize.Net platform could be switched from one data center to the other "on the fly." When the fire took out the primary data center, they attempted to fail over to the new, still-in-testing backup data center and encountered "a number of unanticipated errors." They offer no explanation as to why they tried to fail over to the new backup data center rather than the old (presumably well-tested) one.

The document finishes with a section entitled 'Lessons'
Even as our engineering and operations teams continue to ensure normal operations, the postmortem process is already under way. We are examining all aspects of this outage and implementing steps to mitigate future risks. Over the next weeks, we will be completing the work to ensure that we have two fully functional, synchronized hot sites. Failing over from one to the other will occur in a matter of seconds. Steps are also being taken to ensure that we have the ability to implement emergency communication by distributing our voice, e-mail and Web capabilities across multiple sites.
Over the next days and weeks the postmortem will continue. Processes will be refined and further protections put into place.

While Monday morning quarterbacking is always easy, it seems like some mistakes were made in the handling of the backup data center. It's unclear if the old backup center was no longer live, or if the engineers just determined that the new one was 'ready enough' to fail over to. At the same time, having been in that kind of position, I know that the engineers were under tremendous pressure and were doing their best to come up with solutions which would get services back online as soon as possible. The more egregious issue is that Authorize.net didn't have other ways to keep in touch with customers. When the fire broke out, all the authorize.net websites went down. Eventually they opened a twitter account and for some time that was their only means of getting information out to the customers who were losing revenue as a result of the downtime.

For us here at http://www.coffeewiz.com/ it was a rough day to say the least. To have our website go down at anytime is tough enough let alone over the holiday weekend. Thank goodness we were up and running again later that day. Thank you to our loyal customers for hanging in there during this difficult day.

This is a sparkling iced tea, with the unusual combination of lemon with almond and vanilla. You can use regular soda water, of you prefer less lemon flavor.

Ingredients;

6 Black Tea Kcup

3 lemons

1 Cup sugar (or substitute)

1 tbs almond extract

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 2-litre bottle of lemon carbonated drink

Ice Cubes

Preparations;

Brew Kcups into a sauce pan, and let it cool for 10 min. Cut lemon wedges and place in a large pitcher, giving them each a squeeze as you go, add ice cubes and sugar into pitcher, mix in cooled tea. Add flavorings and soda just before serving.

If you are not going to serve immediately, hold off on the extracts and lemon soda until then.


Enjoy :)

*Note you may also use Pods, T-disc's or Tea bags in place of Kcups.

Had you invested $10,000 in Diedrich's Coffee two months ago, you'd be sitting on $640,000 or so.
Diedrich's closed at $0.38 on March 25th, and then promptly took off. And it hasn't stopped.
But why?
Well for starters, this company was tremendously undervalued as a penny stock. It hit a low of $0.21, making its P/B at the time a paltry 0.11.
But I'm not buying it at today's $23.49 closing price. I think it is far too risky.
They had one good quarter in the last 5 years. It happened to come in the middle of a Recession/Depression, so that get an A+ for that.
But could you have really seen that coming? Nah. I have a feeling that a return to mediocrity or worse could send this bad boy down 70% or more in just a few days.
Still a nice story for the shareholders though. I wouldn't mind paying cash for my next house thanks to a lucky penny stock :)
(And besides, there is so much bad news around here, it's nice to hear that some people are making a killing.)
All Star CAPS members are currently giving DDRX 33 Red thumbs to just 1 Green thumb. That should be enough for any Fool to think twice before plunging in. A look at the balance sheet should seal the deal.
UltraLong has an excellent writeup on DDRX that pretty much sums it up:
Let's recap what Diedrich Coffee does here... they roast coffee beans and are a wholesaler for rare coffees. They are also one of the only four licensees to Keurig's K-Cups. Now I'm not saying with the K-Cup craze right now that their holding this honor of being 1 in 4 is a bad thing and worth zero, but this is absolutely ludicrous. What I think we need to do here is look at Diedrich's past to tell us all we ever wanted to know about the company. Let's look at their operating profits/losses from continued operations so we can get all those one-time gains and other BS out of the way.2001: Loss2002: 5 cent per share profit2003: Loss2004: Loss2005: Loss2006: Loss2007: Loss2008: Bigger Loss

*Credit to The Motley Fool who posted this artical