Trader Joe's Black Cold Brew Coffee

Like most semi-functional adults I know, I need coffee every day. In multiple doses.

Preferred methods of intake primarily include: a relatively leisurely French press pot at home, plunged by either my four year old, my just-turned-two-year-old, or, when the girls ask just sweetly enough, the dog (all with my assistance, of course). Or when the chance allows, a cup from a good, local coffee shop.

Preferred methods of intake do not include the work coffee pot or vending machine, or a tepid tankard of brown water from the gas station on the way to work. Though that's what I settle for far too often.

So, Trader Joe's Black Cold Brew Coffee can be a nice little mix up. Someone please explain why TJ's is debuting this cold brew can-to-go in November, though. In my little world, there is an inverse relationship between coffee temperature and the five day forecast. Hot weather : cold coffee. Cold weather : hot coffee. Simple, right?

Speaking of simple...so's this slim can o' cold caffeine. Unlike most cold brew or iced coffees I have tasted, this TJ's one doesn't try to be extra dark or roasty or overly robust or anything. So many of them can be so bittersweet that the taste nearly veers towards offputting. Not this brew. It literally tastes like regular coffee....except purposefully cold. Which isn't that wonderful.

I've been a black coffee drinker for nealry two years now, which I like to think has helped cultivate a discerning coffee palate. Even after waiting for the can to warm up a smidge to see if the temperature had any flavor locked up, when I tasted again, still, not really anything there. Fans of this website may appreciate the flat earthiness of the taste...eh. Doesn't do much for me, but not that I minded

For the record, there is a vanilla flavored version of the cold brew coffee as well, which my wife Sandy tried, but I didn't. From what she said, it's not a creamy coffee, but rather like a flavored oil (or however one makes flavored coffee beans), so it wasn't what she hoped for or expected, but tasty enough.

A can runs $1.79 a pop, and it's one of those fashionable little slim dinky cans, too. The price stikes me as fair enough of a value, but not one I'll go for terribly often either. the eight ounces got me just enough caffeine to last for a few hours at work, and I enjoyed more than the work options, so it's not horrible either. Just all kinda meh. Like me without enough coffee.

Bottom line: Trader Joe's Black Cold Brew Coffee: 5.5 out of 10 Golden Spoons