Ice Break No Added Sugar is not low in sugar

Ice Break have released a "No Added Sugar" version of their iced coffee flavoured milk. There's still 36g of sugar in a 500mL bottle, though, which means "no added sugar" doesn't really mean "low sugar". For comparison, ordinary full-cream milk has about 5g of sugar per 100mL, which is 2g/100mL less than this.

2g is about half a teaspoon, which isn't much of a difference. 36g, however, converts to 7.2 teaspoons of sugar, or about 3.5 teaspoons per cup. That's a bit over the top, and that's what you get in a "No Added Sugar" Ice Break: almost twice the sugar a sweet-tooth puts in his or her ordinary coffee.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Regular Ice Break, of course, contains much more sugar than that.
PPS - 9.5g/100mL, or over 11 teaspoons per cup.

Iced coffee

I have a new iced coffee technique to use at work. Long story short, I put an ice cube in the mug, then get a single shot of hot espresso over it. Melt the ice by stirring, then sweeten and add milk to taste.

I tried "New Orleans"-style cold brewing in a jar overnight, but it was too weak for me. I prefer the stronger taste of espresso, which I used to cool with milk after the sugar dissolves, but cooling with ice immediately seems to make it taste even better. The down side, of course, is that I need to prepare ice at work, which is a pain, but not impossible. And if I run out of ice, I can still fall back on milk-cooling. If you're an iced coffee fan, I recommend giving this method a go.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I tried a couple of times to use milk ice for this, but it didn't work so well.
PPS - I've heard this is called "Japanese-style" iced coffee.

Tea vs coffee

What makes tea so much more civilised than coffee? They both come from plants, they are both prepared with a mix of hot water, sugar and milk, and they both come from "faraway" lands (India and Ethiopia). They both contain about the same amount of caffeine. The only thing I can think of is the subtlety of the taste of tea vs coffee. Coffee is a strong taste, robust and powerful, while tea is more subtle. And obviously people who prefer subtle things are much more cultured, aren't they?

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Some people get awfully snobbish about their preference for tea over coffee.
PPS - Personally, I haven't got a taste for tea.

For the price of a cup of coffee

I jokingly posted to Facebook the other day that charities who sell useless pins and pens "for the price of a cup of coffee" should just raise funds by selling coffee. Coffee is pretty cheap to make, and now rather than asking people to give up their coffee to help a charity, you're giving them coffee and the opportunity to help a charity. It seems like a slightly better way of doing things, mostly because what you're selling is now consumable instead of destined for landfill, nobody has to change their behaviour much (just buy your coffee from here instead of there) and you might get noticed as the charity that actually thinks about fundraising a bit differently.

The one disadvantage is the loss of free advertising. When you sell someone a pin, if they wear it, you advertise your charity to other people and your donors get to display their support publicly. The Facebook comments sorted that out quickly enough: just get the cardboard cups printed up with the name and logo of your charity. If enough charities buy into the idea, you might even be able to offer this as a regular service at a permanent location, though that might drive the overheads up a bit.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I would buy a coffee from a place like that.
PPS - Then there are others who prefer the pens and pins. To each their own.

Propper copper coffee lobber

On TV, whenever a cop is sitting in a car drinking hot coffee and has to take off in a hurry, they throw the coffee out the window. Is that official procedure? It makes sense to save seconds and avoid injury to the driver, but I just wonder if it's one of those fiction standards that's become entrenched rather than something real that's been adopted.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'll have to ask the next officer I meet.
PPS - Assuming I meet them socially.

Caffeine vs naps

Apparently naps produce the best cognitive pickup for tiredness - better than caffeine or placebos. The silly thing, however, is that caffeine produces the highest self-perception of alertness. That is, someone who has had a coffee in the afternoon is more likely to say they feel awake and alert than someone who has had a nap, but they are likely to under-perform in cognitive tasks. Conversely, the napper would not assert that they are awake and alert, but would out-perform the caffeine recipient most of the time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - It's hard to be empirical about how tired people are.
PPS - At least as far as I know.

Vending iced coffee

I spent a few months in a different office at a tiny desk in a corridor. The main point is that I was buying iced coffee from the vending machine, and they were almost always out of it. I think that was my doing for the most part. I kept hoping they'd stock up with more than three new bottles when they restock tech came by. The week before I left, they'd changed the standard contents of the machine, placing *four* iced coffees there. Good times.
By contrast, the vend-o-matic here contains about nine Ice Breaks and usually three each of Breaka 500mL iced coffee and Breaka Lite.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I'm trying to cut down.
PPS - Each 500mL Ice Break contains nearly 30 grams of sugar.

Off the Wagon, Day 3

I feel alright this morning, except for a dry mouth. I thought I'd pick up a fruit juice between the bus and the office this morning, and I looked for one with no sugar as well as no caffeine. I'm well aware that I'd have to be pretty unlucky to find a juice with caffeine, but I had no idea how much sugar is actually in bottled juices. Most of it is probably fructose from the fruit itself, and I doubt any juice company spends the time and money to get rid of that, because nobody would really notice.

The juice with the least sugar I found was Grove Orange, with 15 grams. I haven't done my fact checking, but I think that equates to about three teaspoons which would classifies as "slightly indulgent" when put in a cup of coffee or tea.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I expect to have more energy problems today.
PPS - It's a rough ride. It had better be worth it.