Avalanche Fairtrade Organic Coffee - Melt product reviews

Avalanche is our brand of choice when buying coffee and hot chocolate from the supermarket. It is nice to know that it is a New Zealand owned and operated company so we are supporting local. Looking into the company, they are clearly passionate about what they do and have taken their coffee from cafe supply only and expanded into the retail market. This has resulted in them becoming one of the fasted and in my opinion most popular coffees in the market.

It is no surprise that they make award winning coffee. Although it was a while ago, I personally would recommend them for a great cuppa coffee. Coffee is becoming more of a trendy drink to serve so the market is very competitive, so finding the right coffee flavour for you can be tricky.

We buy Avalanche Fairtrade Organic Coffee - Melt which is a number 4 on the coffee strength scale. A medium-dark flavour that we prefer in our household. We buy the whole beans as we are fancy like that and have a grinder and plunger at home. So much nicer than an instant cuppa brew and it takes no time at all.

Our guilty pleasure is being able to sit down on a Saturday morning after all the faff and getting our son feed and changed so we can sit down and enjoy a good cuppa coffee.

We don't often get plunger coffee at our house. While my husband drinks coffee all the time, and likes it super charged. I prefer freeze dried coffee or instant. It's not that I'm lazy, I just find that plunger coffee is often too strong in flavour or has too much bitterness to it for me to enjoy. I like the effect, but not at the cost of taste.

My husband dug out a one cup plunger for me to try this coffee in. We each had a plunger full made. I found the packet relatively easy to open, though I didn't have a good way to store it. It is basically sitting on my bench with the top rolled over tightly. The coffee was easy to spoon and the plunger made light work of making the coffee solution. We both noticed on first taste that the coffee was delicious. I mean, there was none of that bitterness I usually encounter and my husband described it as caramel flavoured. This is without me even reading the description to him!

We got our 6 cup plunger out when we had friends over one evening. Our friends were happy to sample something new and were impressed with the flavour of the coffee. They have been exposed more and more to Avalanche products in the last few months thanks to KIWIreviews. It's great to see a local coffee that is good enough to compete with the big boys. This one would make a fabulous addition to the Christmas gift hamper. Or if you know a coffee fiend, you could get them a new plunger, mug, a bag of Chelsea's coffee crystals and a bag of this Avalanche coffee - what a treat.

When I heard Avalanche coffee were coming on board as a supplier with KIWIreviews I was really excited as I am admittedly a bit of a coffee addict. I have been drinking coffee since I was just a teen and have tried coffee in all it's numerous varieties from instant to cafe style and everything in between so feel I know a good coffee when I taste one. Now I do not have the whole coffee connoisseur lingo I don't even know what it means by full bodied but like I said I do know a good coffee and I was really impressed with this one.

The instructions said to make the coffee in a plunger with one tablespoon of coffee per person well I am the only one in the house that drinks coffee so it was just me but I did add an extra tablespoon for the pot as I like my coffee strong and my plunger is rather large.This made the perfect tasting coffee with just the right strength. It had a rich flavour without being too bitter. I like my coffee strong but I don't like it to have that bitter burnt taste that some plunger coffee's can have. This more had a nice dark chocolate after taste to it which was rather pleasant.

It also had caramel tones when drunk with sugar it had that level of sweetness that I really enjoy in a coffee. My partner who doesn't drink coffee commented on how nice the coffee smelt as it was brewing in the pot which I have to agree it smells divine even in the packet it has that real fresh scent. Perfect smell to wake up to in the morning!

I decided to make a date and walnut loaf as we were having visitors over so I brewed up some coffee and added that to the mixture instead of plain water. It made the yummiest coffee loaf which was perfect served with a hot cup of coffee and lashing of melted butter. Had to keep it away from the kids but it went down well with all the adults even my non coffee drinking partner as it just had a mild coffee taste running through it, the focus was still on the date and walnut.

Happy to have this coffee in my pantry for use every day I normally don't drink a lot of plunger coffee as instant is so much more convenient but this is worth the extra effort. I have stored it in a tupperware container for freshness but don't think that would of overly mattered as it is not going to last long anyway!