Green Mountain Company Free Trade Coffee

If you read my main blog, you will know that this summer, we had a major change in our eating habits.  We decided to try out a more paleo focused lifestyle, or a more whole food focused lifestyle.  We started buying more from local farmers, growing some of our own things, and buying grass fed/pastured meats and eggs.  No more processed foods.  No more garbage.

One of the only things left on our list to replace was our coffee.  We were still working our way through the BUCKET of Folgers that we had been drinking for some time.  It was coming to an end and I had been looking into buying some organic free trade coffee.

I swear, it's like BzzAgent read my mind!  I hadn't heard from any of my sample/review companies in months {this was prior to being contacted by crowdtap and truvia that I last wrote about} and out of the blue, I get this email from bzzagent asking if I'd like to join a campaign to try some free samples of Green Mountain Coffee's new Fair Trade line of coffee!

Was there even a question as to what I would say?!

The box arrived pretty quickly after I accepted.  I always get so excited when I see that little angry bumble bee in my mailbox!

I promptly ripped open the box to discover the goods inside.  There was a booklet talking about the importance of free trade coffee and Kelly Clarkson's involvement in the movement with the Green Mountain Coffee Company, another booklet with a BUNCH of 50% off coupons for new Keurig machines, and most importantly, SIX single serve K-Cups for us to sample and sip!  Heck yes!

All set up for brewing!  I could hardly stop to take a picture! ;)

Is it me, or does it seem to take a lifetime for things to happen when the anticipation is killing you?!

While we wait for that to brew, maybe you can check out the fair trade story over at ChooseFairTrade.com for some reasons on why buying fair trade is such a big deal!

We like to drink our coffee bulletproof, around here, so into the blender it went with some grass fed butter and some coconut oil!  We also like to cheat sometimes and add a little maple syrup for a treat. Yum!

Blend, baby, blend!!  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE my Blendtec?!  Gah!  It's the best thing ever and that is a lot coming from this kitchen appliance junky!

After it was all beautiful and creamy and frothy, we poured it up and prayed that The Sophster would give us a couple of minutes to enjoy our cup o' fair trade goodness!

Verdict?  Mmmmm!  Good stuff!

Overall, it was well balanced and pretty tasty.  My only con with this, is that it is not organic, but fair trade is most definitely a large step in the right direction!

I co-hosted a tea party themed baby shower about a week later, so I packed up my little Keurig machine and the other four k-cups and spread the GMC {Green Mountain Coffee} fair trade love all around!  It was gone in no time and everyone really enjoyed it!

Big big thanks to BzzAgent.com and Green Mountain Coffee for sending me these samples for absolutely free and letting me share my opinion on them!  Also, for spreading the fair trade love around!  

Taking The Sweet Switch - A Truvia Review

When I created this blog, I was on a serious roll with sites like Crowdtap and several other sites that offer consumers free samples of various items and ask only for your reviews and that you share their product via your social networks.  Things eventually got overwhelming for me, though.  Between a beautiful summer outdoors with the family, friends, keeping up the house, switching around our diet, and keeping up with Our Life with The Sophster, I stopped interacting with the review sites.  It was what was best thing for me at that time.

Anyway, I received an email recently from CrowdTap with the opportunity to participate in a Sample and Share for Truvia!  The Mister and I made the switch to Truvia some time ago, so I thought this might be a great way to start back with the CrowdTap community.

I received my package from Crowdtap and immediately called my coffee drinking partner to set up an afternoon coffee date and challenged her to make the #SweetSwitch with me!

She came over, we put the coffee on, and anxiously waited for it to finish brewing.

While the coffee brewed, we talked about all of the other possible ways to use Truvia.  You know, baking, tea, dumping the packet into your mouth like those colored tubes of sugar we all ate as kids...except, you know, better for you. ;)

The coffee was finally done! We quickly poured ourselves a cup and ripped open our Truvia packs to dump in our cups!  The Sophster was even trying to get in on the action.  Sorry Sophster, mommy doesn't know if I could handle you on java speed!

Overall, it was a pretty good cup o' joe!  While we are not really into artificial sweeteners so much anymore after making the switch to a more paleo focused lifestyle, I would say that Truvia is the way to go for sure, if you need some added sweet to your coffee or need to substitute refined sugars in your diet.

Thank you CrowdTap and Truvia for giving us the opportunity to Sample and Share!