Review: Green Mountain Spicy Eggnog Fair Trade K-Cups for Keurig Brewers

Review Single Serve Coffee

We decided to look back at some recent holiday K-Cups this past season and although it's a few months late, today we're reviewing Green Mountain's Spicy Eggnog Fair Trade K-Cups. This is a seasonal flavor which is usually available in late November/early December but Amazon.com still has some 24-pack boxes in stock at the time of this review. Our readers in Canada will have to wait until December 15, 2011 when SingleCup.ca is slated to get new stock on this flavor.

Brewing these K-Cups yield aromas of sweet eggnog spiced with dashes of nutmeg. Spot-on scents abound here and are the next best thing to warming up a pot of eggnog on the stove at Christmas time. Outstanding proof that the... uh... roasting aroma-therapists? (yeah, sure... let's call them that) at Green Mountain haven't lost their touch.

Unfortunately, something got lost in the flavor. We detect some of the aroma's characteristics of eggnog and nutmeg but they're not as strong as we were hoping. There's also something else hiding in the background that we can't quite figure out... cinnamon perhaps?

Body was very light and transparent with shades of red when held to a light source and even without a light source. As a matter of fact, this coffee brewed such a bright red that it appears as if we're brewing cranberry juice in the attached photo. Acidity was barely present with only faint notes during the aftertaste and mouth feel was smooth but bordered on the watery side. Don't get us wrong, there's definitely some eggnog taste present here, but it seems rather muted and would likely be washed away if you added any cream or sugar. Best suited for light-roast drinkers and those who don't like overly strong flavored coffees.

Aroma - 10 - Spot-on. Next best thing to heating eggnog on the stovetop at Christmas time.
Acidity - 3 - Practically none except for during the aftertaste.
Body - 4 - Very light & transparent. You could even notice red notes without a light source. Festive yet odd.
Flavor - 7 - Notes of eggnog and nutmeg were present, but nowhere near as strong as what we were expecting.
Mouth Feel - 7 - Smooth but bordering on the watery side.
Coffee Drinker - This one's best suited to light roast drinkers who don't care for strong flavorings in their coffee. Those who prefer more "oomph" in the flavor might want to give this one a sampling before committing to a full box. Dark roast drinkers will likely want to avoid this.

Overall Rating: 81 - Average

Seeing as how this is the only eggnog-flavored K-Cup on the market (which we're aware of), we had high hopes for this particular K-Cup and although it more than delivered on the aroma side, it somewhat let us down on the flavor side. We like it enough to keep drinking through the rest of our supply and it does make a neat alternative during the holiday season, but if you've never tried this K-Cup before, you might want to give this one a sample if possible before you think of stocking-up. We managed to add some extra life by throwing in a dash of real eggnog instead of cream & sugar, but we feel this shouldn't be necessary.

Looking at various online forums yields mixed reviews as some people love this K-Cup while others hate it. We tend to be among those who like it but we'd love it even more if GMCR would have fine-tuned the flavor and made it stronger overall (however adding a splash of real eggnog in it would probably kick it up over the top). Those who don't like strong-tasting coffee will probably enjoy this one, so at least there's still a niche that this flavor can be geared towards.

Green Mountain Spicy Eggnog Fair Trade K-Cups will work in your Keurig Elite B40 Brewer, Keurig B50, Keurig Special Edition Ultra Elite B60, Keurig Platinum B70 Brewer, Breville BKC600XL/BKC700XL Gourmet Single Cup Brewer, Cuisinart Keurig Single-Cup Brewer SS-700 and SS-780, and other Keurig K Cup brewers including the Keurig Mini Plus and Keurig Mini B30. and are available in 24-pack boxes for $13.32 USD at Amazon.com (at the time of this review) and seasonally on the Green Mountain web site. This flavor will be available to Canadians at SingleCup.ca on December 15, 2011.

We would like to take this time to thank Green Mountain for sending us a box of these K-Cups for the purpose of this review.

Read how we review and rate single-serve coffee and other single-serve coffee beverages here.

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Posted by Jay Brewer at February 16, 2011 7:29 AM

I tried this coffee last season and it was awesome..I learned too late that it disappears quickly, so this year I was ready and ordered in a supply. Unfortunately, this season's version was nothing like last year's and I am very disappointed.. It barely has any egg nog flavor, while last year's version was better by light years. Very.disappointed.

Posted by: Greta at March 28, 2011 6:59 AM

This "coffee", which is more like water with a splash of coffee, is a real disappointment.
Smells nice, looks and tastes like bland, watered down coffee. Very little Eggnog taste going on with this.
For me, this is the problem with a LOT of Keurig's flavored coffee pods. No taste....
Not buying this one again.

Posted by: Randy at March 12, 2011 9:43 AM