PLYMOUTH – Students were given a chance to choose their choice caffeine fix at the second coffee tasting contest that was held on Tuesday, April 11th in Lamson Library sponsored by Sodexho.
The event was to let student and faculty choose which brand of coffee will be served at two new coffee shops that are coming to campus. One coffee shop in planed for the new Langdon Woods residence Hall, and the other shop will be in Lampson library where the coffee Tasting was held.
There were five brands of coffee at this event. They included: Peet’s Coffee & Tea (Berkeley, CA.), Seattle’s Best (Seattle, WA.), Boston’s Best (South Easton, MA), New England Coffee (Malden, MA.), and the famous Starbucks coffee. All of these brands are advertising a Fair Trade blend to the university.
Visitors were greeted and directed to help them selves to five coffee urns on the central table, which were labeled 1 through 5. Cups, creamers, sugar, and sweeteners were all provided.
There were several tables provided for the tasters which were stocked with surveys and Italian biscotti cookies. Participants were instructed to try all five types of coffee, grade them from A to F on the survey, then to pick which one should be severed in which coffee shop on campus.
The winner, and brand that will be served in the new coffee shops, will be chosen on April 24th and then will be announced in early May.
Not present at the tasting were the winners of the first taste test that was held on March 15 in the HUB. Those were two local New Hampshire businesses, Mad River Roasters, and Plymouth’s own Café Monte Alto.
Sandy Marrotte, director of operations for Sodexho at PSU, says that “Since the two local blends already won the previous tasting, Monte Alto and Mad River are already locked in as winners, as long as they can meet the demands.”
Marrotte does not know how large the demand is going to be, he adds that “Which ever company was chosen will have to meet the level of insurance required by Sodexho and the University.”
The need of insurance is to make sure that they can consistently supply coffee and also incase anything goes “terribly wrong” according to Marrotte. “As long as they can satisfy our needs,” says Marrotte about the eventual winner, “we don’t care who it is.”
There is a contest for the naming both the Lamson Library and Langdon Woods coffee shops with a prize of $100 in flex cash. The Lamson Library Project Team is also giving an iPod shuffle to the person who comes up with the best name for the Lamson café. Entries to name that shop and win the iPod can be sent to learningcommons@plymouth.edu