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Mystery Multi Review- Caffeine Capsaicin Nirvana
By Buddah | April 19, 2009 | 
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Let me get the cat right out of the bag. This is the first hot sauce from a new product line from our good pals of Zane & Zack’s World Famous Honey Company- Sam, Tina and their boys. Dropping their name for this hot sauce and heading in a new direction, they now have the Son of Sam product line.
Sam asked me to setup a blind review for a few chileheads that were also coffee lovers, so here’s 2 reviewers I thought could do this review proud for their love of the coffee bean. I would like to welcome Brian of www.hotsaucedaily.com to our review team, along with TTF’s own, DK is making his 2009 debut. Thank you both for taking on this tough challenge.
The review format is simple, each reviewer received a bottle of non-labeled product with no clue of the ingredients (other than it contained coffee) nor the manufacturer behind the hot sauce. I told them I didn’t know the heat level, so to be careful. I soon found out that it contained the hottest pepper in the world. Sam just laughed. My poor review team, what did I get them involved in? Well, let us take a look at the the ingredient list, and then judge how close our reviewers came to guessing in their review:
Ingredients: Love, Onion, Rice Vinegar, Coffee, Naga Jolokia, Black Pepper
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BRIAN
I received 2 bottles of hot sauce to review, and the only thing I was told about them was that they contained coffee. No labels, no ingredients, nothing.
Now, I like my coffee in the morning, about 2 cups gets me through the day. Yet, as a rule, I don’t care for anything with a coffee flavor- coffee ice cream, coffee chocolate candies, coffee shakes or drinks. You get the idea. But, I’m making an exception for this hot sauce.
What does it taste like?
Tasting it out of the bottle, the first flavor is definitely coffee, then vinegar and black pepper. The vinegar tastes sweet, so it may be a red wine vinegar. Then I taste a hint of either lime juice or some citrus. I honestly can’t tell what the pepper base is. It is quite hot. Maybe serrano? While coffee is the predominant flavor, there is a nice blend of the other flavors to balance it out, yet it is very hot and pleasing. It will make your head sweat.
What does it look like?
The sauce is very dark and slightly chunky. Almost like it’s a “mash” pulverized with a commercial food processor. The chunkiness is very uniform and consistent. If you can see the pic of the sauce in the dish, the “mash” sits in a thinner base, making the sauce both slightly chunky and thin at the same time. I really like the texture of this sauce. It reminds me of Pyro-Mania from Garden Row Foods in St. Charles, IL. There are also lots of specks of the black pepper. It’s really heavy in both quantity and taste. The black pepper is also one of the first things you see looking at the sauce in the bottle.
What did I eat it on?
I first sampled it on plain pita chips so I could write the above “taste” profile.
Then, I put this stuff on our homemade tacos. Wow. The coffee flavor gets buried a bit (a good thing), but the combo of this sauce and the spicy taco meat made for a great flavor profile. I ate this sauce on a few tacos that night. I really liked the dark sauce and big heat of this stuff. Two nights later, we made some burritos to use up the taco meat. Again, this sauce rocked on them too.
What is my final verdict?
My advice/opinions for feedback to this mystery company: Do NOT over-promote the “coffee” aspect. If this stuff had a label that screamed “Hot Coffee Hot Sauce!” or “Black Coffee in Bed Hot Sauce” or some other goofy play on words (“Scarbux Searing Hot Coffee Chile Grande Mocha Sauce”), I would pass it right on by. As I said in the beginning, coffee flavored is not for me. Overall, I *really* like everything else about this sauce…so I’d bury the coffee ingredient, and in fact, it may be 3rd or 4th in the list of ingredients. My point is, I’d buy it as long as it wasn’t all about coffee, coffee, coffee on the label.
Scale of 1 – 10:
Heat 6 – Flavor 7 – Appearance 10 – Packaging ?
Brian Meagher
http://hotsaucedaily.com
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DK
Mystery sauce. Hmmm. I received this sauce with no label, and no ingredient information, only that it contains coffee. Simple, and straight to the point. So in keeping with that theme, here’s my review, simple and straight to the point.
The sauce is a really dark chocolate brown in color with a consistency of a really thin mash. Looks like lots of puree pulp in it. I also can see a lot of really fine black speck in it. Could this be the coffee? Does it contain ground coffee as opposed to brewed coffee? Or is that black pepper? With no ingredient list, it’ll have to remain a mystery.
So, I open the bottle and take a whiff. The smell is of pure vinegar. No coffee or pepper smell detected. Not a deterrent at this point because I really enjoy sauces that are a little heavy on the vinegar. Besides, it’s not about the smell, it’s about the taste. I’ve had sauces before that have had a predominately vinegar smell to them but still have a wonderful flavor to them. But I do love the smell of coffee brewing first thing in the morning, so I will have to admit that with knowing that it’s a “coffee” sauce, I was a little disappointed in not getting that “coffee” smell. I’ll get over it.
So let’s see how it tastes. Not knowing the ingredients, I decide to taste this straight from the bottle first to get an idea of what it’s about and what it may work well with. Also, I don’t what I’m dealing with here with heat either. I don’t see any black oily stuff floating around, so there appears to be no extract. That tells me two things. I can taste it with a spoon as opposed to a toothpick, and it shouldn’t taste like ass. So I fill a tablespoon with it.
Whoa Nelly! This stuff pours pretty fast. Even after shaking it up, there’s a lot of separation. The pulp is really thick, but it’s like it’s floating in water, or the vinegar? So it pours really thin and separates as soon as it hits the spoon.
So down the hatch it goes. Wow. Definitely a vinegar based sauce. Or should I say sauced based vinegar? The vinegar is definitely the predominate flavor here. That and a really strong black pepper taste. This is really interesting. It immediately reminds me of when I was a kid. My Grandmother would pan fry our hamburger patties, and I had a curious way of eating them. I wouldn’t make the “traditional” hamburger on a bun. Instead, I would place the fried patty on my plate and literally drown it with malt vinegar and black pepper. The patty would nearly float on my plate! LOL! That’s exactly what I get as the flavor from this stuff. Malt Vinegar and Black pepper! So where’s the coffee? By the flavor, the black specks MUST be black pepper, right? Well, I don’t think so.
Let’s discuss the texture. Gritty. VERY gritty. Like finding the grounds at the bottom of your coffee cup gritty. Some of the black specks HAVE to be black pepper as that’s the dominate flavor other than the vinegar, but there’s coffee grounds in there for sure. Way too much. At least for tasting it straight. Way too much grit to it. Maybe a finer grind would be a solution? But as for taste, no coffee in the flavor at all for me. Maybe it’s the vinegar, or the type of roast. Less vinegar, darker roast bean, and finer grind maybe?
Odd thing is, I actually LIKE the flavor! First thing I wanted to do was cook hamburger patties as soon as I tasted it! LOL! So there’s my choice of food. But, I’m out of hamburger, so I dash up the street to my local BBQ joint and pick up one of their great hamburger steak plates. Yep, just as I suspected, it was just like being a kid again! Yesiree Bob, it worked perfectly for me on the hamburger steak. So, for me, I’ve found the perfect sauce for my hamburger steaks. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what this sauce was intended for though.
So honestly, I think this sauce needs some work. There’s too much separation in the consistency, it’s too gritty on the palate, and not even a hint of coffee flavor. Or peppers either besides the black pepper. Which reminds me, the heat! I guess after all of that you want to know how hot it is right? LOL! Well, despite not actually being able to taste the peppers, they’re in there. This stuff packs a respectable heat. I would guess that it has Jolokia’s in it as the heat ramped up gradually and caused beads of sweat to pop on my forehead when it peaked. It’s not an extreme heat, but it’s definitely hot. Really hot.
So in closing I gotta say that I LOVE THIS SAUCE…………. on hamburger steak, but overall I really think it needs a lot of work. This redneck ain’t gonna eat enough hamburger steak to keep the company in business, that’s for sure!
-DK
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Zane & Zack’s World Famous Honey Co.
12705 SE 187th Place
Renton, WA 98058
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Topics: General, Hot Product Reviews, Reviews | 24 Comments »
1st
Thank you for doing this review. Brian and DK, sorry for making it all super secret, but I wanted only honest opinions and no fluff. You guys did the job! A very special thanks to
for getting it all set-up! There was supposed to be one more reviewer, but sadly they were too busy.:cry:
This was the proto of the sauce. The real deal (which is a finer grind thankfully) comes with two different labels, Caffeine Capsaicin Nirvana, or Caffeinator-X. There is also a XX version (hotter), and a XXX version (pain inflictor) which contains natural pepper flavoring (extract). The XX and XXX are only available with the Caffeinator label
Also these products contain no salt.
Had to go back and taste this one again after reading the ingredients and Brian’s take on it. Still no coffee flavor there for me. Interesting how mine and Brian’s reviews parallel on most things except for the coffee flavor part.
I completely missed the Onion and the Love in the ingredients. :cry:
No fluff from me Sam, even with Love as an ingredient.
Don’t know if I would want to try the one’s with the extract, this stuff is pretty hot as is. I’m not a fan of extracts anyway.
I enjoyed doing the review without the knowledge of who produced the sauce. Although I was curious as to if it was a “start up’ company or if it was a new product from an existing compay. Kinda cool to see that it was a little of both.
Almost like it’s a “mash” pulverized with a commercial food processor. The chunkiness is very uniform and consistent. If you can see the pic of the sauce in the dish, the “mash” sits in a thinner base, making the sauce both slightly chunky and thin at the same time.
sounds like one of sams products. thats not a bad thing though, i like it untill i get to the bottom of the bottle and theres no juice left because i forget to shake it up before every use.
not sure what i think about this but i will probably try it eventually. i really like the
“sons of Sam” for the new name though.
Now that was a pair of good reviews. I love the absolute blindness of them.
I’m not a coffee guy so sould probably pass if in a store ( if the label said coffee) .
Coarse ground black pepper is one of my favorite tastes ( I use whole black peppercorns in my homemade soup and chili ) so it sounds lke I might like this.
Vinegar based? Sounds like a winner to me. Love it.
The only thing we use coffee in is Redeye Gravy, so it would probably be perfect for that. My wife couldnt handle the heat though.
Thanks man. Since we are starting to come up with a lot of products that don’t contain honey it was seemed like the right thing to do. I wanted to make a really big deal about it, but I knew this review was still in the works and I didn’t want to make it totally obvious it was me. One thing that I thought for sure would give it away was the fact that this sauce was in the Chile Pepper Hot Sauce Issue.
On the topic of Chile Pepper Magazine, anyone have the latest issue? This one caused a little hootin’, hollerin’, and fist pumping! In their ad for The Fiery Food Challenge one on side is John Dilley of Defcon fame(sp?) on the other side is a pic of me, Tina, Zane, and Maxx. This was a total surprise and it will always be something Maxx can talk about, once he’s able to talk.
I don’t get any magazines. Heck Sam, you could have done a press release and I wouldn’t have figured it out.
Congrats on the pics in Chile Pepper.
I got that issue right before we left for FL…I saw the pic right away. You’ll have to keep it for Maxx.
This was a challenging but fun review to do.
Even more fun to read DK’s take on it.
@ArizonaJack – agree with you about “passing” on it with the whole coffee thing, but this really is a good sauce. Lot’s of black pepper for you to enjoy.
@Sam – “Caffeinator-X” huh? Guess you gotta go with the caffeine/coffee angle.
I think this sauce would be a great “gift” sauce. Very unique, and would be a nice surprise for folks that aren’t the chileheads we are, but do like hot sauces.
Good review guys!
I realy like the idea of the reviews being done with no labels on the bottles, great idea!
I tried this sauce at the Fiery Food Show (same one I think)and although I loved the idea, the texture and grit of the grounds turned me off a bit, if you changed to a finer gring, similar to turkish coffee I think that would be a winner!
Would have been nice to at least have an ingredient list, but other than that, the “no label” thing is ok. The only thing is that the product can’t be reviewed completely as a whole, the label is integral with the product and part of why people buy the bottle to begin with. So there’s an aspect that is being completely overlooked if you leave out the label. It’s a product review, in my opinion, it needs to be reviewed as the complete package, as it’s sold to the public.
People look at Blane and think what a big doofus. Then they listen to him and they think, what a big :bleep: :moon:hole. But we have looked past all that and have found the sweetie princess beneath the packaging.
Yes, the label can make or break the sales of the product, but if someone gives you something good, unless it has something that will offend you on the label or the maker is a KKK alumni, I don’t think it matters after the fact. I think this review can demonstrate that the taste is the reason we want to buy something and not so much the packaging. Unless of course you are a collector.
I think you need to read my comment again.
And while your at it, read this:
CLICK HERE
There’s three bottles pictured that don’t even have labels.
Here’s a definition of a product review :nerd:.
PRODUCT REVIEW: An essay or article that gives a critical evaluation to help users make more informed purchasing decisions and improve their shopping experience.
If all you’re telling people is how it tastes, then you are OMITTING information about the product that could be helpful in their decision to make a purchase.
A more proper name for a “blind” review would be a “Taste Test”.
First line of DK’s Poop Deck has a misspelling. :fu2:
Show me a purdy label and I might buy it, but that don’t mean it will taste good. Show me a ugly label and I might not be inclined to buy it. Give me a person who has tasted both and then I will know which tastes best. That is the critical part of the review people care about the most. Unless of course you are a collector.
Critical? Nothing life or death about it. It’s just a matter of if you’re doing your job properly as a reviewer, then you provide as much information as possible about the product so people can make up their OWN minds based on whatever THEY consider important.
And what’s being a collector got to do with it? Hell, YOU collect. Again, read my post on why people collect. It’s not just about the label, that’s for sure. Or just about any one thing for that matter. Collector’s make decisions based on multiple factors, and they appreciate knowing as much about a product as possible before making a purchase, same as anyone else.
As for my spelling, I think it’s more a case of your reading.
you spelled 2rd wrong
the collector thang was a joke
thats it
Saw the family in Chile Pepper. Pretty cool!
Very creative sauce. I want to try it.
Welcome aboard Ol’ Benito!