Richard Wilner of the New York Post takes a look at how city coffee lovers are about to get a real Shock
A Queens-based coffee distributor, Shock Coffee, has quietly started to sell a hyper-caffeinated brew at specialty shops around town that packs 50 percent more caffeine than existing coffees.
Jeff Rosen, president of the fledgling Woodside company, tells The Post he'd like Shock to do for the coffee market what Red Bull did for the energy-drink sector.
"We worked over a year to get the taste just right, and I think the market is ready for it," Rosen said.
Shock Coffee is naturally hyper-caffeinated, made from a blend of dark robusto beans, used in Italian espresso, and arabica beans, used by most retailers from McDonald's to Starbucks, for its coffees.
Shock Coffee contains 200 mg of caffeine per six-ounce serving compared to 125 mg for your average cup of convenience-store joe. By comparison, Red Bull has 80 mg of caffeine per 250 ml can, about 8.3 ounces.
At the City Hall-area Mocca Coffee Lounge, customers had mixed reactions to the super dose.
Jay Cousins, from Oxford, England, liked Shock's kick, saying it "was strong and quite good."
Jeff Baron of Boulder, Colo., said, "I didn't like this at all. I couldn't buy it."
Rosen said a recently inked deal with an office coffee-supply distributor should have Shock available to corporate titans throughout Manhattan by the end of the week.
"We're already in every state from Maine to West Virginia and hope to go national this year," Rosen told The Post.
The suggested retail price of Shock Coffee is about 25 to 50 cents above standard deli prices.
Shock is also rolling out a line of ready-to-drink coffee, in latte and mocha flavors in regular and triple-latte/mocha strengths, as well as coffee-bean candy.
Originally posted on the New York Post 04.17.2005
Additional reporting by Julie Stapen