Free coffee, I bet that caught your eye. And yes today we are going to talk about getting discount coffee, wholesale coffee and free coffee over coffee klatch. Now many of you are probably wondering if there really is such a thing as free coffee, or what’s the catch. And you’d be right old wise one. Oftentimes as with anything in our capitalist system, there is not such thing as a free lunch. However, you might be able to get that free coffee if you buy the luncheon special. But in all fairness, I am not solely a jaded consumer and I still occasionally believe in the magnanimity of our corporations… well, maybe not, but there are ways of getting free coffee.
Many of you might be familiar with the recent McDonald’s free coffee giveaway. And there was not catch to it either. At least no sly catch. It was only available for a small part of the day but there offer was extremely reasonable and went on for some time. And damn, that coffee was exceptionally good for a coffee from a fast food restaurant. I was quite happily surprised.
Other free coffee giveaways
You’ll also remember that Starbucks was recently giving away a free coffee to customers who bought in their own cup on Earth Day. So many of the big coffee shops are getting in on this opportunity to push their brand. I have nothing against big box stores, though my personal preference is always to support the little guy. And as much as is possible, I’ll take my flavored coffee from the local independent coffee shop and support my local community. And this brings we to one of the latest ideas to get free coffee. Foursquare.
Foursquare is one of the newest social networking sites on the net and gaining popularity very quickly. As they say on their site, they give you and your friends a new way of exploring your city and finding new venues and events and such to share with the world. They have a way for businesses to support their customers who find them through Foursquare, and there are special discounts that businesses can set up for the “Mayor” (someone who has visited your business the most) or for a certain number of visits etc, etc. This is a great tool for independent businesses to reward their customers with free coffee and other cool things. So the next time you want to enjoy some coffee time with your friends and get a free coffee, become the “Mayor” of your local coffee joint.
Examples of getting free coffee
There are other ways to get free coffee such as signing up on certain websites for a free sample or two. Personally I find this to be a huge hassle and god knows what they will be doing with your personal information. Probably sharing it with everyone who they can for a fee of course. So if you are going to do this be sure to read their privacy policies first. Perhaps one of the better ways to do this is to contact individual companies who you are interested in and politely requesting a sample and a reason as to why. You’ll probably find anywhere from 10% to 25% might be willing to give you a free sample.
This can also work if you want to try some different coffee pods or there is a particular flavor of coffee pod you’d like. For example, if you want to try one of the new Douwe Egberts Senseo coffee pods, send them a copy of your receipt proving that you own the Senseo pod coffee maker and why you’re interested in trying the particular Senseo coffee pods and/or any other Philips Senseo coffee pods, you might well be surprised with the results.
Now, I don’t think this will work for a free coffee maker. Something like that you probably have to enter into a draw for. So if you’re looking for a Jura coffee machine or a KitchenAid coffee grinder, writing to the companies requesting a free sample probably won’t work.
One last tip for getting free coffee. You can write a blog like this and you’ll get the occasional request for a review of different and new coffees to hit the market. I wouldn’t advise doing this if you’re just interested in the free coffee. The amount of work I put into this blog is almost a full time job. But I love coffee, free coffee in particular and I love writing about it and getting samples every now and then is just a perk!