This guy reviewed all 12 of these coffees he found in Lidl and it’s a truly Herculean task
7.
Coffee #7 informs me it is ‘coconut delight’, and hammers this home with the weird branding association between coconuts and pale blue. Also, I’m faintly angry at being told this will be a ‘delight’, as this would be a first for this series of powdered insults. pic.twitter.com/UiljdcB8zI
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Coconut smell is pretty easy to render. But alas, this sachet’s innards smell like the prised-open palm of a child who has just spent an entire summer clenching their fist around a handful of sweaty peanuts. Once again, there’s a strong element of ‘pet shop storeroom’ to it.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Oh dear, oh bloody dear. This coffee could be described as ‘delight’ in the same way as the rictus of crimson ecstasy on the face of a 9th Century warlord as he caves in a bloke’s sinuses with an axe could be described as ‘a fun smile’. I am not delighted.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Somehow this tastes of neither coconuts nor coffee. It has a phantom oleaginous quality, while remaining dry as an Atacaman tomb. It’s faintly and meanly acidic, but also dull as water. It’s like trying to remember the taste of a bounty bar while being force fed bong water. 2/10.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Labours of Berkules, more like.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
This coffee clearly matches with the 8th Labour, the Mares of Diomedes. Because just as this was meant to be a delight, so are horses. But these horses were not delightful, as King Diomedes was a maniac who fed them human meat nonstop until they became uncontrollably hench.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Like with all the labours, there are multiple accounts of how shit went down with the Meat Horses, but most note that Hercules’ eromenos (meaning sex lad, or ‘good friend’ according to the Victorians) Abderus got beasted by the horses, prompting one of Herc’s classic rampages.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Some versions of the tale have hercules trapping the horses on a peninsula & casually turning it into an island with a bit of axework, but pretty much all of them end up with King Diomedes being fed to his own horses as a penalty for being so naughty.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Anyhow. I could still use a bit more caffeine in my system so let’s crack open another labour.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
8.
Coffee #8: ‘very vanilla’. How bad can this be, right? I mean, ‘vanilla’ is used to denote things that are familiar and baseline, and the weirdly assurative quality of ‘very’ only further underlines that this should be the shit flavoured coffee equivalent of a tutorial level. pic.twitter.com/q93Y8QicDd
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Then I smelled it. And look, I’m going to have to grasp for memories of working in a pet shop again here, and not in a good way. Steel yourselves.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
This is Tenebrio Molitor, the flour beetle. Its larvae, often known as mealworms, are kept in vast numbers as food stock for reptiles, birds and other insectivores in captivity. They are omnivorous and voracious, and have even recently been found to happily consume polystyrene. pic.twitter.com/yxBOtKllJb
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
When I was 15 & working at a pet shop, I had a secret bucket of these lads at the back of the storeroom. When an interesting fish or a reptile died, I would sneak the body into the secret bucket, as mealworms will pick a skeleton clean in a day or two, leaving a cool specimen.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
(I know this sounds properly Dexter but don’t judge me, I learned this off the natural history museum. And pet shops get handed sick lizards all the time, so corpses were more common than I would have liked.)
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
But what has this got to do with coffee? Well. Imagine prising the lid off a tub of seething beetle larvae on a hot day, hoping they’ve finished getting the meat off a gecko, and finding out they’re not quite done. That’s what Beanies’ ‘very vanilla’ flavour coffee smells like.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
Ironically, it tastes alright. 6/10, I reckon.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
I guess labourwise, this equates well to #3, the Ceryneian Hind (arguably a bit of a filler labour). After Herc bins the Nemean Lion & the Lernaean Hydra, Eurystheus realises he can solve any problem that involves punching, & so sets him an unpunchable problem: a Very Fast Deer.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
The story of the Ceryneian Hind: Hercules chases a deer across the whole world for a year, like a sort of T-1000 made of burger mince. Then he catches it. He has a bit of a barney with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, but for once he manages some conflict resolution. The end.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
(There is however a great postscript in some tellings: H brings the hind to King Eurystheus & says he can have it, but the deer legs it at Mach 3 before the king can grab it, so Hercules just laughs in his face like someone who’s just performed the ‘ur too slow’ high five trick.)
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 14, 2018
9.
Good morning to you all. Perhaps of all the heroes of myth, it was Hercules who was most famed for his love of starting the day with a hearty pull at a bottle of Bailey’s. And so, as I tackle the 9th flavoured coffee in the box, it’s pleasing to know that I walk in his footsteps. pic.twitter.com/T6CWFzWIu5
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
You know what? This one smells *great*. I mean, at this point my perception of coffee is totally fucked; I’m like a man imprisoned without reason in a shipping container, crooning to himself & capering with emaciated glee whenever his captor deigns to offer him a bowl of winalot.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
But then, I bring the mug to my lips and the mirage is shattered. The water recedes in the barrel of Tantalus, and the bland, bitter emptiness of Beanies Flavoured Coffee is lingering behind my tongue once again. Why did I get my hopes up, when I knew deep down this would happen?
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Let me be clear – there is flavour here. But it’s flickering, indistinct; it snaps out of focus the moment I concentrate on it, like a hypnagogic hallucination. Honestly, the nearest experience I can compare this coffee to is *sleep paralysis*.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
At this point, I wonder if I’m losing the plot. I’m reaching back to try and recall how the other coffees tasted; to see if there’s any meaningful distinction between them, but it’s like rifling through endless photos of a dog’s arse. Was this how Hercules felt, towards the end?
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Anyway, I give this coffee 10/10. Or 1/10. I don’t even know any more. This journey has LONG since ceased to have anything to do with coffee reviews, it’s more of a pilgrimage into the darkness at the core of man’s heart. But it’s still important to leave ratings.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Labourwise, I can only ground the experience of this coffee in Herc’s 10th outing, the Cattle of Geryon, where he travelled to North Africa to steal yet more farm animals off of a bloke with three heads. Because that makes about as much sense as this fucking beverage.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Actually, I say Geryon had three heads. But according to Aeschylus he had three bodies, which doesn’t make any bloody sense. I mean, if you’ve got three bodies you’re just three different blokes, aren’t you? Or are we now counting trios of people as single monsters?
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Also, Geryon’s nan was Medusa and his uncle was Pegasus. Because the ancient Greeks couldn’t so much as tell an anecdote about popping to the shops for milk without proclaiming that the milk was actually related to the milk in ALL OTHER ANECDOTES EVER TOLD ABOUT MILK.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Seriously, people complain that enjoying a marvel film increasingly involves having to have watched a bunch of other marvel films to know about the characters, but at least we don’t have to memorise who everyone’s grandad is. In Greek myth, *everything* comes with genealogy.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Anyway, I’ve just had the last bit of the irish cream coffee and it really grew on me in the end. So that’s nice. There’s only three more to go, and I’m feeling the golden tinge of glory on the edge of vision, might monster them all this morning and end this journey today.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
Bottled out of doing any more labours this morning. Might round it out to an even ten with an early afternoon cuppa in a bit and then finish my journey tomorrow.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 15, 2018
A Grecian cliff path. The drone of flies drifts in and out on the salt breeze; heavy leather sandals slap against dust and dry goat shit. Even after so many triumphs, he walks with a growing weight of defeat. The lionskin festers; the club blisters his bin lid of a hand.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
The last directions he got – he forgets who from – said it would be around here. The labour. What was he meant to fight, again? A cow with fists? A pig that ate crisps? An old man, by accident? Or maybe he was meant to steal a belt again? It’s all starting to become blurry.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
10.
Herakles shields his eyes from the fierce bronze of the sun and squints ahead. There is something on the path, a few yards distant, quivering in the haze. A battered electric kettle, and a small sachet. His heart sinks. pic.twitter.com/ydr9yshHii
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Tearing the miserable pouch open with blood-crusted fingers, he breathes deeply, trying to separate its scent from the stale reek of goat dung. He can, faintly. Once, maybe, he would have said it was vanilla. Now, however, it is just the bland, unanimous stink of work.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Herakles lifts the mug’s rim to cracked lips & lets a little warmth spill over his teeth. He rolls it around his mouth, trying to spark memories of heroism. He strains to remember the crunch of vertebrae, the wet hiss of bronze through flesh, but can only recall synthetic caramel
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
He stands there for a long time, taking measured swallows as the waves crash far below, and the gulls cackle on the wind. As he tips the last of the shit instant coffee down his trunklike neck, he tastes nothing at all. The sound of the birds becomes closer; more raucous.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
“Here we fucking go” mutters Herakles, as the distant silhouettes of the birds align themselves into an aggressive wedge and begin flapping towards him. He tosses his mug into the sea, smacks his lips, and draws his bow with a mirthless smile.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
These are the Stymphalian birds. For reasons nobody has bothered to explain to Herakles, they have bronze beaks, and metal feathers which they can launch at people. Frankly, they seem like they belong in an unlovable platform game from 1994. But alas, they are his next labour.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Like a really buff jester, Herakles brandishes the rattle (which we may imagine being cast from red iron and covered in spikes and chains), and… just shakes it at the birds. They wheel in panic and fly away, never to be seen again. Seriously, that’s all that happened.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Sorry, went a bit 3rd person there. Anyway, that was coffee #10 & labour #6, which are honestly both the dullest of the lot. I give the coffee 5/10. As for the birds, it’s worth noting they show up again in the story of the Argonauts, in an early example of a crossover episode.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
But there’s no time to stop now. This ends today.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
11.
Ah shit. I was wondering when this would show its face. See, unlike many people, I really despise hazelnuts. But at this point, does it matter? It’s the difference between being hit in the face with a hammer with a flower engraved on it, and one with a butt drawn on in crayon. pic.twitter.com/JY8VejI25j
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
The answer is: yes it does matter. The SMELL of this stuff. There’s hazelnuts, yes, but also something petrochemical. It’s like a sack of potato peelings smeared in expired nutella, discovered at the back of the car deck on a cross channel ferry. Guess I’d better drink it.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Hercules/10 pic.twitter.com/6X3roSIlfm
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Of course, I always knew what labour this coffee would correspond to: #5, the Augean Stables. Intended as a humiliation rather than a feat of strength, this challenge saw Herc tasked with tidying up a stable complex where 1,000 cattle had been shitting with abandon for 30 years.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
I mean, I would try to cobble together an outrageous simile for how much this coffee displeased me, but it’s right there in the description: a third of a century’s worth of bullshit. Which, now I come to think about it, is also a fair description of my life. Sobering.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
But much like Herc, when faced with this harrowing job, I took the smartest route to success – cheating. Just as he diverted mighty rivers to rinse the squalor, so too did I call on a force of nature: @Glitter_brawl, who loves hazelnuts, and who declared the drink “quite nice”.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
12.
So, with the last of the hazelnut coffee palmed off, I am left with just one last challenge. Just one mug left to drink; one story left to tell. But readers, there is a twist in the ending of this tale.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
You know when you think you’ve beaten the final boss in a game, but then it comes back in a new form with a whole new set of attacks? Yeah, that. CINNAMON HAZELNUT. pic.twitter.com/IFq4H9ksGX
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
What does this coffee smell like? It smells of war, and burning orchards. It smells of beast-slaver and swamp fumes; of the crash of oars in the wine-dark sea. It is sweat and iron, arterial spillage on sun-baked rock. It is penance, and it is victory. It smells bloody awful.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
For his final labour, Hercules embarked on a katabasis – a journey into the darkness of the underworld. Before he did so, he was initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, a set of ancient rites derived from the abduction of Persephone by Hades, and her eventual return to light.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Having received these holy visions, Hercules walked into the dark, with the gods Athena and Hermes themselves as his guides. He was tasked with capturing the tricephalic hound Cerberus, which Hades permitted him to do – so long as he could subdue the beast with his bare hands.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Now, I don’t have a three-headed hound at home, but I do know of a fierce beast which I reckon I could possibly capture if I can channel the strength of the son of Zeus…
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
Job done. Coffee wasn’t even that bad – probably a 4/10. My labours are complete. pic.twitter.com/zEufATUWQk
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
And so ends the tale. When Herc returned Cerberus to King Eurystheus, the guy shat a brick, and agreed to release him from liability for any further labours, if he would only take the hound back to the underworld. And so it was that Hercules scared a man with a dog, and was free.
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
I am now free too, and will celebrate this with an incredibly ordinary tea. Hope you all enjoyed yourselves and managed to learn something about both shit flavoured coffee, and nihilistic bronze age strongmen xx
THE END
— Regular Frog (@FrogCroakley) May 16, 2018
A truly labyrinthine thread (and you can follow Nate Crowley here).
