Our Love of Gift Baskets

As far back as I can remember Sydney and I have loved giving gift baskets to family and friends for special occasions.  Whether a birthday, wedding, shower, Mother’s & Father’s Day or Christmas, we just love putting these together and giving them to someone we care about.

I use the word “basket” when I say gift basket, but most of the time there is no basket.   We typically use some other fun container.  We have used laundry baskets for shower gifts, small toy boxes for children at Christmas, a huge pot/pan for a wedding gift, a soup bowl for a get well gift and many other types of container bases.  The sky is truly the limit when putting a gift basket together.  Start with a cute container of some type and then fill with occasion appropriate items.  It is so easy and even more fun putting these together!

You can make little inexpensive baskets using a mug and some hot chocolate or you can go all out and put something much larger and more expensive together.  One thing that our family loves doing is going in together when making a gift basket.  When several people go in together you have a lot more money to work with when making a gift basket.  This is really fun when you can go all out and make something really nice for the recipient.

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The Ultimate Coffee Gift Basket

Sydney and I just got finished making our largest and most expensive “basket” so far.  There were six of us who put our money together and made “The Ultimate Coffee Gift Basket” as a gift for Sydney’s husband, Austin.  Austin is a lover of all things coffee.  So this was the perfect gift for him.  This wasn’t the average coffee gift of a Keurig coffee maker and some K-Cups.  Austin is really into coffee and has been talking about getting a serious setup at home.  We call him our aspiring at-home barista.  🙂

I wish you could have been here when he got it!  He was in absolute awe of this ultimate coffee gift basket!  I think we enjoyed putting it all together even more than he enjoyed getting it, if that is possible.  🙂

Choosing the “Basket”

We started with the “basket”, which in this case was a coffee bar/stand.  We knew we wanted the coffee bar to have some shelving built in so Austin would have plenty of storage.  This was the perfect one for him!

We got this stand on sale for $150.99.  We were expecting the wood to be particle board and the entire thing to be less than stable (based on the reasonable price).  But we were absolutely floored when it arrived and we put it together!  This stand is SO STURDY!  And the wood is solid wood!  We are very happy with our choice.  If you think the Dorel Living Cassy Multifunction Island would work for your own ultimate coffee gift basket, you should definitely check it out!

Once you have your “basket” picked out, which in our case was this beautiful coffee bar/stand, you can start adding all the amazing goodies to it.

Coffee Lover’s Must-Haves

We started with the PowerLix Milk Frother.  We chose this frother because of the powerful motor and the reviews were really good on the durability.  The fact that the motor is fairly quiet and the handle grip is comfortable is a couple of great bonuses!  Froth is very important to Austin, so we wanted to make sure and get him a great frother!

The next item we added to the “basket” is the Coffee Gator Pour Over Kettle.  Austin loves pour over coffee, so this was a must.  This pour over kettle has a built-in thermometer which is very important when using a pour over kettle.  We also like the fact it is made of premium brushed stainless steel.  Check both of these items out in the picture below!

We had a few more pieces of equipment to add to his collection that are pictured below.    No coffee bar is complete without a grinder!  We went with the epare’ coffee grinder.  The epare’ is a precision ceramic burr coffee grinder and a burr grinder ensures consistency in the grind and flavor over a blade grinder.  Poorly ground beans will affect the taste of the coffee!  The epare’ also has 15 grind settings, coarse French press to fine expresso.  The wide hopper holds up to 60 grams of coffee and you can handhold grind or utilize the sticky adhesive base.  It is lightweight and perfect to take when you travel.  All of this at an affordable price with a lifetime guarantee made this grinder the perfect one!

Austin is always ordering French Press coffee when we are at coffee shops, so we knew this was a must have for him.  The Frieling French Press Insulated Coffee Maker made the list for us!  The first thing that sold us on this particular French Press maker is their patented dual filtration system.  The exclusive Italian fine-gauge screen and spring/coil combo keeps sediment particles out of your cup of coffee.  No one wants sediments in their cup of coffee!  Period!  The double-wall stainless steel design of the coffee maker keeps coffee hotter four times longer!  Yet another awesome feature of the Frieling French Press Insulated Coffee Maker!  The professional-grade construction means it won’t chip, crack or break.  All the components are dishwasher safe.  Yay!  (We chose the 17 fl. oz. size in a brushed finish).

The Java Presse Pour Over Dripper is the next great addition to this ultimate coffee basket.  This one appealed to us because it has doubled-walled ultra fine stainless steel mesh.  No more paper filters!  Hooray!  Because of the unique angled design, you get a fresh cup of coffee in 60 seconds.  Some mornings that is way beyond important!  It is perfectly sized to make two cups of coffee at one time.  One for you, and if you are in a sharing mood, one for another very lucky person!  It is dishwasher safe, which is a very good selling point.

Coffee Bean Time!

An ultimate coffee gift basket would not be complete without some delicious coffee beans!  We couldn’t give a coffee gift like this and not include some great coffee beans.  That would be like giving a child a toy that needed batteries and not include them.

We gave Austin a good variety of coffees to try.  The first company I am going to talk about is Verena Street Coffee Co.  Their coffee beans are craft roasted in small batches.  One of the bags is Julien’s Breakfast Blend which is their signature roast and is balanced and smooth.  The second bag is the Sunday Drive.  It is decaffeinated so Austin didn’t get a major caffeine rush!  🙂   We also got their Ceramic AirScape Coffee Canister.  The vacuum-sealed technology forces the air out so your beans stay fresh.  One again, super important for the true coffee connoisseur!

Austin also got some coffee beans from Volcanica Coffee.  The three flavored beans he received are Butter Scotch Toffee, Tanzania Peaberry and Caramel Crunch.  These smell amazing!!  Volcanica Coffee beans come from all over the world.  Their beans are grown on different farms in the mountains with elevations above 3,000 feet.  With moisture from the soil and nourishment from the volcanic soil they produce a flavor and taste you will love.

The third coffee company that Austin got coffee from is Conduit Coffee Company.  Conduit Coffee Company starts with meticulous agriculture.  After this, follows producer engagement and the care of importers.  Finally, the roasters’ fingerprints can be found in the process followed by the most high quality brewing process.  Quite the chain of events!  Austin got to try their “Variety Six-Pack“.  His variety pack included Ship Canal, Locofocos Espresso, Congo Kawa Maber Ngakpa and more!  What a perfect addition to his ultimate coffee gift basket.

A few extra goodies were added to the ultimate coffee gift basket for fun and variety.  Get creative and I’m sure you can think of a few things different from our basket to add to your own!

Wrapping Options

If you want the “opening” of the ultimate coffee gift basket to be prolonged, you can do what we did!  We wrapped each item individually.  Then we placed all of the wrapped goodies in a basket.  In another basket, we placed all of the coffee beans (and boy did that basket make our house smell amazing!).  It takes the person a lot longer to open their goodies this way.  🙂

Get Creative

What an amazing birthday gift.  As you can see in the pictures above, the “basket” was his coffee bar/stand and we filled up the bar/stand with all kinds of goodies.

This idea can certainly be done on a much smaller scale and still make an awesome gift.  Maybe a few bags of coffee and a new mug.  Maybe a french press or a coffee grinder with a couple bags of coffees.  The configurations of an ultimate coffee gift basket are as endless as the type of basket you choose as the base to put the coffee goodies in!

The rules are very simple:

. Have a budget (big or small depending on the amount of people going in on the gift)
. Pick items you know the recipient will love
. Be creative
. Have a lot of fun

That is it!

We hope you enjoyed this article and will give a gift “basket” to someone special in your life!  🙂

A couple other coffee-related posts:
Behind the Scenes with…Winans Chocolates + Coffees
Spotted Cow Coffee House