Just because I haven’t been writing much lately (ok, I haven’t been writing at all) doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping up with the goings on with my favorite coffee system (yeah, I’m talking about Keurig). As our friend Shoffee Joe (who hopefully won’t mind I stole his image for the front page) reported on the Shoffee Blog, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which pretty much owns all the companies who’s labels appear on your favorite K-Cups just announced that they’re discontinuing a truckload of K-Cup varieties at the end of this year.

Here’s the list from Joe’s Shoffee Blog:

• Caribou Coffee French Roast Keurig K-Cups
• Caribou Coffee Sumatra Decaf Keurig K-Cups
• Coffee People French Roast Decaf Keurig K-Cups
• Diedrich Colombia Decaf Keurig K-Cups
• Diedrich Morning Edition Keurig K-Cups
• Diedrich Sumatra Keurig K-Cups
• Diedrich Variety Pack Keurig K-Cups
• Emeril’s Vanilla Bean BAM! Keurig K-Cups
• Gloria Jean’s Special Blend Decaf Keurig K-Cups
• Gloria Jean’s Pumpkin Spice Keurig K-Cups
• Gloria Jean’s Chamomile Tea Keurig K-Cups
• Gloria Jean’s Tea Variety Box of Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain FT Holiday Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain FT Autumn Harvest Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain FT Wicked Winter Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain FT Spring Revival Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain FT Summer Safari Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain Hazelnut Dark Roast Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain Heifer Hope Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Green Mountain National Wildlife Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Timothy’s Colombian FT Dorado Keurig K-Cups
• Timothy’s Mexican Organic Keurig K-Cups
• Tully’s Evergreen Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Tully’s Full City Roast Keurig K-Cups
• Tully’s Madison Blend Keurig K-Cups
• Tully’s Sumatra Keurig K-Cups

I’m not going to get too worked up about this personally since only one of my absolute favorites (Green Mountain’s seasonal FT Holiday Blend) is on this list, but it’s a bit disappointing for sure.

Sumatran varietals in general are consistently among my favorites, so losing Sumatran offerings from Caribou, Diedrich, and Tully’s is also kind of a bummer.

I’d also be willing to bet that more than a couple of people are going to be downright irate about the loss of Gloria Jean’s Pumpkin Spice, although I’m certainly not one of them.

In general however, having tried most of the coffees on this list, my thinking is Green Mountain is mostly clearing out a whole lot of the mediocre – hopefully to make room for something better.

As you may recall from another Shoffee Blog post about a month ago, Green Mountain announced the purchase of kick-ass Canadian Coffee maker, Van Houtte.  My thinking on this is that Green Mountain is streamlining their current offerings to clear a little room for a more general distribution of Van Houtte K-Cups.  As Joe pointed out, Van Houtte already produces the Bigelow, and Wolfgang Puck lineup of K-Cups, but that’s really only scratching the beanskin of the Van Houtte lineup.

If my wishes become reality, this latest news is nothing more than Green Mountain clearing the way for the Van Houtte brand to become the latest K-Cup staple; available through your favorite retail outlets, like Shoffee.com.