Flavored Coffee and Maintaining Quality.
Lots of people like to drink flavored coffee… I enjoy it occasionally, but whenever I get flavored coffee at the local coffee shop or someone’s house, it never seems to taste very good. Have you ever noticed how bitter and bland the brew usually tastes? It’s like a mixture of instant coffee with irish cream flavoring. Not very appealing and no pleasant aftertaste.
It’s important to note that I’m referring to pre-flavored beans… coffee beans that have flavoring added to them as soon as they’re out of the roaster and the beans are still warm to provide the best possible atmosphere for absorption of the flavoring. As you can image, the coffee bean – which encapsulates all of the coffee oils that make up the unique flavors of the bean – can be compromised by the application of the flavoring.
The flavoring can be natural or, more likely, chemicals that are engineered to taste like “hazelnut” or “vanilla”. For the flavoring to be applied evenly to warm, just roasted coffee beans, the flavored concentrate is diluted in solvents such as vegetable oil, water or even alcohol. After the application, water is then sprayed on the still warm beans to cool them off… however, this quenching process can also have negative effects on the coffee beans as the water allows some of the bean’s natural flavors to escape.
A roasted coffee bean itself has over 1,000 chemicals or compounds which make up it’s unique flavor. Adding flavoring to roasted beans can mute some of the natural chemicals that makes an origin coffee such as a Sumatra taste like a “Sumatra”.
Another reason that some coffee roasters add flavoring to just roasted coffee is to extend the shelf life. Fresh roasted coffee starts going stale after 10-14 days but when flavoring is added to coffee beans, the stale flavors resulting from oxidation and aging of the coffee beans can be diminished by the added flavoring, making it difficult for consumers to tell if the bitter flavor is due to old, stale beans or the quality compromise from pre-flavoring. Some roasters also take advantage of the flavoring process by using low quality coffee beans (low grade or even Robusta) as they believe the flavoring they’re adding to the coffee beans will make up for it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, some roasters do it right… they use high quality coffee beans, use natural flavoring, quench the beans with air rather than water. But for the most part, I believe flavoring coffee beans just out of the roaster does more harm than good.
What then can you do to flavor your coffee while maintaining quality?
Fresh roasted coffee provides more natural flavor and unique tastes than old, stale coffee… but for those who still want to add flavoring, I always recommend flavoring coffee once it has been brewed and is in your cup. In my opinion, this is the best way to maintain quality as the coffee beans haven’t been compromised by a roaster adding the flavoring themselves. You can taste the quality of the coffee and then add flavoring to your cup by using flavored creamer or natural flavored syrups to add the kind of tastes you’re looking for.
Another plus for adding flavoring to your cup after you brew your coffee vs. using pre-flavored coffee beans is you’ll have less maintenance on your blade and burr coffee grinders. Flavored coffee leaves flavor extracts on grinders which can cause a lot of damage and require repairs. This is one of the reasons why many local coffee shops, who gladly grind coffee for their customers, will not grind pre-flavored coffee (and if they do, they have a special grinder they’ve set aside just for these types of coffees).
Some additional tips
Use complimentary flavorings to enhance the flavor of your coffee. At Weekly Roast Coffee, we always indicate the natural, origin flavors we get out of testing the coffees we offer (for example, one coffee may have a sweet chocolate note while another, a hazelnut or vanilla note). In these cases, you could use flavoring in your cup to bring out or enhance the hazelnut or a different flavoring to compliment it.
Another idea, somewhere in between using pre-flavored coffee beans and adding syrups to your cup after it’s brewed, is to keep fresh roasted coffee in an airtight container along with mint leaves, cinnamon sticks, or anything else that gives off an aroma you’d like to taste in your coffee. This works well because coffee is porous, so it naturally absorbs the flavors around it (which is why we recommend that you do not store coffee in the fridge or freezer).
Please leave your comments below so we can continue the discussion and share this post with someone who enjoys good coffee. Ken
4 Responses
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Great post, and I’m glad you addressed the issue of flavored coffees. I’m taking an anthropological economy class right now, and this last week, we actually addressed “yuppie coffees,” of which I’m an enthusiastic consumer. But apparently these flavored coffees were created to give the “soda drinker” a reason to switch to coffee, but unfortunately, like you mention, flavored coffees are too often just not good…and have a rap for being slightly trashy (no offense). There’s a local coffeehouse that actually offers like 15-20 preflavored coffees…and these are brews that they roast themselves. This, to me, made the place decrease a few notches because instead of focusing on making their coffee really awesome, they’re messing with flavors. And it’s almost impossible to give the customer a fresh cup when you’re trying to keep 15 thermoses hot…..
Another great and informative coffee post. Makes sense why flavored coffee tastes bad, but it makes me wonder why it can smell so good when you first open it. I’ve always kind of wondered if they inject some kind of smell in those big-box coffees. Any idea?
@Danielle I’m with you there, there’s a local coffee shop that has about 10 to 12 thermoses full of pre-flavored coffees. I think coffee shops should focus on brewing 2 to 3 good coffees and discarding/re-brewing every 30 minutes. More than that may be difficult to maintain quality, especially when you get into the 10 to 15 thermos range!
@Alan The aroma from pre-flavored coffees does smell good, it’s just the taste that I think is lacking from the procedures some roasters use for flavoring. You’re right on target with the bix-box coffees you get in the supermarket (the pre-ground ones in the tins) – the big coffee giants actually do inject coffee flavored aroma into the cans! That’s why it smells great when you first open the tin, but then the aroma dissipates quickly. This is mainly done because of the large percentage of robusta beans they use, but also because of the way they roast and process the beans they can.