"Gourmet Coffee"

“Gourmet Coffee” is a phrase that sends shivers down my spine, and not shivers of pleasure, either. It’s a marketing-speak code phrase for flavoured coffee beans, in my opinion one of the nastiest ways to adulterate coffee yet invented.

Flavoured coffee isn’t new, it’s been around since coffee was first brewed. Honey, sugar, citrus peel, cardamom, cloves and ginger have all been added during or after the brewing process for centuries, not to mention judicious amounts of liquor and liqueurs. You’ve only got to watch Italian workmen downing “Espresso Corretto” (an espresso with a shot of grappa) for breakfast to see that added flavouring is an accepted part of coffee culture.

I’m quite partial to an Irish coffee (made with good Irish Whiskey and double cream) myself, but the preflavoured beans are a whole different matter. First of all the actual quality of the coffee involved is usually pretty low, because roasters see no need to spend money when the taste of the coffee isn’t important. Second, the added flavours are usually chemical concoctions dissolved in a glycol or vegetable oil base. These are added to the beans after roasting then mixed in until they’re absorbed. Third, the flavoured beans are rarely fresh when you buy them. They tend to have much lower turnover than normal coffee beans.

The taste of rancid coffee with added synthetic Blueberry Crème Cheesecake flavouring in propylene glycol (and no, I’m NOT making it up) would be enough to make any real gourmet gag. A speaker at a conference I attended last year, representing a flavouring company, made the point that flavoured coffees are designed for people who don’t drink coffee! In his words, flavoured coffees tend to be “hot, heavily sweetened beverages with the flavours designed to mask significant coffee characteristics. They are targeted at the unsophisticated coffee consumer, who desires a beverage tastier than instant coffee which delivers caffeine without bitterness.”

If you enjoy added flavouring in your coffee, go ahead…but add the “real thing”, or use some of the naturally flavoured syrups now available, and add them to fresh brewed coffee made from fresh roasted beans. Then you might end up with something that really is “Gourmet Coffee!”

Alan Frew
Coffee for Connoisseurs