A Conspiracy Theory About Coffee

Today I dumped out the last of the Harar Horse (just too floral - needs to be in a blend) and I opened a pound of Starbucks' Zambia Kasama. The roast was slightly oiled, roasted Full-City, and it smelled good. I grounded it between fine and coarse and brewed a pot. What struck me was that it tasted like a Starbucks' coffee does.

Now I have been roasting my own beans for a few months now and I cannot seem to get this level of consistency in my own roasts. I fully understand that Starbucks' roasts with large industrial roasters (with all the computer aids they afford) but when the Kasama possesses the flavor of all the other Starbucks' coffees I automatically become suspicious. I cannot help but wonder if the large coffee companies, like Starbucks', Tim Horten's, Java General, and the many others, use a special flavoring to make the coffees that they serve all taste the same?

I used to think that the larger roasters just over roasted coffee beans in order to get consistency of flavor but the fact is that not all beans taste the same - no matter how they are roasted. I have often wondered if they just had a special blend that made their flavor consistent, but since my Starbucks' Kasama tastes the same as all the rest I cannot call say that it is the blending that makes it consistent. No, it has to be something else and my suspicion is that they add flavoring to their coffee to make it taste a certain way.

I know that this idea is a bit conspiratorial of me but what am I to think? Now that I know how to roast coffee and that each coffee bean actually possesses its own unique attributes, I wonder all the more about the consistent flavoring of the large roasting companies.