2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 3 of 3)

2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 1 of 3)

2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 2 of 3)

If you have been reading all of the posts in this series (see links above) then you know already that coffee shouldn’t taste the same when it’s grown in different areas – it is just not likely.  Coffee from different locations will necessarily taste different because there are too many variables (such as soil, water, mulching, climate, and sun) for two crops from two different locations to ever taste the same.  If you can taste any coffee and tell which of the national chain roasters has roasted and distributed it, then you taste a branded flavor that they have added – and not the pure coffee itself.  Sorry, that’s just how it goes.  People who drink their coffee black should be able to easily recognize the coffee that they are drinking as coming from this chain or that one.  If you travel across the country and get a black coffee from your favorite brewer and it tastes like it did a thousand miles back home then you have to wonder – How is this possible?  Well, the reality is that it is not likely – unless some sort of signature flavor has been added to the beans.

This then is the Giant Lie of Coffee:  what you think is simply plain black coffee is often just the cheapest bean at the market flavored with the coffee roaster’s branded signature flavor.  For a purist like me, this matters.  Does this make me mad?  No.  Do I still get my coffee from my favorite chain while I am on the road?  Yes.  So why then do I bring it up?  Because I want you to love your coffee for just the coffee itself, and this can be hard to do unless you get fresh-roasted, single-origin coffee with nothing added – not even raosting oils that accidently flavor the beans.

So the next time you have coffee (maybe even now as you read this), I invite you consider how pure and natural the coffee is that you are drinking.  If it matters to you, then I invite you to join me, and together we can seek to experience the most perfect natural-tasting coffees from around the world.

2 Huge Truths about Coffee Flavor - And One Giant Lie (Part 2 of 3)

(Click here for Part 1 of 3)

Roasting...

There is a whole range of possible coffee roasts, from green to charcoal.  The possibilities are just about endless.  Every kind of coffee bean responds best to a particular variety of roasts in order for the best natural flavor to be released, and like with wine tasting, the fun is in tasting them all to determine what we like best.  For now though, I want to tell you how roasting affects the flavor and caffeine content of your coffee.

When coffee beans are green they possess all the flavor qualities that God has grown into them(see part 1 of this blog series).  As the green beans are roasted, the natural flavor is cooked out and traded for the flavor of the roast.  This trade-off is good, because a weakly roasted bean is often a bit bitter and sour, and the roasting process corrects this and brings about a very good brew.  This is where the Roast Master needs to become well-versed in his coffee types, because there is a point where a single-origin coffee bean is roasted so much that all anyone can taste is the roast and not any natural flavor of the bean– so any old bean would have worked.  The Roast Master becomes worth his salt when he learns which bean needs to be roasted to which level in order to bring about the best flavor.

There is another important facet to the level of roasting, and that is the caffeine content.  As a coffee bean is roasted, its caffeine content begins to diminish.  So, the darker the roast, the less the caffeine.  This means that people who get espresso coffee for the caffeine kick are actually getting less caffeine than what is in a regular cup of lightly-roasted coffee.

I don’t know why, but most of us assume that when a coffee is roasted darker, it has more flavor and more caffeine, but this is not the case.  I guess it is like a Filet Mignon steak.  If you really want the steak to melt in your mouth and have the best flavor, you need to have it cooked rare to medium-rare.

In the next part of this blog post, I want to bring out the lie of all lies for those of us who love coffee, so check back in a day or two.

2 Huge Truths About Coffee Flavor – And 1 Giant Lie (Part 1 of 3)

There are 2 huge realities concerning the natural flavor of coffee and here they are…

Location, location, location…

The first reality about coffee flavor is the bean itself, because each coffee bean is from a specific crop, and each crop comes from...you guessed it...a specific location.  Just as fine wine connoisseurs know wines by the specific grapes that were used to produce it, so also fine coffees are known by the beans that were used to brew the coffee.   For instance, Yemen’s coffees are known for their dominant mocha notes, the Jamaican Blue Mountain is known because of its perfectly balanced flavor and smoothness, and the Bali Blue Moon is known because of its a dominant fruitiness.  The Bali Blue Moon has developed its dominant flavor trait because it is grown between tangerine trees, and the fruit that falls from those trees is what mulches the soil in which this coffee grows.  

After considering the location where the bean was grown, we take a look at the weather in that location.  That’s right, the weather impacts the flavor of coffee beans.  Each crop of coffee has grown with a very specific amount of moisture in the air, rain fall, sunlight, and ambient temperature.  All of these “acts of God” will shape the development of the flavor from each crop of coffee that is grown.

Then, after God has had His way with growing our coffee, mankind gets our crack at influencing the flavor of our coffee through processing, roasting, and flavor additives.  Processing is a topic of another post, and please don’t get me started on flavor additives.  However, in the second part of this blog post I do want to talk about a couple of basic realities concerning the roasting of coffee.  So please stay tuned…

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ADDENDUM:  The flavor of your coffee is determined by a variety of factors (the water, freshness of the bean, and the ratio are big – see past post - but today I was speaking of the innate flavor of the bean itself.  

Do I Sell Flavored Creamers?

I was asked this while talking with someone about doing a coffee demonstration for them.  While I was not offended nor insulted I just told the client honestly, "If you are going to add flavoring to my coffee, you might as well save yourself some money and buy something inexpensive at the grocery store."


When I say this, I am not trying to be catty or snobbish but the reality is that the coffee that I sell is not cheap and if someone is just going to put flavoring in it anyway they can save themselves a few bucks and add the flavor to cheaper coffee -   The result would be the same.


The point of Anchor Bay Roast is to help people to experience the coffee that they drink - not the flavors that they add.  Coffee, especially freshly-roasted unadulterated single-origin coffee, has a wonderful flavor and many wonderful characteristics to experience in it.  Tasting coffee (properly called cupping) is akin to wine tasting in my world.  Each cup is to be recognized as a unique experience but helping people to experience their coffee is impossible if they put additives in the coffee that I prepare and serve to them.


Lots of people do not really believe me when I tell them this but good coffee does not need creamer, sugar, and or other flavors to be added because God already put all the flavor necessary in the beans that He created.  All we need is good coffee - And good coffee is often most difficult to come by.

Which is True?

When I was a kid I always used to see my grandma with her coffee cup.  As I grew I learned that she did indeed drink coffee in the mornings but in the evenings it was actually Pabst Blue Ribbon in her cup.


I once went to a hoity-toity wine tasting in Lansing, MI and as I was standing behind a lady to get some wine I watched her get a glass of Merlot and ask the server for "a couple of packets of sugar" to put in her glass.  I was not actually appalled but I did find it amusing that she had not even tasted the wine and she was asking for an additive.  You know, good wine does not need sugar and if wine does it is not actually good wine.


The same is to be said about coffee - it actually has a good-tasting God-designed flavor that can be experienced in each cup.  If it does not then you either have bad coffee or you do not really like coffee to begin with.


What's in your cup?


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