Wednesday, April 16, 2003


cantaloupe flavored coffee?

as usual, i can't make this stuff up. nestle is attempting to launch exotic fruit-flavored instant cappucino products onto the market as part of its nescafe brand. sadly, germany is the target for testing this new horror.

let's take a moment and talk about -- if i can stop gagging long enough to do so -- instant coffee, especially these "international" house of whatever flavored stuffs on the market. we see them advertised to women in gauzy, feel-good commercials that attempt to instill the notion that a cup of instant coffee is better than even a bubble bath.

but what's in that instant cappucino? nothing you really want to drink! instant coffee is made from the lowest-grade of coffee beans, almost always robusta. unlike the high-quality arabica coffee beans that smell and taste delicious, these inferior robustas taste like burning tires smell. yuck! many say that these bottom-of-the-barrel beans contain "insect parts" and even mold.

(not to gross you out, but here in the u.s.a, the food and drug administration rules essentially permit unripe or moldy beans, gravel and other junk to constitute as much as 30 percent of a cup of "pure" coffee, industry experts say. that's why we consumers need to support the scaa's coffee purity initiative. i'll rant about this another time.)

to make this nastiness palatable, the mega-corporations that sell this stuff have apparently invented a special steaming process whereby they remove the flavor(s) from the beans. so they have this bit of tasteless vegetable fiber left over. however, due to lax laws here in the u.s.a, this is still technically coffee.

which they roast and grind. then they add water to make "coffee." they dehydrate ("freeze dry") this liquid into crystals or powdery stuff. then they take this cellulose "coffee" powder, add chemical flavorings, chemical perfumes, chemical "milk" powder (a.k.a. "coffee whitener" or "nondairy creamer"), foaming agents, anti-clumping agents, fake colors. . .ugh. only the sugar may be real.

no wonder they are scrambling to make this stuff taste like something, anything. . .even melons.

this is why it is so important to buy high-quality specialty coffee from a local independent roaster or coffeehouse. from someone you can get to know and trust, from someone who cares what they're selling.

coffee designated "specialty" approaches zero twigs, bugs, and moldy bad beans. only this is should be allowed for sale as "pure" coffee. and this is the stuff you really want to drink. . .

posted by fortune | 4:49 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments