Flavored Coffee 101: A Quick Lesson for Newbies

Coffee has always tasted great by itself, but for those of us that enjoy a little extra flavor, we join the ranks of flavored coffee drinkers. No – it’s a little less traditional than what many coffee drinkers are used to, but most people who try it have a hard time going back to the “normal stuff.”

Can you imagine drinking coffee with a smooth almond taste? Or how about butter pecan coffee? Sounds amazing, right? Some of the latest and most popular flavors are peppermint, pecan pie, chocolate raspberry, caramel apple, banana cream, and amaretto. Seriously, if you haven’t tried any of these before, now is the time!

Flavored coffee is usually sprayed and treated with flavored oils just after its roasted. But you need to be careful! Some coffees have unnatural chemical additives. We make sure all of our flavoring is done in a healthy, all natural process. The flavoring process is done this way mainly to keep the flavor fresh; if you were to flavor after the coffee has been ground, it tends to lose some of the flavor profiles.

Here’s the thing you have to remember – any flavor can be recreated or copied by some manufacturing process. Because marketers have proven that people tend to like a more rich, creamy coffee, they have managed to produce certain chemicals that react in the coffee in a way that produce the desired effect. You have to be so careful with your coffee! These chemicals and additives are found in many manufactured foods that are attempting to create artificial flavorings. Not that there have been any conclusive studies to show that these chemicals can hurt you in the short run, but long term we’ve been told to be careful about regular consumption.

Heat is a big part of creating the flavoring process. Much of the flavor sprays and oils are ingrained into the coffee using heat; however, there is some technology being developed to eliminate much of the heat usage, making it to where the coffee is hardly altered at all! And that’s the real key! You don’t want to inject flavor at the expense of hurting the bean itself.

In conclusion, drinking flavored coffee is neither dangerous nor risky. Sure – it’s going to be more sweet, and in most cases, it’s probably not as good for you as drinking a more traditional kind of coffee. But hey – why not treat yourself? Why not give yourself an opportunity to enjoy something that you’ve never tried before? For you traditional coffee drinkers, now is the time to start something new.