Flavored coffee

Thanks for asking, Tasteful!

When you run across a bag of Butter Toffee Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake™ flavored coffee in the grocery store, you’re probably not bearing witness to a masterfully sourced and roasted coffee. It’s most likely a plain old bag o’ beans that have been smothered in a slurry of flavor concentrate and other chemical goop.

Flavor concentrates

Coffee companies get their flavor concentrates from chemical companies that specialize in natural and artificial scents and flavors. These types of scents and flavors are used in a wide variety of syrups, snack foods, candy, and cosmetics. Yes, this is how we get Bacon scented scratch-n-sniff stickers and watermelon flavored lip gloss.

Chemical goop

To ensure that the flavor concentrates stick to the roasted coffee beans, opens in a new windowpropylene glycol is added to the mix. It has been approved for consumption in small quantities, but it’s also an ingredient commonly used in paints and antifreeze.

Keep it simple

While some folks might enjoy an afternoon Pumpkin Pistachio Antifreeze Latte, I prefer other simple alternatives:

• Enjoying a real piece of cheesecake with my coffee.
• Dipping a real cookie in my coffee.
• Pouring a shot of cold brew over a scoop of ice cream.
• Adding some ground spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, etc.) to my coffee grounds before brewing.
• When I’m feeling rambunctious, I might even stir my coffee with a hotdog that’s been roasted over a campfire. Unconventional, but oh so tasty!

To me, drinking flavored coffee is akin to drinking soda pop or eating candy. Sure, it might taste like German Chocolate Cake… but that’s just the concentrates and chemical goop talking.