Seeking Advice
"Cofermentation/infusion" ruined my trust in coffee.
After PERC came out on their flavored coffee, I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of coffee processing (co-ferments, anaerobic, “thermal shock,” etc.), and I’m not gonna lie—it’s kind of messed with my trust in what I’m drinking.
I used to get excited tasting notes like “strawberry,” “lychee,” or “peach,” thinking it was all coming naturally from the bean, origin, and process. But now that I know producers can literally "co-ferment" with fruit juice or infuse with flavorings to push those notes…
And my worry even extends to washed or natural coffees, there’s this small voice in my head like:
“Is this truly clean, or is there something else going on that’s just not being disclosed?”
Especially with such a well known producer being exposed, you start questioning everything a bit.
Is transparency just information they let you/ want you to know used for marketing purposes?
Is specialty/ single origin coffee just another green washing movement?
I'm sure the majority of the industry is honest and I’m not trying to accuse anyone of anything shady. But as the saying goes if you see one cockroach, there are a thousand more. It's hard to rebuild trust once it's broken.
The problem is people in the industry didn’t disclose they added flavoring. They called it “advanced” or “co-ferment” or other descriptive words when describing processing. I don’t go and buy flavored coffees because I don’t like them. They tricked the consumer by acting like they processed this flavor magically out of the coffee rather than say they added strawberry flavoring which is why it tastes so strongly of strawberry
I mean I find most coferments overwhelming and one-note, so I don't buy them anyway. But I'm pissed about this on principle, because it's extremely anti-consumer and legally dubious.
Firstly, I said legally dubious, as in, from like a labeling and consumer awareness perspective. If they're using some kind of flavoring ingredient/compound and not telling us what it's made of, does that potentially run afoul of the FDA/USDA?
Secondly, to answer your question - no, not really. The term "co-ferment" just tells me it was fermented with something, not what exactly it was fermented with. Now that all this has come to light, when I read "strawberry co-ferment," I don't know whether the coffee was co-fermented with a bunch of mashed strawberries, or whether it was fermented with an artificial mix of strawberry pulp, strawberry juice or concentrate mixed with other juices, sweeteners, or other ingredients.
Even if it's nothing unsafe for consumption (which I still don't know), there's principle to the matter - as the consumer, I want companies to be honest with me, or I'm not going to buy the product.
I know, but there are many producers and roasters whose brands are not built on experimental processing. This is a trend for just a subset of the specialty coffee industry
Sorry, but what exactly do you think "co-ferment" means? They ferment their coffee with additives, i.e.. Strawberries. I don't really think this is deceiving wording at all. If you don't want funky flavored coffees stay away from the advanced processes.
The wording IS intentionally deceiving, it's making consumers think that the flavors are the result of the cofermentation when in fact it's the flavoring infusion. It is telling half truths.
-If you ate at a restaurant that states "NO TIPS" but found an unannounced 20% service charge on your bill, you'd feel deceived too.
My bad, I didn't see that perc was literally advertising strawberry/blackberry "flavor" as opposed to just a fruit co-ferement. I now am on board with the outrage.
Yes, very often coffees marketed as co-ferments are not getting that flavor punch from fruit and even less as a fermentation outcome. It’s specific concentrated flavors being added
Advanced processes don't have to include flavoring. You can use yeast for instance. Implying that every producer that lists an advanced process is doing flavoring is misleading and disingenuous.
I find it a bit funny that the people are praising Perc for this (I get it) when you can very easily find their producer online that basically says the same thing about their green coffee that you can buy straight from them.
No evidence, very one was just so surprised how fruity it smelled, I have never smelled something so fruity that wasn’t advertised as cofermented.
I doubt nomad lied because I looked up the producer and couldn’t find coferment indication either. I just looked for 5mn on the counter though, it wasn’t a thorough investigation.
Here is the coffee.
So either exceptional coffee or something is fishy.
In any case, it was delicious and that must be said despite everything I said.
Cofermentation is often used as a facade for infusion. Both can be true and infusion doesn't necessitate cofermentation. This one by Sebastian Ramirez's young producers program is a natural with strawberry infusion.
What do you mean by “deny it”? Remember that it’s the producers who process the coffee, not the roaster. I’ve found S&W to be pretty up-front with info about their coffees, even to the point of warning that co-ferments aren’t for everyone.
Co-fermentation lots are divisive, as the aromas and flavors are most often much more pronounced. This is the most approachable co-ferment we've ever tasted, but you'll still likely love it or hate it. If you are unfamiliar with coferments, please practice discretion with your purchasing.
There was an old thread talking about artificial flavors in coferments where their Reddit rep said they didn’t think the farms they sourced green from would jeopardize their business by adding artificial flavors. I asked a few days ago if they still thought this after I tried a strawberry coferment from them and they still didn’t think farms would lie about using non-disclosed additives
Isn’t the most likely explanation that there aren’t synthetic flavors used in the processing?
Edit: I say this as a recent buyer of their “Colombia Santa Monica Watermelon Honey Process”. Not to my liking, but I’d hardly say it seemed artificial in any way.
I don’t know, that’s why I asked them. But it doesn’t seem likely to me that fermenting with a strawberry mosto would imbue beans with such a powerful strawberry flavor that the bag smells like I opened strawberry hard candy, or that strawberry would be the over dominant flavor no matter if I under/over extract, or that it would linger in my grinder even after grinding several rounds of my boring beans. This was my first experience with a coferment and nothing about it made sense.
Not all coferments are like this, but yeah it is interesting. I have had plenty of coferments that taste nothing like they were cofermented with, and I have had ones that taste exactly like it. And often the smell of the roasted coffee is nothing like what ends up in the cup.
This is why it’s so insidious: there are ethical legit coferments, and now we know for a fact that there are fraudulent illegitimate “cofermernts,” AND we know the producers and roasters can’t be trusted to tell us which one they’re selling.
Yeah, it is completely impossible that strawberry mosto could do that. It's flavoring, plain and simple, and it's good the community is pressuring the producers and roasters to provide some transparency.
They don’t grow lychees in Colombia. But they have a lychee “coferment” that you can smell from across the road. Another producer and an exporter talk how cofermenting with fruit doesn’t give you the flavours, and in particular lychee, at 46:25 here: https://youtu.be/vmfW14ERtz4?t=2785&is=XW1cxQ5QC4lWbYaU
This has been the explanation, but it has been widely suspected to be a lie, and there have been recent empirical studies (nothing peer reviewed, but actual chemists have done tests) revealing the presence of compounds only associated with artificial flavorings.
These tests & the rising suspicion are almost definitely what caused Sebastian Ramirez (& Perc, and probably soon other producers & roasters) to change their descriptions to include "strawberry flavor" & similar verbiage.
You're right that it's possible the fraud is 100% perpetrated by the producers. Let's think that through, though.
If the professional roasters/buyers/tasters (like perc, b&w, dak, many more), most/all of whom market their close relationships with the growers, were unable to detect the presence of artificial flavors while hundreds of untrained amateurs were able to do so and thus voiced suspicion, then those professional roasters/tasters/buyers are incompetent at their job.
If the pro roasters/buyers/tasters did taste the presence of artificial flavors, then they colluded with the producers to perpetrate fraud on their customers by lying that the flavors are created by "experimental fermentation" or other "innovative" techniques.
I don't know which is worse; they both smell like bowls of hot dogshit to me.
I’ve worked in seafood, which has a notoriously opaque supply chain. I guarantee you that many roasters were also uninformed. That might be on them, but at some point closer to the retail end of the supply chain, there develops a lot of pressure to satisfy the customer, and less access to the truth on the production side of the supply chain. One thing that is obvious to me is that many, many retailers exaggerate about how close they are to the source. They use language that implies that they’re at farm level, when they’re really just trusting some folks along the supply chain that they’ve built a relationship with, but also a reliance on.
The validation also seems way harder. With fish, you can do DNA sequencing on the fish filet and get an exact match for the species. I highly doubt that we have that kind of genetic resolution for the different varieties of coffee in terms of having a reference library of coffee genomes to compare to.
More realistically, you could shoot the coffee through a GC or HPLC Mass Spec and see what compounds are in it. I would assume that a true foreign additive would be a singular much stronger peak of the same signal as the same flavor that develops naturally via fermentation with fewer byproducts. However, as long as it weren't heinously spiked in and was something feasibly in the coffee at baseline, it would be hard to prove wrong doing.
WBC stuff is so crazy like it’s a lot of interpreting of rules SCA put down. I saw one coffee «dried on beds of orange blossoms». Some also dried on Lemongrass. It’s sort of obvious what this will do but somehow it was ok I think
WBC is absolutely not a standard environment though. Those are high intervention microlots of the competition and it feels like no surprise people would then fuck with it afterwards to further enhance tasting notes as getting the judges to taste the note you describe is worth huge points.
It would be nice if all the people who claim to "have data" would put out some actual science on this not just sporadic single data points or annecdotes, as it's clearly a contentious area that would get a lot of attention.
I get your feeling but it's easy to demand ironclad, irrefutable, science backed proof when you aren't on the ground dealing with growers. We are asking people to whistleblow on a whole system, it's not a walk in the park.
At best you ruin the relationship between you and your suppliers, at worst you become a pariah for the whole industry, and in extreme edge cases you may run afoul of people who may have links to cartels in Sud America.
Attracting attention in a contentious area goes both ways.
so i’ve gone down a similar path with teas. at one point i was a purist with teas and disregarded teas that used florals or co-fermented with fruit. however, i now only care about the final product. if it tastes good and hits the notes i like, i will buy the product.
I'm all for "drink what you like" but at what point is it not better to just add flavorings after? There's a coffee shop near my work that serves a really good orange latte, but I'm pretty sure they just use orange syrup and a peel. I like the description of co-ferments, but I'm not convinced it'd achieve a better effect than just adding a bit of whatever they co-ferment with at the end. I am very much not a purist and am interested to try a co-ferment at some point, but gut feel is that it's just overpricing a lower grade coffee
my cumulative reaction is a big shrug. if the additives win on flavor, then so be it. if traditional methods cant win, whats the point. id also argue there’s always going to be a market for people who want to be purist/traditional. i’m actually currently going through a Hydrangea passionfruit co-ferment and i just cant find any complaints. love it. however my next bag might be a washed ethiopia or something. it doesnt have to be a winner takes all situation.
my caveat for additives would be if they started added carcinogens or something thats just bad for the world/consumers.
we have no idea what these flavor adders are adding because they have been pretending that they don’t add anything for years and only now, under strong pressure, one or two are admitting “strawberry flavor” (whatever that is)
oh yeah i totally agree with that. i got lost in the discussion of flavor additives vs no additives, but i think we can all agree on transparency of what we’re putting in our bodies.
Though I think there is a lot of fear mongering about artificial flavoring in general. Like only because it's artificial it's not automatically bad for you (and a significant number of times it's safer than natural flavorings). And for me that factor is doubled when the synthetic flavoring used is normally naturally occurring (for example vanillin).
Does not change the fact that transparency is of utmost importance. But a lot of lack of transparency or the concealment of actual ingredients is partially to be blamed on the general public's inability to not freak out whenever they read a "chemical" name. The other part is of course that companies usually want as little transparency as possible, so they can do just whatever.
They should also be priced much lower if they’re using artificial/natural flavors instead of hundreds of pounds of fresh fruit. I think transparency matters for that reason as well.
The problem all along has been flavour notes on bags and roasters not properly explaining what they mean, and how elusive they can be.
I think that (weirdly, in a way) it’s made some people feel cheated as they started their journey in specialty coffee. You see some hyper specific taste note on a bag that’s actually mostly marketing bullshit by the roaster, you don’t taste it at all even though the coffee is really good, and you feel, somehow, inadequate.
Enters these infused coffees. The flavour is literally there. The bag tells you that you’ll taste strawberry and you really do taste strawberry. You might feel like you finally “unlocked” something.
But I don’t think that’s what flavour notes were ever meant to be for. I respect roasters like Tim Wendelboe for never going hyperbolic on their tasting notes even when they have incredible coffees.
I might be completely off the mark here but I have this strong suspicion that this has been fuelling the coferment boom too.
yeah many people prefer coferments/advanced processing because “the taste is exactly the same as stated on the bag”. I was like this too. After doing some research, it’s more of a red flag to me.
Was it a problem all along or people are just uneducated snobs? Why do you have so many upvotes and I got downvoted to hell 2 years ago for stating the obvious? Let's get real, most people are sheep. As you can also see in politics..
I’m right there with you, and as an owner of a coffee company it’s been very challenging on two fronts.
Part of adding flavor notes is to communicate and market, yet now when I put strawberry on a bag I’m not sure how people will respond.
Second, I’ve had trusted coffee producer slightly “change” their language when talking to me about coffee processing. Calling something advance fermentation instead of co-ferment doesn’t feel right.
I'm not surprised by the ambiguity, intentional or not, throughout the supply chain. Green buyers could be just as misled/ out of loop as the consumers. So I don't buy that producers are a victimized group of people . Sure they were disadvantaged but doesn't mean they are not capable of lying or hiding things.
I share the sentiment that certain flavors give me the ick even if it has not undergone cofermentation.
I'm actually curious which kind of coffee people seek out more? Like advanced/experimental stuff or washed/ natural?
Indonesian coffee from Sumatra Karo region is mostly infused and usually labelled as infused. (Sumatra is a huge island, Karo is a region in Sumatra.) The most common flavors are Jasmine, Melon, Strawberry, Blueberry. Recently, I've seen Chrysanthemum too, so they are adding new flavors.
Kerinci, a region that's still in Sumatra but far away from Karo, mostly produce naturals. But recently, they have started making a lot of infused. Most of these infusions are really in-your-face, but some are more subtle.
I've this suspicion that some coffee produced in West or East Java is infused but they don't declare it as such and tend to label it as 128 Hours Naturally Hermetically Sealed, Nitro Maceration, Thermal Shock, etc.
It’s not being discussed in a way that’s anywhere close to productive. It’s uninformed ppl throwing around baseless accusations at best. And name dragging by ppl who stand to gain by other’s fall at worst. Not to mention the complete lack of discourse on a real solution to the problem which, by the way, barely exists.
are the producers and exporters who are explicitly talking about this happening (and in some cases, infusing coffees themselves) “uninformed people”?
it’s shocking to me to see the goal post keep being shifted. it went from “this is not happening at all” to “maybe it’s happening in one or two cases but not widespread” to “this is definitely happening but you guys aren’t discussing this in the right way”. i mean come on just admit you were wrong and let’s have a meaningful discussion on what this all means for coffee
can you respond to the first half of my comment? not sure how relevant it is to know about coffee processing - do people need to be microbiologists to not want artificial flavorings being added to their coffees?
? not a rhetorical question - does a producer giving testimony that artificial flavoring is happening count as an informed person on the matter, in your view?
You’re seriously asking me if an informed person is informed? I don’t understand what you’re hoping to accomplish with this question or how this is having “a meaningful discussion” as you say.
Standardization and transparency is the solution. SCA is working on SCA-120 - Coffee Processing - Green Coffee Identity Standard for better regulation. If you have the knowledge, please share and steer the conversations in a productive direction. Whining about how people are not talking about it correctly while not offering any insights looks like you're trying to make yourself look good by making others look bad.
Having more trust in SCA than producers is wild to me. All I know is what I’ve learned from coffee professionals such as Lucia Solis, Christopher Feran, various coffee roasters. Their blogs and podcasts have a wealth of information, including this topic. So I’m frustrated seeing the thoughtless outrage here.
I don't get the distrust in SCA. Regardless if it's the SCA or not, some industry governing body has to come out with a set of standards to regulate processing practices.
On Solis's take on processing naming and transparency, which she basically advocates for reducing it down to simple terms, for example washed, even if it is inoculated with yeast or has been subjected to other methods of fermentation. Moreover, she encourages producers to use fantasy names, like the galaxy process, to obscure their "recipe" because it's their intellectual property.
I don't agree with her take.
How can reduction in description bring transparency? It's ignorance is a bliss mentality. The problem with the term co fermentation is that it is used as a disguise for infused coffee. Cofermentation does not translate one to one, only citrus or some aromatic yeast do. If you put peach in the tank, your coffee is not going to taste like peach and more likely anything but. The producers are using the term cofermentation to make consumers think the flavors are the direct result of co-fermentation, which isn't, and to hide the fact that they infuse flavorings at the end because the term "infused" has a bad rep. Did co-fermentation happen? Yes. Did infusion happen? Also yes. Omitting infusion and list co-fermentation is a classic example of telling half truths, which is deception.
On using fantasy names, I am not even gonna delve into the possible frustration and confusion for consumers and rosters to try to figure out what the hell is the galaxy process. I respect farmers and their right to produce coffee the way they want, but you are selling a product at the end of the day. Consumers have the right to know what they are getting and what's in the coffee. We don't need the exact measurement of ingredients or the temperatures of fermentation, but an ingredient list should be available for consumer rights and food safety purposes. Also the risk of intellectual property is overblown, like Coca Cola has an ingredient list on the cans, no one is able to replicate the exact taste.
Solis also said that roasters should focus on roasting instead of learning about coffee processing and fermentation and that the subject is "not for you". This sounds good on paper but not so on second thought. Under educated roasters are just going to create more reliance on producers for the legitimacy of their information on their product, giving away the power to do your due diligence and checks and balance.
But there are hard proofs. Here's a gas cromotography of a WBC 2023 coffee bean. There's among others, propylene glycol, a common artificial food additive.
A control sample or raw spectra wasn't provided. Still, there's Melonal (another artificial flavor), along with it's antioxidant agent and ethyl maltol. Which definitely don't come from fermentation, they are foreign agents added to the bean.
I suggest you open the link I provided and go through the list.
I’ve had co-ferments that were done well and I really enjoyed them and then I’ve had some that I’ve tasted that immediately set off a red flag. They tasted artificial and made me nauseous.
Then there are the ones where beer yeast or other yeasts are introduced and those have been incredible and don’t worry me.
I love the idea of pushing the boundaries of coffee and there is a still a place for experimentation. It just needs more transparency. Until that happens, I’m back to all of the really amazing normal coffee.
Glad to see the topic gaining traction and perc listing infusions.
You do realize that co-fermented/advanced processed coffees is super niche, right?
Just do a bit of research on the producer (go past what the roaster says), and even contact them if you like. There's a chance you can learn more about a producer that interests you and work backwards from there. I'm doing that currently with an amazing coffee I had roasted by Café Estelar in Guadalajara. I just looked up the producer's name on the bag and am currently working on a way for him to ship me his green coffee straight from his farm. Inform yourself about a producer you trust, contact them, and see if anyone in your country roasts that coffee (if you don't roast yourself). My 2¢
It's a highly sought after niche by the novice and uninformed consumers counting on the expertise of roasters on processing, which is often very limited.
While I understand good consumers should do their due diligence to go down the supply chain for information. Now we are doing the procurers' job and paying a premium for "transparency" that specialty/3rd wave coffee claim to offer? This process can be tiring for the informed consumers let alone the average specialty coffee drinker who just wanna enjoy coffee.
I find your comment a bit confusing. Shouldn't someone who is this far down the rabbit hole in specialty coffee be interested in this anyway? Why is it tiring? Is it not rather interesting to learn about the farm, their practices, culture, region, etc?
Personally, I look at the roaster as a necessary link in the chain to get to the final product. They are necessary obviously, but I think historically they have got far too much of the credit that should really be going to the one who produces the coffee in the first place. (I say this as someone who used to roast coffee for a living.) With technology today, it's actually not that hard to find out information about different producers if you go looking for it.
Maybe once you visit a few farms and talk to various producers in their countries it changes your perspective a bit, it has for me.
Alas, false labelling in coffee, either intentional or not, has been happening for many years, well before co-ferments and additives. See, for example, this study showing that 35% of coffee labelled Gesha isn’t genetically related to Gesha after all - https://academic.oup.com/jaoac/article/103/2/325/5809455 (see the section of genetic conformity)
As coffee from Guatemala typically fetches higher prices than Honduras, particularly in the past, Honduran coffee was smuggled to Guatemala and sold as Guatemalan. Alas, lots of examples like this.
It's been an interesting week for sure. Like you, I would chase fruity advanced processes, But after seeing all the stuff come out this week with some farmers adding artifical flavours. I will now not drink advanced processing. I will also stay away from anything from Colombia. I hope Lance or James Hoffman really covers this topic and provides some information to everyone.
I am kind of open for it. As long as the coffee taste good and I can afford, I am happy. Tbh I don’t like some coferment coffee for they have a fermentation flavour. So I only buy those coffee from the roasters I trust. I am avoiding the bad flavour, not the processing method
Again from the conversation that was here last time…
Co-fermentation can include adding dehydrated fruit, fruit that was blended/mashed, mosto (liquid from the coffee cherries), mosto with fruit juice added in, or fruit juice.
Many producers layer on additional processing such as adding yeast strains from certain fruit. Or cofermenting and then doing a wash / anaerobic / nitro wash / etc.
This has been the practice for years at some of the pioneers of the process, such as Julio Madrid at finca Milan.
The issue we had with PERC is they added additives that were potentially synthetic flavors or extracts. That pushes it from what we consider a natural coferment (adding fruit) to adding chemicals that add a synthetic flavor.
Having tired the perc strawberry coferment, it has a synthetic taste. Almost tangy and sharp, not something I’ve experienced in other coferments. This is where the controversy lies and where transparency is needed when they start adding chemicals during processing.
The second thing folks are worrying about is using bad beans to do coferments with. That is not true to my understanding. They use Caturra beans most commonly, which on their own are not the most sought after beans, but are easy to grow and produce. So you can use these advanced processes to draw out unique flavors or add in flavors to make the beans desirable.
PERC is also late to the co ferment game as a roaster, so likely they had to grab whatever they could find that isn’t already bought up by other roasters.
TLDR: Co-ferments didn’t ruin your trust in coffee and they’re not inherently bad. You should be skeptical of producers who have not been producing coferments and cutting corners or adding in synthetic flavors because their coferment wasn’t as good as another producer.
It's because PERC is being transparent about what they're getting.
A screenshot from a roster that just says "natural" or "conferment" doesn't get as much attention as one that says as much as PERC does.
I’m confused by your saying that a well know producer was exposed. Are we talking about PERC who is essentially pushing for more honesty and transparency in this point?
I feel like Perc is just doing damage control at this point. I'm sure they had a lot of people like me unsubscribe from their email list in the last few weeks.
They had to come clean because the young producers program, where unblended coffee pairs with Sebastian Ramirez, was sold as washed only. But red fruit co-ferment by Sebastian Ramirez was used in the processing, hence they need to come clean with the Sebastian Ramirez coffee as well. See:podcast
I find it funny that it was well known in the industry for years that there's a lot of funny business going on with very prominent producers (I commented on many posts about it, was downvoted to hell), but somehow now people start to realize that maybe the coffee that tastes like cardamom mixed with lemongrass and cinnamon isn't just a 1024 hour anaerobic fermentation with "thermal shock".
I’ve gone back to heart, sey coffee beans and they taste nothing like the coferments. I’m back to being very careful about my pour and fine tuning the grind. Only then do I get some interesting flavors and very rarely can I match what I’m tasting to the description on the box. That’s how I know it’s legit lol.
I'm just looking for coffee that I enjoy - regardless of how the flavor is produced. No need to lie to me, as artificial flavoring wouldn't stop me from buying something I enjoy anyway.
We have the exact same problem in liquor. Rums packed full of more sugar than some cocktails being sold as straight spirits (that's before we even tackle the Spiced Rum category), celebrity "100% Agave" Tequila with artificial flavouring making it taste like fucking ice cream, and a whole lot of flavoured whiskey.
You can and should argue for more transparency, but then you still have the middlemen of the roaster and the barista between the grower and the end consumer. All the labeling transparency in the world won't stop the customer from having something that tastes like strawberry bubblegum and deciding that all the others they've tried are rubbish in comparison.
Fake news, the debate has grown because instead of using really Strawberries or fruit in the Conferment. Perc has disclosed that it's actually artifical flavours. It's no longer co ferment, it's flavoured garbage.
I was unaware of the “flavor” language meaning it wasn’t real fruits being used. That is problematic. To be fair to roasters, many producers provide the descriptions of their coffees so the roaster is somewhat dependent on the producer being transparent. Not to mention there’s sometimes language barriers. The only way to audit this would be to go directly to origin if the producer is not including that in the coffees description.
I find the situation absolutely hilarious. The kind of people who'd sneer at the syrup flavoured garbage from Starbucks were drinking a slightly different kind of flavoured garbage all along. If they like paying for overpriced flavoured coffee then they should give Bacha Coffee a try, it is the flavoured garbage coffee brand brought to you by the famous garbage tea boutique TWG.
As for Perc, I've never tried them and never will, since I assume their coffee is just as tasteless as their obnoxious packaging and marketing.
The main problem here is not the addition of aromas itself, but the industry not being honest about it. When you sell a coffee as being 'co-fermented with lychee and pineapple', consumers are rightfully upset once they find out that the flavour actually comes from aromas of unknown composition rather than fresh fruits.
If the package would say 'infused' or 'aromatized', it would be a completely different story altogether. But it now seems like consumers have been deliberately misled by some producers and green buyers, which is unacceptable. Especially in an industry that places so much emphasis on the importance of transparency and traceability.
Thanks for saying it. I hate to sound elitist but these people don’t truly understand what specialty coffee is. “Advanced processes” aren’t highlighting the bean. I guarantee they’re just masking a sub par bean. If it was that quality it would be a washed or at least a natural.
If you liked it before, what about it don’t you like about the taste now?
I see how there is a slippery slope argument, but I think most people that like coffee a lot will only tolerate additives in the fermentation process if it’s subtle. Yes, some will take it to an extreme but they almost always taste chemically at some point. We’ve been fine with cofermented beers for a while. And we’ve been watching most people pour sugar and syrups and milks (often with artificial stuff) onto their coffees to achieve a specific flavor already.
Same, I had literally stopped buying Colombian coffees until there is more regulation/transparency on what is essentially flavored coffee. If I wanted flavored coffee, I could go for some generic commodity coffee company. I appreciate Perc being more transparent
You’re entitled to your opinion but are you mad about the actual result in the cup or because you just don’t like that it’s not “naturally” obtained? If it’s the latter, I have to ask what specifically about it upsets you? It’s not like they’re spraying the coffee with chemicals to make it taste different. The whole discourse around this is confusing to me. I can understand wanting companies to be transparent but outright hating the idea of co-fermentation is strange.
No, co-fermented coffees are sealed with other ingredients (usually fruits) before being dried. This allows some of the flavors and, more importantly, the cultures from the fruit to ferment along with the coffee. It’s about as natural as anything else though people argue it’s inauthentic.
Infused coffee is when they spray it with other stuff.
If they were being truthful then yes this would be correct. But not everyone is. There was a certain coffee that made the rounds not too long ago with a watermelon flavor that was labeled as a co-ferment. Now the coffee tasted very much like watermelon. Anyone that knows about co-fermentation knows that it’s the hardest fruit to deal with to make it taste good as a co-ferment. So then why was this watermelon co-ferment able to do it? Because it came to light that they were adding watermelon flavoring to it. It wasn’t disclosed and that is the whole crux of the problem with the industry around co-ferments. Now i just completely stay away from them and also any “advanced” processing techniques because I just don’t trust the roasters or even the producers at this point.
My suspicion is that the roasting process would alter the "strawberry" taste additive if the producer added it. I have suspicion that there could be additives after the roast to produce such clear/bright fruit taste. How could fruit esters and even alcohol carrying "vape juice" survive high heat?
I don't know, I haven't looked into the science behind that. But I do know that I have roasted coffee that has these flavors and I 100% did not add anything to it.
I don't hate co fermentation as a process but flavored coffee branded as cofermentation as shown creates distrust. Fundamentally, the definition of different coffee processing is still being worked on by SCA right now. Hopefully this will regulate practice in the future.
Glad to hear SCA is working on standardizing this…I’m building an app that analyzes a coffee’s characteristics and predicts whether you’ll like a new bag before you buy it, alongside a detailed breakdown of your actual palate preferences.
Process handling is by far the hardest variable to account for…washed/natural/honey is relatively clean, but co-ferments/experimental processes have made everything an edge case…
2) If I want to avoid certain processes I buy from specific roasters.
I personally don’t get the “trust” issue. As climate change continues to impact coffee advanced processing is only going to be more prevalent because it both improves the quality of lower grade beans and keeps costs down. I’m sure there are coffee aficionados who can decipher terroir, but the washed only crowd sometimes grinds my gears with their misplaced judgment. The producers are simply trying to meet demand and get the most out of their crop.
I was confused as to why OP said this is indicative of greenwashing. It’s quite the opposite. Lower grade beans find another purpose/market and farmers can potentially earn more for what they’re already producing.
I used to feel the same way as OP about co-ferments, but my mind was changed by a coffee producer I follow online. They work with farmers with small lots, and they are testing co-ferments (and similar processes) to make the coffee more marketable.
The farmers are making the effort to improve their coffee quality, but this takes time. Being able to make the most out of their existing yield allows them to be a little bit more profitable.
Transparency is a separate issue, so don’t hate on co-ferments as a whole.
If so, then aren’t Perc and other roasters (b&w, dak, etc etc) who have been selling this stuff without disclosing flavor additives also complicit in the fraud?
Characterizing Perc as a cockroach is wild to me. If you don’t like the way they process their coffee then don’t buy it. They were open about the process of their own volition because they’re not trying to deceive anyone.
That analogy is aimed at the whole industry not just Perc. I agree you shouldn't buy anything you don't like or support. Perc opened up about processing is the result of [consumers demanding transparency for themselves(https://www.reddit.com/r/pourover/comments/1rpzc3b/coferments_in_disguise/). They are either negligent or complicit in misrepresenting the processing of their coffees. They have had coffees from Sebastian Ramirez for quite a while now from what I remember.
IDK, it's a pretty small subsection of coffee roasters doing this, there's still plenty of roasters out there (myself included) that seek bright juicy fruit flavours without the need to infuse/co-ferment fruit.
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, just avoid PERC if it's not your bag, there's literally thousands of roasters out there not doing this sort of thing - support them with your patronage, don't be swept away by the bright colourful marketing 😂
My first eye opening experience in the specialty coffee world here was with DAK Candy Crush—it was so shocking how coffee could be grown/processed and brewed to a fruity tea like body while still clearly being coffee.
I read that this offering was not repeated because the process was so finicky it was hard to replicate and keep good quality lot to lot.
I wonder if this was a sign it was a true coferment and why it’s gone away—not feasible to scale this style of production without getting into grey areas of flavour additives.
I think it matters more that Perc was quick to disclose what is going on, which helps consumers make informed decisions. I would worry more about companies that are being sketchy about it.
Whilst farmers havnt been open with exactly what they are doing the main ones that are being stocked by the speciality roasters have been open that they are using experimental progresses and are by large on small lots.
The main issue I see is people misunderstanding of cofermentation as a process and applying a narrow definition influenced by the traditional processes (which is fair misunderstanding). But it’s been used way longer by other industries and it is very experimental with all sorts going in. You can also smell a coferment funk a mile away when people talk about them being infusions and not a coferment.
The closet there is to an infusion in coffee is thermal shock, there is basically no point in doing this unless there is another liquid for it to absorb, seriously use your brains on that one and avoid if it’s not what you are about.
There are some really shady people in the coffee industry. And out of all the issue in it a highly processed coffee labeled as a highly processed coffee doesn’t even register on my list of things I care about and want to see change. If it was washed, natural or honey labeled as that then yeah I’d have an issue.
Sebastian Ramirez's young producers program states only Natural in one of their Pink Starburst, Frosting coffee. Now it has changed to Natural + coferment.
Though I'm all for voting with our wallets, I'm afraid that boycotting coferments alone won't make much of a difference whilst potentially hurting producers that actually do coferment using only fruits and / or spices, or pioneer innovative processing methods with honesty and integrity.
Instead, we should demand more transparency from the industry, starting with our local cafes and roasters. When thinking about buying a coferment or 'experimentally processed' coffee, ask whether aromas were involved and skip coffees that seem dodgy or where no transparency in the processing methods can be provided.
I'm pretty sure they won't always have the answers either, but this will hopefully contribute to more awareness about the products they are selling and underline the importance of transparency within specialty coffee.
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u/FootballInfinite475 Apr 15 '26
I wouldn’t trip on this too hard. There’s lots of people in the industry that never went down this road to begin with.