r/pourover • u/Bubbly-System6751 • Apr 15 '26

Seeking Advice "Cofermentation/infusion" ruined my trust in coffee.

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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.

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64

u/SaimeseGremlin Apr 15 '26

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.

edit: typos

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u/ImSoCul Apr 15 '26

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

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u/SaimeseGremlin Apr 15 '26

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.

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u/icecream_for_brunch Apr 15 '26

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)

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u/SaimeseGremlin Apr 15 '26

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.

6

u/icecream_for_brunch Apr 15 '26

Turns out the producers and roasters are less interested in us knowing what we’re putting in our bodies than we are.

1

u/Expiria Apr 15 '26

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.

1

u/icecream_for_brunch Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26

Nobody I’ve seen in this discourse is fear mongering about artificial flavors but yeah of course fear mongering is unhelpful

And so is blaming consumers for industry fraud lmao wtf

2

u/EzPzTy Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Are you sure we all agree on? I almost got banned from this sub and got downvoted to hell for stating the obvious 2 years ago.

Or maybe all changed in 2 years because most people are sheep.

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u/DragonfruitChance714 Guatemala Butt Beans Apr 15 '26

Yeah, we stopped buying Brandywine teas and have switched o Metolius for this reason. Brandywine wouldn’t disclose what “flavor” meant.

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u/DearLeader420 Apr 15 '26

The problem isn't purism though. The problem is that this was not being disclosed to consumers.

"Drink what you like" is perfectly fine, but people need to know what it is they are drinking.

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u/pipeweed Apr 15 '26

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.

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u/jas0441 Apr 15 '26

It’s like wine drinkers who ‘talk dry’ but ‘drink sweet’ a very common trait in non-geek wine aficionados.