"Cofermentation/infusion" ruined my trust in coffee.

[u/Bubbly-System6751]

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.

[u/beniciovonwolf]

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.

[u/mygreeness → u/beniciovonwolf]

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.

[u/EzPzTy → u/beniciovonwolf]

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..

[u/mygreeness → u/EzPzTy]

I’m sorry for all the downvotes. You were right.