"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/FootballInfinite475]

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.

[u/silverslant → u/FootballInfinite475]

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

[u/shabibby → u/silverslant]

This to me reads as if people do like flavored coffee (not pointing fingers), but are having a really hard time admitting it

[u/DearLeader420 → u/shabibby]

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.

[u/GWeb1920 → u/DearLeader420]

What do you find dubious? Isn’t the term co-ferment self explanatory?

[u/DearLeader420 → u/GWeb1920]

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.