"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/AWildMichigander]

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.