If Simple Taste Isn’t Enough: Dive Into the World of Flavored Coffee
Is the black liquid your favorite way to start each new day? Or, maybe you got bored of the usual taste, no matter how arabica or robusta it feels? No need to look for coffee alternatives just yet. Come with us, and let’s dive together into the vast, new world of richly flavored coffee cups.
Contents
Coffee Flavors: The Foundations
Let’s start with the essentials, anyway. What exactly creates the most popular black coffee flavors?
Basic Flavor Components
Four components generate those subtle, different natural tastes in your mouth and they are acidity, sweetness, bitterness, and saltiness. Each of these qualities depends on the coffee bean type, its freshness, the time of roasting, and the caffeine level generated in the process.
The brewing process also plays an important role in the creation of your delicious flavors coffee and the quality. If the amount of water is lower than needed or the coffee maker is malfunctioning, your favorite drink might become saltier. But, since salt neutralizes bitterness, don’t worry, the final effect might even be a more desirable version of your morning cup.
The Main Four Coffee Flavours
Arabica, Robusta, Liberica and Excelsa. These are the four most well-known types of coffee beans, and their specific flavors are close to heart (and taste buds!) to all connoisseurs. Average coffee consumers have already been consuming Arabica and Robusta, especially since the first one makes up for 60% and the second for 30% of all coffee production worldwide. So, if you have already saturated your palates with these tastes, no matter how good they are, let’s try something new, let’s go further and dive into the vast sea of the next coffee enjoyment level, flavored coffees.
Broaden Your Horizons
What are the common flavors of coffee? Chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans … Mmmm … Wait, wait, there are some more: cocoa, star anise, cloves, nutmegs. The list is getting longer every day. Can you believe that even peppery and candied maple bacon flavors can be poured into your favorite coffee mug? And how is it all done?
How Is the Flavored Coffee Made?
The three main methods of producing ranges of flavors coffee products and those are by addition of:
Real Food Flavorings
The fresh coffee beans are infused with real spices, herbs and huts for at least 24 hours before the brewing and you can do it yourself, too, in your own home. Take some vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, hazelnuts, or nutmeg seeds, put them in a jar together with the coffee beans and you will get a coffee flavor without strong-scented aroma, but only subtle notes in the taste. The look will have traces or a funny color depending on the coffee flavoring agent, but it’s all fine.
Extracts of Real Food Flavorings
These flavors coffee extracts are naturally made oils from real herbs, spices, and nuts. So, all the mentioned above, plus cocoa seeds, pecans, star anise, cloves, whole peppers, and many, many more. Produced by professional flavor chemists with water or vegetable-based solvents, they immediately hit your nose with their strong, clean aroma. The taste is subtle to moderate, but to feel it fully you will have to add some milk and sugar because when it comes to this type of flavoring, it will bring out the taste. The coffee beans prepared in this way will be shiny and shouldn’t be cracked.
Chemical Flavorings
These are synthetic oil replicas made in chemistry labs that reproduce the aroma and taste of the originals although mixed with an overwhelming sugary-sweet extra of the binding component, propylene glycol. Leaving a thick shiny residue on the coffee beans, bags, and pots, they are also best consumed with milk or cream, and sugar, which brings out the wanted aroma.
Are There Any Extra Calories in Flavored Coffees?
Coffees enriched with chemical and real food extract flavors don’t bring additional calories by themselves, but all that necessary extra cream, and sugar pinch, do. If you are on a diet, that is something to take into consideration, although one coffee flavored punch to brighten up your day shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
On the other hand, if you decide to add a different flavor but with a coffee syrup, it’s a slightly different story. The syrups contain a larger amount of sugar and you have to have this in mind.
For all the others who care more about enjoyment intake than calorie intake (in relatively moderate doses if that can be achieved when we talk about the black magic liquid), relax, take a deep breath, and with big smiles on your faces sprinkle up all the ground spices, herbs or nuts to your cappuccinos, mochas or lattes, and enjoy!
When You Purchase: How to Recognize the Quality?
Buy Your Tasty Coffee Sips From a Local Café or a Chosen Roasting Company
Why so? First, you can directly taste your coffee there and decide if you like the chosen taste. Second, they use up large amounts of coffee, so you will get freshly roasted beans. And finally, this is a great way to support your local businesses and get to know the people around you.
If Your Coffee Supply Has to Come From a Store
Check the roast date (if given), or just buy the freshest coffee according to the production and expiry date. Look for the color of your bean (light, dark, or medium), because the roast level strongly defines the taste. If you already have a coffee grinder, buy whole-bean coffee and grind it at home because ground coffee loses its flavor much faster.
If Your Delicious Morning Striker Must Be Purchased Online
First check if your local favorite roaster has an online store and if yes, you have found your supplier. If not, search some more, find top coffee brands that have proved their quality, and choose some of their splendid flavors. Of course, your friends, colleagues, and neighbors can always be great consultants, especially if you have tried some fascinating new tastes the last time you visited them.
Read reviews, and coffee blogs, dig in all the information you can find and if in doubt, choose the pricier coffee, it is usually better.
Get Ready for the New Day
Your taste buds are already excited and preparing for the next great enjoyment. Is it Cinnamon, Chocolate, or Amaretto? Or, maybe French Vanilla or Pumpkin Spice? If you have found your new delicious coffee flavored drink, please share it with us and we will join you. Let’s enjoy together the vast riches of our newly-discovered coffee land full of flavors.
