CONSUMER NEWS: Good reason behind that bad cup of coffee
BY KATY MCLAUGHLIN
Wall Street Journal
Coffee prices are at their lowest level in decades. So why does so much of the coffee you buy taste so bad?
Falling global prices should be a godsend for consumers: better beans at cheaper prices. But, in fact, much of the coffee you buy is worse than ever.
This year, coffee makers are increasingly substituting low-quality beans for high-quality beans in their ground coffee, according to the International Coffee Organization, a global trade group and sort of an OPEC for coffee.
In addition, the purity of the average cup of coffee — the ratio of debris like twigs and rotten beans to actual fresh beans — has shifted markedly in the unappetizing direction over the past two years.
In fact, quality has gotten so poor that in recent weeks, the ICO issued new rules requiring coffee-exporting countries to improve their product — or stop selling it. That is good news for consumers, because the new standards are significantly higher than the U.S. government's own rules: Currently, Food and Drug Administration rules essentially permit unripe or moldy beans, gravel and other junk to constitute as much as 30 percent of a cup of "pure" coffee, industry experts say.
The falling prices on the global coffee market are having a direct impact on the coffee you drink. Kraft Foods, which makes Maxwell House, says its second-largest supplier of coffee is now Vietnam, which grows some of the cheapest — and lowest-quality — beans in the world. (Kraft's largest supplier is Brazil, and second-largest used to be Colombia.)
Kraft and other major coffee companies, including Sara Lee, say they have in-house purity standards for the coffee they buy that are more stringent than the FDA's, but they declined to provide specifics. In addition, Kraft and other big users of Vietnamese beans, including Sara Lee and Procter & Gamble, which make brands including Hills Bros. and Folger's, respectively, declined to disclose which of their brands include lower-quality beans in their blends.
Analysts say many of the best-selling supermarket brands have replaced the high-quality arabica beans they used to buy from regions like Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica with low-quality beans from other countries.
The quality problem affects the vast majority of coffee sold in the United States, because almost all coffee sold here is either preground or instant, the two types most likely to contain debris or bad beans.
"Specialty" coffee — the kind sold in whole beans or, say, skinny frappuccinos in cafes — has only about 15 percent of the market, despite the increasing popularity of coffee bars. That is partly because many of the drinks sold in specialty shops contain very little actual coffee: They are mostly milk, sugar and flavorings.
Meantime, the big supermarket brands, neighborhood delis, coffee-vending machines — and, of course, the companies that stock American companies' office percolators — compete with each other not so much on taste as on price.
For the past several years, coffee companies increasingly have been mixing in cheaper beans due to price competition. The current flood of bad coffee on the global market has taken an already-poor product down another notch.
INFERIOR PRODUCT
Despite the proliferation of coffee choices today, there are only two basic bean types: Arabica is generally the best, while robusta is cheaper and less tasty.
Vietnam is fast becoming the robusta king. In the past five years, that country has come out of almost nowhere to emerge as the world's third-largest coffee producer, behind only Brazil and Colombia.
Ten years ago, Vietnam produced almost no beans. Then, the government decided to stimulate production, which rose 1,400 percent in a decade. Vietnam now claims about 12 percent of the world market, although Vietnam has no minimum export grades, produces low-quality beans and exports some of the world's most impure coffee.
In coffee, "there are two kinds of off tastes," says Kenneth David, a coffee taster and industry consultant. One is a "compost" taste, and the other is "old shoes in the back of the closet," he says. "Vietnamese robusta combines both."
That hasn't stopped some of the biggest brands from using tons of it, chiefly because it is so cheap. Last year, for the first time, more than half of all robusta imported into the United States was from Vietnam.
In fact, it is so bargain-basement that it is forcing higher-quality producers like Colombia and Guatemala right out of the market. Last season in Central America — traditionally known as the world's "bean belt" — output in some countries was down as much as 25 percent, while Vietnam's production jumped 16 percent.
CRISIS CONTROL
Consumers have noticed falling quality. John Gill, a technical writer in Chula Vista, Calif., who used to buy coffee at the supermarket, now grinds beans at home and says the quality difference is "huge."
Don't go looking to Juan Valdez for help. Colombia's coffee industry is so deeply troubled that its advertising budget for the pancho-clad icon of high-quality coffee has been slashed by 95 percent this year.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution to "adopt a global strategy to respond to the coffee crisis." Among their concerns: a need for quality standards and the fact that low prices are creating a humanitarian crisis among the world's subsistence coffee farmers.
But despite the glut of beans on the world market right now, high-end retailers say the best beans are becoming increasingly scarce.
"Finding good-quality coffees right now is the most difficult time in my career," says Michael Roderiques, a specialty roaster in Danville, Ky., who sells mostly to restaurants and institutions.
The reason good coffee is getting more expensive at the same time that bad coffee is getting so cheap is because farmers' incomes have plummeted. As a result, in the past year or so, they have been forced to make severe cutbacks on the careful cultivation that top-grade beans require. (For instance, hiring extra farmhands to pick the beans at just the right moment.)
Some specialty buyers are already paying more for top-grade beans, while others, such as Peet's Coffee on the West Coast, report "a struggle" in sourcing good beans. That could quickly trickle down to consumers. Ted Lingle of the Specialty Coffee Association says he expects to see a jump in prices for specialty-grade whole-bean coffee early next year.
Coffee watchwords
• The beans: Don't be baffled by all the choices — Sumatra, Kona, Jamaican Blue Mountain — there are only two main bean types:
Arabica: Generally, a better-tasting bean. A lot of it comes from Latin America, and it's what most specialty coffee is made of. (FYI: It also has nearly 40 percent less caffeine than robusta.)
Robusta: Cheaper to grow; hardier; less tasty. Vietnam is flooding the market. It's used in lots of blends, but on its own (or when there's too much of it in the blend), it tastes bland or worse.
• The roast: Coffee tastes a lot better if it was roasted in the past two days. This can be tough to achieve — not even all of the fanciest coffee emporiums post "roasted on" dates. But ask.
• The color: Very dark roasts can kill the flavor of beans. Thanks to the coffee-bar fad, dark roasts are trendy. But much of what passes as "dark" roasted is, in fact, burned, killing the subtle flavor of an otherwise delicious bean. "Look for beans roasted to a rich color between caramel and chocolate," says Mark Prince of coffeegeek.com.
• The grind: Want decent coffee? Grind it yourself. Sure it's a hassle, but consider: Coffee can legally have up to 30 percent dead beans and other debris, such as gravel, industry experts say. If you buy it preground, who knows what's in there? But if you buy whole beans you can see what you get. Plus, fresh ground coffee is more aromatic.
• The brand: Most packaged, preground brands won't tell you the coffee's origins unless they feel there's something to be proud of: Yuban boasts "100 percent Colombian." For one coffee connoisseur's taste tests of hundreds of brands, see coffeereview.com.
• The fine print: Watch for makes that specify "fair trade," "shade grown" or "single origin." These aren't strictly a guarantee of better coffee, but they provide useful information — if you know the code: Fair trade means growers received a higher price for presumably more attentive production. Shade grown means what it sounds like: Beans are grown in the shade, which leads to tastier beans. Single origin: When it's from a more reputable country, like Kenya, that phrase tells you you're not drinking a blend with questionable beans added in.
I thought something was up with the quality, this confirms it.
bad cup of coffee
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