What is Flavored Coffee?

Flavored coffee is when you add something to the coffee bean to give it a different taste outside of the bean's natural characteristics. Flavored coffee starts with a regular coffee bean that has been roasted. After roasting is when the flavoring process begins. 

3 Methods to Flavor Coffee

There are 3 different methods to flavor coffee. A coffee company can flavor coffee with a direct, natural, and synthetic method. I will go in depth on all three methods and explain how each flavoring process is used to make flavored coffee.

1. Direct Flavored Coffee

Direct Flavoring is what we do here at Whiskey Morning Coffee. Direct Flavoring is the purest method to flavor your coffee. Whiskey Morning Coffee takes real ingredients like cinnamon, jalapenos, brown sugar, orange peel, etc. and add the raw ingredients directly to the coffee grounds. 

If you look in the bag you will notice actual pieces of the ingredients mixed within the coffee. To make shelf stable some companies put the ingredients into a dehydrator to take out the water content. 

Direct flavored coffee will have the natural aroma of the flavor but will not be as intense as the natural or synthetic flavored coffee's aroma. Using real ingredients will give the coffee a clean taste with a natural flavor blending with the coffee. 

2. Natural Flavored Coffee 

Natural Flavored coffee is when labs take real ingredients and make a concentrate. The concentrate is usually derived from a distillation process and contains small amounts of alcohol. natural Flavored Coffee is an oil that is mixed over the roasted coffee.

The oil will give the coffee a strong aroma but leave an oily taste when drinking. If you have an automatic espresso machine or high-end burr grinder, it is not recommended to use natural flavored coffee. The oil from the flavored coffee can clog and damage your equipment. 

3. Synthetic Flavored Coffee

Synthetic Flavored Coffee is one of the most affordable options to flavoring coffees, but also the least natural method. Synthetic flavoring is widely used to flavor coffee due to its low cost and scalability. 

Synthetic flavors are created in labs to replicate real flavors. For instance, if you want to make a peanut butter and jelly coffee it would be hard to make that from direct or natural flavorings. A coffee company will go to a flavor lab and have them create synthetic flavors to add on the coffee beans. 

The coffee will have an oil on the beans similar to the natural flavoring method. Out of the three flavoring methods, synthetic flavored coffee will have the strongest aroma. The synthetic flavored coffee will have a lingering chemical aftertaste. 

Conclusion 

Now you know the three different methods used to flavor your coffee beans. I am biased and only stick with the direct flavored coffee. If you would like to see my favorite flavored coffee's read: Best Flavored Coffee

Shop Direct Flavored Coffee: www.whiskeymorningcoffee.com