Gourmet coffee has been a strong crowd favorite ever since the concept was introduced. When the concept of concocting flavored coffee set foot in the industry, a lot of people welcomed it with open arms. However, a popular misconception amongst even the most serious coffee lover is that the concoction of flavored coffee is a simple process. This is not simple at all.
There are actually three factors to bear in mind when producing flavored coffee. These are: the selection of coffee, the quality of flavors used, and the procedure used. Let us discuss each factor in depth.
Coffee is the main ingredient, as expected. Thus, it would be one of the factors here. The underlying concept here would be the type of bean that is used to make the flavored coffee. It is actually the type of bean that would influence the taste of flavored coffee. In general, coffee beans are comprised of just about 800 different compounds. These different compounds influence the flavor of your coffee as well. Other factors that influence flavor are sugar, mineral salts, aromatic oils, carbohydrates, organic acids, and methylxanthines. Caffeine actually belongs to the class of methylxanthines.
But when it comes to the preferred type of coffee bean in creating the best in flavored coffee would be the Arabica bean, hands down. But why the Arabica bean in particular? This is because the Arabica bean actually has very low levels of bitterness and acidity. These beans are just about the most flavorful, especially when compared to Robusta beans! Robusta beans are used in the production of commercialized coffees. Coffee roasters do not encourage the use of the Robusta bean because it is just too harsh. Thus, it would be better to just leave the Robusta bean for instant coffee production.
The second ingredient is the flavor. The basic choices here would b
e either natural or artificial flavors. To come up with the best in flavored coffee, natural flavor should then be used. For commercial coffee, artificial flavor is usually the preferred one. Natural oils actually come from various sources, which include cocoa beans, vanilla beans, berries, and various nuts. But when it comes to commercialized coffee, then what would be needed are synthetic flavor agents. Natural flavors come in liquid form, while the non-natural ones come in powder.
Because there are so many different sources for flavoring, you would not really have the same flavor with every bottle or package you get. This is true even for the packages and bottles that have the same name, French Vanilla, for instance. But if there is one thing you should know about flavoring here, it's that when you use natural ingredients for flavoring coffee, the flavor would then be more intense. You will definitely see the difference when you sample both natural and synthetic flavors.
Now, the production process is the last factor to consider. The main thing to do is to determine the appropriate amount of flavoring to use before these flavored oils would be mixed with the roasted beans. To determine the amount, you would have to consider the type of flavor, the intensity of the flavor, and the type of bean to be used, as well as its roast level. A pressurized spray mechanism is used in the introduction of the flavors. This system actually breaks the oils introduced, thereby creating tiny droplets. It's better to use tiny droplets because they are easier to mix. The oils should be added to the beans in a very gradual manner. The logic behind this is to avoid getting hot spots. These hot spots are actually areas that have flavors of high concentration. These should be avoided to make sure that the flavor is evenly distributed to the beans.
Keeping these tips in mind would make the process of flavoring coffee way easier. This is indeed the first step in successful coffee flavoring.
