There are a lot of different flavors inherent to coffee itself that will show up in the roasted and brewed coffee. In this post we are talking about the flavors we add to our coffee after its brewed. the sugars and creams; the French Vanilla, Irish Cream, Hazelnut, etc.
There are a lot of “specialty” coffee stores around that have a plethora of different additives for the coffee to enhance the flavor and taste. There are two reasons to put additives in your coffee.
The first reason is because you like the flavoring. Everyone has different tastes. That’s why we have several different verities of coffee available. Some people like chocolate ice cream and some like strawberry, while others like Moose Tracks. Whatever flavoring you want to add to the coffee is up to you.
The second reason to add flavoring to your coffee is to make the coffee taste better. If you need to add things to the coffee to make it taste better, then the coffee isn’t a good quality coffee to begin with. The coffee is is not the coffee you should be buying to start with. These necessary flavorings include cream and sugar.
We are not talking about the different brewing and preparation methods for the coffee.
Two things I like to tell people when we are talking about coffee is that if you have to add things to your coffee to make it taste better then it’s not a good coffee and if the coffee doesn’t taste good after it has cooled off then it’s not a good coffee.
A good coffee is one that tastes good black and maintains it’s taste when it cools off. If you have to add things to your coffee you need a better coffee. If your coffee doesn’t taste good after cooling down you need a better coffee.
In order for the coffee to taste good black and/or cooled down you must start with a good coffee. If you don’t start with a good coffee you will never be able to make the coffee good with additives. You would never (I hope) think of drinking gasoline. Even if you added flavoring (a LOT) to the gasoline, it’s still going to be gasoline, it’s still going to taste like gasoline. The same for coffee, you will not be able to make bad coffee taste good with flavoring.
The next time you have a cup of coffee try it black – nothing added. How does it taste? If you don’t like the taste black then all you are doing with additives is covering up a bad coffee.