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Why
does coffee taste so bad?
Quality
crisis stirs effort to curtail bad beans
By
Katy McLaughlin
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Nov.
19 — 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 in their ground coffee for high-quality beans,
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% 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 which 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 U.S., 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% 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. In fact, for the past several years, coffee
companies have been increasingly 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.
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, it produced almost no beans. Then the government
decided to stimulate production, which rose 1,400%
in a decade. Vietnam now claims about 12% of the world
market, although Vietnam has no minimum export grades,
produces low-quality beans and notoriously 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 U.S. were 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%,
while Vietnam’s production jumped 16%.
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% 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.
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