[Musings] Coffee, the beloved nectar of the gods

I have been reading Coffee:_A_Dark_History by Anthony Wild and it has confirmed what I have suspected for a few years now, that the largest roasters (those that control brands like Folgers, Maxwell House, vending machine coffee, etc.) have been using inferior beans for roast, simply for the sake of profit.

Roasters to reduce cost and improve profitablility have moved from usings Coffea arabica, a superior tasting bean, yet more expensive to buy and grow bean, with Coffea canephora (robusta), a bitter, but cheap bean. Until recently it was viewed as worthless to the coffee business due to its inferior qualities. When all the major roasters started being merged/bought out, this changed and now bottom-line trumps taste. Its not like these companies, who have devastated coffee producing nations with their undercutting the price per pound so that producers produce at a loss, pay a lot for coffee as it is, instead, much like textile companies, they make money on the backs of severely underpaid workers and farmers of developing nations.

Further more, the old blends using arabica are still there, but now they are the 'premium blends'. So you get to pay more for 'premium' coffee, that until a few years ago, was the regular stuff. The great thing is that these companies told no one when they switched. But I noticed. My family were Folgers drinkers for all of my life and I remember you could get a decent cup from the regular stuff. Now the regular stuff is bitter, gives a slap-in-the-face jolt of caffine and tastes like dirt was used to cut it.

Don't believe the marketing, robusta beans can never match the quality of arabica, unless the arabica is of the poorest quality and the robusta of the highest.

I WANT MY COFFEE BACK YOU BASTARDS! Or at least start labelling what type of beans are in the blend and to what percentage. Until this happens I will no longer buy your coffee. Thankfully, all is not lost. Illy, the world famous Italian coffeemaker has released its coffee for general public consumption and can be found in bean or ground form at many coffeehouses and specialty stores. It costs, around $10+/pound, but it makes a superior cup of coffee in a automatic drip coffeemaker (and the espresso is simply amazing), and as of this writing, Illy only uses arabica beans.