Mr.Peaberry
Member
I was speaking with a Vietnamese coworker about the discussions here lately regarding Vietnamese coffee. The discussion took a few turns, and one of the turns involved his claim that he can smell anchovies in some of Starbucks blends. I shared with him that coffee has a lot of chemistry, and that cupping coffee is the process that the industry uses to identify quality and flavors profiles in a given lot of coffee. Since experienced cuppers can identify very specific aromas in coffee, I suggested that he might have a heightened sensitivity to fish aromas due to fish being prominent in his diet. He didn't think so...he thinks that Starbucks is adding something to some blends that masks the fact that they might be using a lesser quality of coffee bean.
Exploring his 'conspiracy theory' a bit further, I asked how such a large company would pull this off without someone blowing the proverbial whistle on them. He said there could be parts of the blend being roasted in different facilities, with no information sharing. I said, but still, someone would have to know that something that wasn't coffee was being added to the process. I actually could not get him to accept that the anchovy smell he was detecting was not likely to be the result of intentionally adding fish oil or the like to the coffee during the roasting or blending process.
I said that I would post this here to find out if anyone else has ever experienced this type of aroma in Starbucks coffee, or heard of intentional flavor modifications by SB.
Peaberry
Exploring his 'conspiracy theory' a bit further, I asked how such a large company would pull this off without someone blowing the proverbial whistle on them. He said there could be parts of the blend being roasted in different facilities, with no information sharing. I said, but still, someone would have to know that something that wasn't coffee was being added to the process. I actually could not get him to accept that the anchovy smell he was detecting was not likely to be the result of intentionally adding fish oil or the like to the coffee during the roasting or blending process.
I said that I would post this here to find out if anyone else has ever experienced this type of aroma in Starbucks coffee, or heard of intentional flavor modifications by SB.
Peaberry
