Why Artificially Flavored Coffee Is a Culinary Cop-Out
Get ready to sip on this: the next time you reach for that caramel-flavored bag, ask yourself—what’s the real flavor here? Artificially flavored coffee isn’t a shortcut; it’s a compromise that masks poor quality and perpetuates a broken system. The rise of lab-made flavors in the 1960s was born out of necessity—when coffee bean prices skyrocketed, companies resorted to spraying low-grade beans with synthetic oils to mimic premium notes. But this wasn’t about taste—it was about economics. The result? A legacy of cheap, chemically enhanced coffee that’s now stuck in a cycle of mediocrity. Flavored coffee is almost always low-grade.…