As coffee drinkers ourselves, we know how to appreciate a good brew. We know the difference between a good coffee and a mediocre one. We know where the best coffees are when it comes to high street chains in the UK.
Still our expectations are admittedly, kind of lenient, compared to Americans.
This is just in: Coffee drinkers in the states have just rated their own blend of coffee as, rubbish, to put it midly.
After tasting more than 37 caffeinated and decaffeinated varieties of coffee, none of them measured up to the Consumer Reports ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very Good’ rating by the independent nonprofit coffee experts, the publication said Tuesday. The lackluster report follows a year of tight supplies of high-quality Arabica coffee beans in Columbia.
That makes perfect sense to us: low supply leads to dilution of quality. We hope this wont last and affect coffee supplies to the UK.
You missed a couple of major points of this survey. Not that I can blame you, not being from the States:
1) It focused on only mass-produced, oxidizing-for-too-long-after-roasting coffee available on the shelves at major retail chains
2) The survey was performed by Consumer Reports — sort of the US’s version of Which? Magazine. Consumer Reports excels at objective criteria in reviews of things like mobile phones and toaster ovens, but they have zero credentials as taste-makers for subjective criteria such as taste, flavor, or aroma.
Unfortunately, because of Consumer Reports’ credibility in appliance reviews, this study got a lot of cheap press. What would have been useful and relevant – instead of this – is a survey of many specialty roaster blends as performed by CoffeeReview.com or some other credible agency for coffee tasting.
When it comes to coffee I must admit that I’m not that keen on American blends.
Maybe it’s just me…. some of my friends say I’m fussy when it comes to food and drink!