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Jewish World Review May 4, 2005 / 25 Nisan, 5765 The ‘scoop’ on pricey coffee By John Stossel
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Do you pay big bucks for "better quality" coffee? Maybe you
spring for Dean & DeLuca's beans, which cost $12 per pound. Well, wake up —
have someone give you a blind taste test — because you're probably wasting
your money.
Fancy coffee companies do take great pains to make sure their
coffee beans are "better." "Specialty beans are roasted and ground for this
important test, the cupping," intones a video the Specialty Coffee
Association of America sent me. In the cupping, "experts" "sip small
portions of the brewed coffee and judge its taste, body and aroma."
What they approve is later sold by companies like Dean & DeLuca,
Starbucks and Oren's Daily Roast, which cost plenty. Compare their prices:
$12 and $10 a pound to the $5 a pound for Folgers, America's best seller, or
$4 for Marques de Paiva, sold by Sam's Club at Wal-Mart, and even less for
instant coffees like Nescafe.
Now, if coffee is available for less than $4 a pound, why spend
three times that? Does expensive really taste better?
We ran a taste test. We invited people to sample the six brands
of coffee I mentioned but didn't tell them which was which. We asked them to
grade each coffee "bad," "average" or "great." Then I sat down with some of
the tasters, most of whom had clear preferences. "Coffee's the most
passionate and romantic beverage," said one; another compared coffee to
"fine wine."
Some testers, like Mister "Fine Wine," could indeed identify
their favorite. His was Starbucks, which did well on our test. In fact, even
a woman who told us she hated Starbucks liked it when it wasn't labeled
Starbucks. "I don't know, maybe I'm pickin' the wrong coffee," she said.
Remarkable things happen when you take off the label. Taryn
Cooper discovered that her preference was instant coffee. "That's
interesting, because like I feel like instant coffee is kind of
sacrilegious," she said.
We invited the six coffee companies to send representatives to
watch and/or take our test. Only Folgers and Oren's said yes, and only the
Oren's rep, Genevieve Kappler, actually had the guts to go in front of a
network television camera and announce to the world which coffee she
preferred — when that coffee was identified only by number. Would it be the
brand she's paid to hawk or a competitor's? She waited nervously as I told
her the result:
"You only picked one as the best. You think it was yours? . . .
The one you liked best was — Oren's. You picked yours."
"Yes!"
"The best coffee will . . . certainly not be the cheapest,"
Kappler said. "We don't look at the price."
That statement would have been more convincing were it not for
the fact that overall, her coffee didn't do very well. Half the testers
listed it as "bad."
"None of these coffees were brewed the way we do," she said. "So
the result is not going to be . . . as good as it could be."
Really? Our brewing was supervised by Kevin Sinnott, author of
"Great Coffee: The Coffee Lover's Guide." If he isn't brewing it correctly,
who is?
Still, kudos to Kappler for taking the test. Rich Bertagna, the
Folgers representative, backed out. He said he couldn't because other
testers smelled of perfume. (This must explain why there is never any odor
in coffee shops.)
On our unscientific test, Starbucks came in first. A close
second went to, surprise, the Sam's Club brand, Marques de Paiva. Oren's
came in a distant third, closely followed by Nescafe, the instant coffee.
The most expensive brand, the $12 a pound Dean & DeLuca's, ranked second to
last, and dead last was Folgers, America's best seller.
When I confronted Bertagna about that, he said, "Well, every
morning millions of Americans enjoy waking up with Folgers for the great
taste and value." At least Folgers is relatively cheap. Our test confirmed
what coffee specialists told us: Coffee is a matter of individual taste.
Expensive doesn't necessarily mean better
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© 2005, by JFS Productions, Inc. Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc. |
Arnold Ahlert | ||||||||||||
