Coffee buyers should note the difference between pure coffee and blends
If great taste starts with great beans, coffee buyers might want to make sure the beans they brew are what they thought they were purchasing.
For instance, some people believe they are buying a premium coffee like Kona coffee straight from Hawaii’s Kona region when in reality the beans that arrive at their home contain only a small percentage of Kona beans.
Because quality beans like Kona coffee are so popular, it seems some companies play with the name, which is why the Hawaiian Senate took up the issue a couple of years ago.
“The Kona coffee name only applies to coffee beans grown in North and South Kona, thus, coffee that is grown elsewhere in Hawaii cannot be called ‘Kona coffee,’” the senate resolution states.
Apparently, some of the farmers in the Kona region wanted the requirement to be 75% of Kona beans in a blend in order to carry the Kona name even though blends with at least 10% use the name in their marketing, according to the resolution.
Also, some coffee buyers might mistakenly think that a label like “Kona blend” coffee means that the coffee beans hail from different Kona farms when they are frequently a small percentage of Kona beans mixed with beans from other places throughout the world that may not have a reputation for quality beans.
The problem of labeling creates confusion for coffee consumers and even led to public judgments about the quality of Kona coffee based on blends that barely contained Kona beans, according to the resolution. This problem isn’t unique to Kona coffee either.
Because of the confusion, consumers who want quality coffee from one region whether it be the Kona region or other popular coffees like Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee should look for coffees that state they are 100 percent pure from that region.
“Be wary of Blue Mountain coffees that do not list the estate name, do not say 100% Jamaica Blue Mountain …,” states www.coffeeresearch.org.