Sprouts beans with delicious sounding flavors, but no ingredient list

[pandapandemic]

I would venture to guess that they are out, but I figured it was at least worth double checking...Sprouts, my local-ish mostly health food store has bulk coffee beans in varieties such as Swiss Chocolate Almond, Cinnamon, Vanilla bean, and etc. I haven't bought any yet.

 

I am totally happy drinking my coffee black, so long as it is actually good coffee. This coffee is great! Maybe because there is no ingredient list provided alongside the beans?

 

(Searched before posting - found one topic on K-Cups, but posting this anyway, since this is fresh coffee beans, so perhaps less perservatives/artificial stuff? My apologies if this topic redundant!)

[daveloper80]

"In general, coffee flavoring contains flavor compounds mixed with a solvent like propylene glycol (popularly used in pharmaceuticals, and airplane de-icing compound!) in order to attach the flavor chemicals to the beans. The flavor syrup is poured onto to coffee beans after the roast, and agitated to provide an even coating."

 

 

I am going to guess that flavored coffee is out However, I don't think there is any issue with adding cinnamon into the coffee beans or grounds and then brewing it.  I think even if they add natural flavors it would probably contain alcohol of some sorts

 

http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/02/the-dark-side-of-flavored-coffee-how-flavored-coffee-is-made.html

[Tom Denham]

This is a hard call to make. There are ingredients because coffee does not grow with a Swiss chocolate flavor. If the flavoring is pure cacao, it would be okay. If it is a more conventional chocolate flavor with sugar or butter, it would not be okay. 

[Robin Strathdee]

Perhaps you could check in with the company to find out what they use?

[pandapandemic]

Daveloper, you sure made those delicious coffee beans unappetizing really fast. Might try the cinnamon or cocoa powder, though.

 

Good idea, Robin. I tried asking the employees, but their knowledge only covered where I could find things in the store. And the correct pronounciation of jicama, haha.

 

I guess I will try to find someone to e-mail about the matter, and look for ingredients like Tom suggested.

 

Thanks, friends, for the insight!

[daveloper80]

apologies! I didn't know about the coffee flavorings myself until you asked the question!  The only reason I even thought about it is because I always thought the flavored coffees, chocolate in particular, always smelled like they had alcohol in them to me.

 

But on the other side - In NYC we have a small chain of coffee shops called Oren's that uses high quality beans and on some days they will brew their standard blend with added saigon cinnamon.  It makes for some of the best tasting, naturally flavored coffee I have had. Unfortunately, at I home I am a sellout and use k-cups

[pandapandemic]

Well, I did shoot them an e-mail a few days ago, and got this response just now :

 

"Thank you for your email. Coffee rarely contains nutritional labeling as it is an exempt product from the FDA Nutritional Labeling Regulations, as a “food(s) that contain insignificant amounts of all nutrients required to be listed in nutritional labelâ€. To be more specific though, coffee is generally believed to be very low in (if not absent of) calories, carbs, fats, cholesterol, etc. As an added complication coffee is a naturally occurring product, that can have some variability from crop-to-crop on some trace elements like potassium, and sodium (usually around 2-4mg) which varies mostly by the water source used to make the coffee. As for our flavored coffee (including the Swiss Chocolate Almond and Vanilla), the flavors are sugar-free and thus very little contribution to the nutritional content for labeling purposes. Thank you for your time and for shopping at Sprouts."

 

Unfortunately, the message I sent was through their website, so I no longer have a copy of it, but I do not feel that they have answered my question.   

 I asked how exactly they do flavor the coffee and explained a little about how I am choosing to eat these days - not just whether or not they use sugar as a sweetener. I guess it's time for e-mail #2.