What makes our coffee great: Our flavored coffees

February 06, 2017

We have over 35 unique flavored coffees we sell now, so if you’re looking for something special, we probably have it. We like to create new flavors based on what our customers want, so many of our flavors are sold now because a customer has requested it. But we don’t just want to give you flavors that taste good, we also want it to be good for you.

All of our flavored coffees are completely sugar free, calorie free, and gluten free. Some of our coffees are naturally flavored and some are flavored artificially. Instead of using aspartame or other “icky” chemicals, we use something called Propelyne Glycol. I know, it sounds “icky,” but it is actually an organic compound and is truly better for you than other chemicals used to flavor coffee.

Propelyne Glycol is a liquid extract that is alcohol based and it is the carrying agent in most of our flavored coffees. It is also found in ice creams and most other liquid sweeteners. The alcohol acts as a carrying agent to get the flavoring to stick to the beans and then the alcohol evaporates off after it touches the beans, leaving just the amazing flavor behind. Since it is so potent, we only use a tiny amount of it when flavoring our beans.

According to Wikipedia “Propylene glycol does not cause sensitization and it shows no evidence of being a carcinogen or of being genotoxic. Propylene glycol was classified by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration as ‘generally recognized as safe’ (GRAS) for use as a direct food additive, including frozen foods such as ice cream and frozen desserts.” All of our flavors are 100% USDA approved for food and consumption.

We do all the flavoring in the Roastery. First, the beans are roasted. At the end of the roasting process they are cooled to room temperature. Then we add a very small amount of the flavoring extract to the beans, the alcohol evaporates off, and we have flavored coffee!

Now, you may be asking “Do they just use any old beans to make these flavored coffees?!” And the answer is “No way!” We use our best-selling medium roast coffee; Heaven’s Blend—a single origin coffee from Brazil. Heaven’s Blend has been our best-selling coffee for years. It is a super smooth, medium roast, breakfast blend coffee that everyone seems to enjoy! And since it was everyone’s favorite (and still is) Jackie decided to use this Brazilian coffee as the base for all of our flavors.

In 2011, Jackie traveled to Brazil and met with multiple farmers. She visited the farm where her coffee was currently coming from; Moreninah Formosa, and toured many other farms in the Minas Gerais area of Brazil. Being the agricultural product that coffee is, coffee is drastically affected by the weather. Over the years Jackie purchased her Brazilian beans from different farmers due to the changing flavors that each new crop brings. But we stay true to the Minas Gerais region of farmers that she visited, as well as choosing farms that are small and usually family owned and operated. Heaven’s Blend beans have always come from the Minas Gerais region of Brazil.