AMARILLO, TEXAS -- That cup of joe you brew every morning at your house may not be the exact premium blend you thought you were drinking.
A new report out says some of the major manufacturers are blending their premium coffee beans with inferior grade beans and not telling the consumer or reducing prices.
At Roasters Coffee on Georgia, the sights and smells are a welcome sight to its patrons and to owner Craig Gaultiere. These beans he offers in his coffee are triple A rated arabica coffee beans...the best you can buy.
And when he found out about the possible blending of inferior beans in nationally produced coffee cans, he says he wasn't surprised.
"Historically, the Maxwell houses and Folger's and so forth have used a Robusta bean and really what happens is you're using the lowest quality grade coffee...and why these big industrial roasters do this because, it obviously very cheap."
In fact, he says years ago, some manufacturers were selling beans marketed as 100 percent Kona coffee from Hawaii, which was actually a blend, which falls under the deceptive trade practices law.
"And people went to jail over it," he said. "Even to this day, if you're a coffee shop and you say you're posting 100 percent Kona coffee, you'd better be able to prove you're selling 100% Kona. in the coffee industry, the Department of Agriculture is very serious about that."
So it's a matter of buyer beware. You may be paying a premium price for something you're assuming is a premium product, but may actually be a blend with an inferior product.
When it comes to recent price increases for coffee, check this out. Compared side by side with gasoline, coffee has increased more in the last year. Gas is up 37 percent while coffee hit the 40 percent mark in the last few months.
