Signature Select Kona Coffee Blend 10% Minimum Kona Beans Medium Roast Whole Bean 100% Arabica Coffee
A review and a warning
In Chinua Achebe’s 1966 novel A Man of the People, there is a scene in which one of the characters, a politician, is screaming at his servant. Chief Nanga—that’s the politician—is convinced that his servant has poisoned his coffee.
The poor man is terrified. He doesn’t know how to convince Nanga otherwise, so he grabs the cup and drinks what remains. This silences his employer, which allows him to get in a word edgewise to explain that the market was out of his usual brand and so he had no option but to buy the inferior local alternative. Ironic1, because the fictional country in which the book is set is a coffee exporter.
When I read this, my response was as Achebe no doubt intended: I thought that Chief Nanga was incredibly out of touch with the experiences of normal people. Imagine thinking that the sort of bad coffee that you or I drink from time to time is evidence of poisoning!
Well, a few days ago I bought a bag of Signature Select Kona Coffee Blend 10% Minimum Kona Beans Medium Roast Whole Bean 100% Arabica Coffee instead of my usual brand (it was less than half what I usually pay, is why). And it filled me with an instant sympathy for what that character must have experienced.
Oh, it is terrible. First of all, unless Safeway’s idea of a “dark roast” is completely reduced to carbon, this is not a “medium roast”.
The “10% minimum Kona” is because Kona coffee, grown on the slopes of Hualalai and Mauna Loa in Hawaii, is rare, and thus 100% Kona coffee would be prohibitively expensive. As a result, a bit of Kona is mixed with Brazilian and Colombian coffee. However, I have to hope that the Signature Select brand is lying to me and none of it is Kona, because it would be a moral wrongdoing for those delicious beans to have been wasted to make … whatever it is I had.
You know, I spent several months dealing with my bank because an identity thief attempted to get a credit card in my name and have it sent to an address thousands of miles away. And because my bank is so spectacularly inept, they didn’t think to contact the address of mine that they have on file because I have an account with them already to confirm that everything was on the up-and-up. I had to file a complaint with the CFPB to get them to move their shiftless asses and get the information about the scammer. And yet, after I drank their “Signature Select” coffee, Safeway and Bank of America are tied in my mind in the ranking of the most appalling corporations I have had dealings with.
How clever I thought I was! Like Chief Nanga’s manservant, I was sure that I would be unable to taste any difference!
But even I, a person whose palate is unrefined and on whom fine wine and food would be wasted, could tell. Stay away, and if you do not, do not dare claim that I failed to warn you otherwise.
You know, like rain on your wedding day.