1.
You Pay Way Too Much For Low Quality Coffee Beans.
To maintain massive profit margins, corporate chains mass-import cheap, defect-heavy coffee beans. Because these low-grade beans taste sour and inconsistent, the chains blast them to a burnt crisp in industrial roasters to uniform the flavor. They mask this charcoal-like "punch to the gut" as a rich, dark roast and charge a premium for it, forcing you to pay top tier prices for inherently ruined raw materials.