Scientists Discovered a Way to Make Coffee Taste Better

Stop adding salt: According to a new study, adding a bit of water to coffee beans before milling them may be the key to a better-tasting cup of caffeinated pleasure.

The idea is to reduce the static electricity produced by grinding all the coffee beans, which would otherwise cause them to stick together and jam up the grinder, resulting in a lot of mess and waste. 

Coffee connoisseurs have long spritzed their beans to hydrate them before grinding. Scientists have established what causes sparks to fly in crushed coffee beans and demonstrated how aspiring baristas can eliminate static electricity to reliably produce a tastier cup of espresso if that’s what you like.

“Moisture, whether it’s residual moisture inside the roasted coffee or external moisture added during grinding, dictates the amount of charge formed during grinding,” explains Christopher Hendon, a materials chemist at the University of Oregon.

Hendon, who previously demonstrated how freezing coffee beans fosters flavor, worked with former University of Oregon volcanologist Joshua Méndez Harper (now at Portland State University) to study what kinds of coffee cluster together and why and how this affects brewing.

Harper, Hendon, and their colleagues tested a variety of commercially purchased and lab-roasted coffee beans that differed in origin, roasting time, and moisture content. After grinding, they assessed static electricity in each sample, the grain size of freshly ground coffee, and the finalized brew flavor.

Grinding all the coffee beans causes much friction as small pieces rub against each other and fracture. This produces static electricity, a detachment of charged particles, in the same way that dust particles in volcanic plumes scrape together and discharge, resulting in lightning.

Electrostatic Brewing

By twice-grinding coffee beans, the researchers discovered that most static electricity in ground coffee is caused by fracturing beans rather than friction between them.

Regarding the kinds of beans that tend to stick together after being ground, the team’s experiments revealed that drier, darker roasts generated higher levels of electrostatic charges than lighter roasts. These charges had a comparable charge-to-mass ratio as particles found in volcanic plumes and thunderclouds. The researchers propose that the brittleness of darker roasts, rather than the moisture retention seen in lightly roasted beans, may be responsible for this phenomenon.

Strategic Water Addition

Harper and colleagues discovered that including a small amount of extra water while grinding beans led to a longer extraction time for espresso and a consistently potent brew. This occurred because the moisture from the water seeped into the coffee grounds, extracting more flavor from the less compacted beans.

Hendon, in an interview with New Scientist, suggests incorporating approximately 20 microliters of water for every gram of coffee, totaling around 0.5 milliliters for an average espresso shot. This addition aims to enhance the coffee’s texture and taste.

Although additional experiments are necessary to evaluate various grinder and brewing techniques, the researchers assert that “a small amount of water sprays have effectively resolved issues like clumping, channeling, and subpar extraction while helping to achieve the most flavorful espresso.”

They additionally anticipate that their teamwork, driven by coffee, will offer fresh discoveries in the realm of earth science. Harper, the study’s leader and a volcanologist, mentions, “We have much to learn about the mechanics of coffee breaks, how it moves as particles, and its interaction with water.” These inquiries could provide insights into related concerns in geophysics, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, or water movement through soil.

Read the original article on: Science Alert

Also read: Used Coffee Grounds Enhance the Strength of Concrete by 30%