Coffee Lit. Rev.

Chris and Doran are joined by Emilee Bryant to discuss a pair of papers that probe whether latte art a) is perceived as more valuable and b) affects the perceived flavor of the drink.

Ordering a cappuccino is delightful. But is it more delightful with a rosetta? Would you be somehow compelled to pay more for it if it had one? Does it taste sweeter?

The papers are:

J. Sens. Stud., 2015, 30, 305

https://doi.org/10.1111/joss.12159

Br. Food J., 2021, 123⁠, 1931

https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-07-2020-0612

About Emilee: Originally from Houston, Emilee moved to live in a hippie tree house before finding her way to Brooklyn where she lives now. She is a latte art champion, YouTube content creator, and film maker. Check her out on instagram (emstagrim), and YouTube (EmileeBryant).

Introduction preamble: Lorelai Gilmore and Luke Danes

In this episode Chris and Doran discuss the age-old question of whether dark or light roast brewed coffees have more caffeine. The discussion was inspired by a paper published recently in Scientific Reports titled, "Caffeine content in filter coffee brews as a function of degree of roast and extraction yield".

So, do light and dark roast coffee extracts have different caffeine concentrations?

The paper is open access and available from the publisher:

Sci. Rep., 2024, 14, 29126

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-80385-3

Introduction preamble: Captain Janeway.

Chris and Doran are joined by Dr. Alex Dainis, a professional science communicator. We first met Alex through her work on "Chemistry Shorts", videos about sub-disciplines of chemistry supported by the Dreyfus foundation.

Today's paper is about microplastics. These are microscopic pieces of polymer that show up everywhere. In the case in single-serve coffee preparations. Alex is the perfect guest to discuss this because its a topic that is becoming increasingly studied, but to date we simply don't know all that much about whether they are bad for you. We get into that and much, much more. I hope you enjoy!

The paper:

Pouring hot water through drip bags releases thousands of microplastics into coffee

Food Chem., 2023, 415, 135717

⁠https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.135717

The article can be found in coffee literature library: ⁠⁠⁠https://pages.uoregon.edu/chendon/coffee_literature/coffee_lit_rev/⁠⁠⁠

About Dr. Dainis: Blimp lover. She has a PhD in genetics from Stanford but is also trained in film and television. After she finished her PhD she founded Helicase media while also being a professional science communicator.

Introduction preamble: Pulp Fiction.

Chris and Doran are joined by Prof. Nicola Segata from University of Trento. Prof. Segata is a world famous professor of computational metagenomics, and is the senior author on a recently published study that strongly suggests that consuming coffee directly affects the population of some gut bacteria.

Metagenomics is far removed from our expertise. Instead of us fumbling around the paper, we decided to have the true world expert come talk to us about it.

Production note: The paper came out over the holiday period so we recorded remotely. The sound quality is not what we usually strive for, but the content quality is exceptionally high. We hope you enjoy.

The paper:

Nat. Microbio., 2024, 9, 3120

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01858-9

The article can be found in coffee literature library: ⁠⁠https://pages.uoregon.edu/chendon/coffee_literature/coffee_lit_rev/⁠⁠

About Nicola Segata: Prof. Segata is from Trento, matriculated through Trento, spent a brief period as a postdoc at Harvard, and returned to Trento where he holds a position as Professor of Computational Metagenomics. He is one of the most highly cited scientists in all fields and has a staggering career of papers that merge computational biology with amazing experimental datasets. You can find his other works here.

Introduction preamble: Friends.

Chris and Doran are joined by Tonx (Tony Konecny) from YES PLZ from Los Angeles, CA. We discuss a paper from the Yeretzian lab out of ZHAW. The paper aims to address a common question for the home coffee consumer, "How should you store your coffee one the bag is open?".

We immediately thought of Tonx and YES PLZ, who have experimented with various packages for their subscription service. We hope you enjoy the episode.

The paper:

Food Packag. Shelf Life, 2022, 33, 100893.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fpsl.2022.100893

The article can be found in coffee literature library: ⁠https://pages.uoregon.edu/chendon/coffee_literature/coffee_lit_rev/⁠.

About Tonx: Legend of subscription coffee, Tonx started Tonx coffee and later a coffee/restaurant venture called LocoL. Pre-pandemic he rolled out his current subscription service, YES PLZ. Good timing — home coffee consumption exploded during the 2020-2021 years.

Introduction preamble: Steve Leighton

Chris and Doran are joined by David Yardley from Moongoat Coffee out of Costa Mesa, CA to discuss a series of papers discussing the emergence of mold in coffee.

Mold is bad. Ochratoxin A is bad. But how much of it is there, and how bad does it have to get?

The three papers:

Food Sci. Biotechnol., 2018, 27, 891.

J. Agric. Food Chem., 1998, 46, 673.

Food Chem. Toxicol., 1995, 5, 341.

The article can be found in coffee literature library: https://pages.uoregon.edu/chendon/coffee_literature/coffee_lit_rev/.

About David: Coming up from the entry level job at Starbucks, David is now the leader of Moongoat coffee, a roastery and series of cafes in the southern Californian region.

Introduction preamble: Don Pettit

Chris and Doran are joined by Alex Kaplan from Cometeer to discuss an old school paper titled, "An investigation into the relationship between freezing rate and mean ice crystal size for coffee extracts", appearing in Trans. IChemE, 2002, 80, 176. The paper is part of a conference proceeding which was published in the journal Food Bioprod. Process.

This paper looks at how freezing rate determines the ice crystal size. The paper itself is really about developing a model that correctly captures how brewed coffee freezes, but we used it as a platform to understand how coffee behaves when cooled.

The article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1205/096030802760309197

About Alex: We couldn't have had a better guest, as Alex is the Head of Coffee Product for Cometeer, a company that manufactures frozen coffee extracts. Alex also has a degree in physics from Princeton, is a Q-grader, and was a pleasure getting nerdy with.

Introduction preamble: George Clooney

Chris and Doran are joined by Lance Hedrick to discuss, "A new Coffee Brewing Control Chart relating sensory properties and consumer liking to brew strength, extraction yield, and brew ratio", appearing in J. Food Sci., 2023, 88, 2168.

Today's paper is an attempt to revise and improve upon the seminal work of Lockhart: the empirical observation that coffee strength (%TDS) is related to the beverage refractive index. But do we need a new control chart?

The article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.16531

About Lance: Lance is one of Youtube's most loved coffee professionals. He is also a competitor and coach in competitive coffee, handling the launch of Onyx EU, and an up-and-coming chess player.

Introduction preamble: Heisenberg

Chris and Doran are joined by Kathie Hilberg and Bronwen Serna from the Totally Dissolved Podcast to discuss the papers that led to the development of the 2016 SCA flavor wheel.

The wheel is basically the artistic manifestation of two peer-reviewed papers, "Development of a “living” lexicon for descriptive sensory analysis of brewed coffee", appearing in J. Sens. Stud., 2016, 31, 465

and

"Using Single Free Sorting and Multivariate Exploratory Methods to Design a New Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel", appearing in J. Food Sci., 2016, 81, S2997.

The lexicon developed in the first paper may be accessed through World Coffee Research.

The articles can be found here:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/joss.12237

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.13555

World Coffee Research lexicon can be found here:

https://worldcoffeeresearch.org/resources/sensory-lexicon

About Kathie and Bronwen: Kathie works as a lead educator for Stumptown in Los Angeles, and Bronwen is a consultant, and also presently a barista at Blue Bottle. The two lead a Sprudgie-nominated podcast, Totally Dissolved.

Introduction preamble: Dan Campbell

Chris and Doran are joined by Morgan Eckroth to discuss, "The Effects of Instagram Marketing Activities on Customer-Based Brand Equity in the Coffee Industry", appearing in Sustainability, 2022, 14, 1657.

The paper makes the case that instagram marketing activities are good for achieving brand equity. Morgan is one of the very best at harnessing the various facets of developing a favorable brand. We hope you enjoy it!

The article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031657

About Morgan: Morgan (MorganDrinksCoffee on TikTok, Instagram, Youtube) is an Oregon-based social media creator, a second place finalist in the World Barista Championship, and digital content specialist at Onyx Coffee.

Introduction preamble: Lance Hedrick

Chris and Doran are joined by Maxwell Dashwood to discuss, "The safety and effectiveness of self-administered coffee enema", appearing in Medicine, 2020, 99, 36.

Besides discussing the paper, we also talk about Water for Coffee, weigh lifting, and try some of the recommended enema coffee.

The article can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000021998

About Maxwell: Maxwell is an established author of many books, owner of Colonna and Smalls in Bath and London, three-time World Barista Championship finalist, inventor, scientist, and my oldest coffee friend.

Introduction preamble: Samwell

Guest voiceover: K. Tobias Butler

Chris and Doran are joined by Christopher Feran to discuss, "Effects of coffee roasting technologies on cup quality and bioactive compounds of specialty coffee beans", appearing in Food Sci. Nutr., 2020, 8, 6120.

This paper has some major issues — I hope you enjoy us diplomatically deconstructing it.

The article can be found here:

⁠https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.1904

About Christopher: Despite having recently opened his own roastery, Aviary, based in Ohio, Christopher finds time to be a leading consultant in the specialty coffee industry. He has a wealth of knowledge and shares some of it today, discussing sample roasting.

Introduction preamble: The Nobel Committee.

Chris and Doran are joined by Kim Elena Ionescu to discuss, "Explaining the willingness of consumers to bring their own reusable coffeecups under the condition of monetary incentives", appearing in J. Retail. Consum. Serv., 2022, 66, 102908.

The article can be found here:

⁠https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.102908

About Kim: She is the Chief Sustainability and Knowledge Development Officer at Specialty Coffee Association, and is heavily involved in various aspects of education within the association. Prior to the SCA she also worked for Counter Culture Coffee.

Introduction preamble: Ulf Danialsonn.

Chris and Doran are joined by Camila Khalifé to discuss, "Unmanned aerial vehicle to evaluate frost damage in coffee plants", appearing in Precis. Agric., 2021, 22, 1845.

The article can be found here:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-021-09815-w

About Camila: Camila founded Botánica in Quito, Ecuador, and is also a Coffee Quality Institute Quality Evaluation Assistant Instructor.

Introduction preamble: Roderick Mackinnon.

Chris and Doran are joined by Mark Weislogel to discuss his work over the years, neatly summarized in the paper, "How advances in low-g plumbing enable space exploration", published in npj Microgravity, 2022, 8, 16.

The article can be found here:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-022-00201-y

About Mark: Mark was a professor of mechanical engineering for over 20 years, before moving to work full time at IRPI, a company that develops technology solutions for plumbing in low gravity. He also invented that cup.

Introduction preamble: Dale Cooper.

Chris and Doran are joined by Masha Zanozina to discuss, "Impact of the human factor on the reproducibility of different coffee brewing methods", appearing in J. Food Comp. Anal., 2023, 124, 105698.

The article can be found here:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2023.105698

About Masha: Masha works for Counter Culture Coffee in Los Angeles as their regional sales and account manager, is a certified trainer, and a World Brewers Cup judge.

Introduction preamble: Jase Robertson.

Chris and Doran are joined by Carly Green to discuss, "Arabica-like flavour in a heat-tolerant wild coffee species", appearing in Nat. Plants, 2021, 7, 413.

The article can be found here:

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-021-00891-4

About Carly: Carly worked for Blue Bottle Coffee as their is a green coffee coordinator and lab manager, and is now in the Netherlands running Cherry Love Coffee.

Introduction preamble: Paulie Gualtieri.

Chris and Doran are joined by Kyle Glanville to discuss, "Development of a coffee bean certified reference material (KRISS CRM 108-10-023) for elemental analysis", appearing in Anal. Bioanal. Chem., 2024, 416, 475.

The article can be found here:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-023-05051-5

About Kyle: Kyle is a founder of G&B and Go Get Em Tiger, a cafe brand based in Los Angeles. He is also the US Barista Champion of 2008 — "Low" by Flo Rida and T-Pain topped the charts that year.

Introduction preamble: Dorris Lessing

Chris and Doran are joined by Jesse Han to discuss, "Prediction of specialty coffee flavors based on near-infrared spectra using machine‐ and deep-learning methods", appearing in J. Sci. Food Agric., 2021, 101, 4705.

The article can be found here:

https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.11116

About Jesse: He is a Ph.D. student at Harvard University studying Astronomy. He was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for Fluid Dynamics in 2017 for showing that coffee will not spill out of a cup if you walk backwards while holding it.

Introduction preamble: Richard Feynman

Chris and Doran are joined by Andrew Tolley to discuss, "Impacts of quaker beans over sensory characteristics and volatile composition of specialty natural coffees", appearing in Food Chem., 2021, 342, 128304.

The article can be found here: ⁠https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2020.128304⁠

Introduction preamble: Edward Teller