Sonic Seasoning

James Harper

So, the other day, my friend made me aware of a TikTok video.

I say made me aware because I avoid TikToks like the plague.

This one, fortunately, wasn't just some teenager dancing in the bedroom.

It was of a sound illusion.

When I first heard it, I was like, what the hell are they saying?

Is it Bart Simpson Bouncing?

Bart Simpson Bouncing?

But then I was like, no, no, no, there's no way.

Maybe it's Baptism Piracy?

TikTok video

Baptism Piracy.

James Harper

Now, if you are a typical British man, you know exactly what they're saying.

That is embarrassing.

That is embarrassing.

And apparently, this is a common chant you hear at a British football match.

And for the record, I also avoid football like the plague, which also means, I guess, that I will never see a TikTok video of a football match.

Amen to that.

Now, the reason I just played a little game with you is because I wanted you to experience what it's like when your expectations change your reality.

If you expected to hear Bart Simpson Bouncing, then you probably heard Bart Simpson Bouncing.

And it's these sorts of audio tricks which makes me think, how much of our reality is just our expectations?

And listen, this is the Science of Coffee.

So, when it comes to coffee, how much of what we taste has already been determined well in advance of actually the coffee touching our taste receptors?

Hello there.

Hello.

How are you?

Good, thanks.

How's Oxford today?

Very sunny.

It's a pleasure to speak with you.

And I fell down this mind-melting rabbit hole while I was on the phone to this guy.

Prof. Charles Spence

So, my name is Professor Charles Spence, Head of the Cross-Modal Research Laboratory here at Oxford University.

James Harper

And when I first got in touch with Charles, I actually had a different question in mind.

I wanted to know, like, what happens in our brains when a coffee lands on our tongue?

But he was like, you're asking the wrong question.

Prof. Charles Spence

So, I'd say from your description, you're starting way too late when the coffee touches your lips.

It's all happened before that, I think.

And when you actually taste, my sort of gut feel, a bit sort of simplified version, is you're just checking that what you imagined you were going to taste is what you in fact do taste.

So, I think we really very much live in the world of our expectations.

James Harper

So, Professor Charles Spence's argument is that when we taste the coffee, we're mostly just checking that what we're tasting is what we expected it to taste in the first place.

Let me give you a horrendous example.

Imagine you're at the museum, you're a bit tired.

So, you go to the museum cafe, order a coffee.

This has been my experience in almost every museum cafe.

You look at the espresso machine setup.

Where the beans are held, the hopper, the beans are black, really oily, stuck on the side.

You look at the steam wand, you know, where you froth the milk, and it's caked in white gunk.

And then you hear the milk being frothed.

And it's the sound of the pig squeal.

And then the lovely waiter brings over the coffee, and it's just a big ball of foam.

You know, I know what we're in for.

I can taste it right now.

Burnt milk, that lingering, ashy, smoky coffee flavour in my mouth, the dry, raspy foam.

Oh, jeez, I can't even do this anymore.

I don't want it.

I don't want it.

And Professor Charles Spence's argument is that when I put that coffee to my lips.

Prof. Charles Spence

And if what you taste is more or less, more or less what you expected, then I think you live in the world of your taste, flavour expectations, not in the world of your flavour experience.

James Harper

So when I put that museum coffee to my lips, and what I taste is broadly what I expect to taste, heaven forbid, my experience of that coffee wasn't what I actually tasted.

It was what I expected it to be.

So in the first half of this episode, we're going to explore the role of sound in creating our coffee experience.

A name for it is sonic seasoning.

Prof. Charles Spence

Can we actually choose sounds to enhance the taste and bring out certain notes in food and drink?

James Harper

But we're also going to look at the flip side.

What are we doing, sonically speaking, that makes a coffee experience worse?

Prof. Charles Spence

Maybe now your coffee starts to taste a bit watery, loses its taste.

James Harper

And because this is the final episode of the first series of The Science of Coffee, the second half of this episode, we're going to explore something completely different from the first half.

Essentially, I'm going to show you the shape of academic research in coffee generally.

Who's doing it?

Why are they doing it?

And why isn't more being done?

And I want to leave you with this insight because it really is the future of coffee science, period.

And along the way, I'll show you the research and development department of Fiorenzato, a manufacturer of coffee grinders and a sponsor for this episode, to show you what sort of problems many coffee companies are trying to fix.

I'm James Harper, and this is The Science of Coffee, a spinoff series from my documentary podcast, Filter Stories, and a journey into coffee's hidden microscopic secrets.

WBC Announcer

Welcome with us, the first finalist who presented this morning from Colombia, Diego Campos.

James Harper

So in 2021, something rather remarkable happened.

WBC Announcer

Let me introduce you.

James Harper

At the World Barista Championships, it's a thing, Google it.

WBC Announcer

To the new champion.

James Harper

For just the third time in its 20-odd years it's been around, a barista From Colombia.

From a coffee growing country, won.

Diego Campos from Colombia bedazzled the judges in many, many ways.

But I want to tell you about some specific things he did during his competition routine.

Diego Campos

Instead of leaving the espresso to speak for itself, I will complement it with a multi-sensory stimulation.

James Harper

So Diego made some espressos, but while the judges enjoyed them, he asked them to put on a pair of headphones and stare at an iPad.

And while the judges sip Diego's sublime Colombian espresso, they're deep in a red sea, underwater, looking up as these sunbeams shimmer.

While soft circles drift down the screen.

Aside from being a very relaxing way to enjoy an espresso, I was rather curious.

Why did Diego do this?

And I got my answer by speaking with a researcher who put that iPad presentation together.

Felipe Reinoso

So my name is Felipe Reinoso.

I am specialized in multi-sensory perception.

So here was Diego's plan.

He wanted for the jury to drink the espresso while listening and watching an audiovisual stimulus that would enhance the sweetness and smoothness of the Colombian coffee that they were bringing.

James Harper

Diego's plan was to use some sonic seasoning to increase the sweetness and smoothness of his espressos.

And Felipe himself has done a lot of research in this topic.

And he's really building on a movement that Professor Charles Spence, that we heard at the beginning, has been pioneering for over 20 years now.

It's technically called cross-modal perception.

And really it's about how different senses, how one of those affects other senses.

How does sight affect what we feel?

How does smell affect what we hear?

Et cetera, et cetera.

And when I first heard about it, I got really excited.

These cross-modal insights could really change the game for specialty coffee.

Because, you know, the problem is this.

There are many people who do not like specialty coffee.

They don't like the lighter roast.

They don't like the acidity.

But what if we could elevate the experience to the point where almost anybody could embrace and love a specialty coffee?

And because this is a podcast and I absolutely love audio, what can we do in the world of sound to dramatically change people's perception of coffee?

Felipe gave me some insights.

Felipe Reinoso

Sweetness is usually associated with higher pitch ranges comparing to bitterness, which is more associated with lower pitch ranges, lower frequency ranges.

Let's say that the sound of a piano tends to be much more associated with sweetness comparing with the sound of a trombone that's more associated with bitterness.

Consonance, in terms of harmony, is much more associated with sweetness.

Instead of bitterness, bitterness is more kind of a dissonance type of harmonical construction.

James Harper

And some research suggests the emotions in music play a big role in our perceptions of food.

Felipe Reinoso

So this experiment was actually with beer.

So people were drinking the same beer twice and one time they were listening to a music that we chose as a positive emotion type of music and the other as a negative emotion type of music.

So with the negative music, the beer was being rated as a bit more bitter and with more alcohol strength.

And with the positive emotional music, beer was being rated as sweeter.

James Harper

So after speaking with Felipe and learning about all these ways we can use sound to change our perception of coffee, I also wanted to know why does the trombone of all instruments make foods taste more bitter?

I mean, at this point, if you have a friend who plays a trombone, for God's sake, don't invite them to a dinner party.

Instead, invite your friend who plays soft, tinkly piano music, because, you know, that'll make your food taste sweeter.

But seriously, I wanted to know what is going on inside our heads.

And I found some clues speaking with this researcher.

Prof. Janice Wang

My name is Janice Wing.

I'm an assistant professor of food science at Aarhus University, which is in Denmark.

James Harper

And Janice suggested for that phenomenon to work, where you have, you know, sad or happy music and that makes food taste sweet or bitter.

It really helps if the food in the first place is complex.

Prof. Janice Wang

Because some of the other studies have shown that a big role of music is kind of directing your attention to a specific taste or flavor component in the mixture.

So if you listen to sweet music or bitter music, that will direct your attention to one aspect or the other.

And if you pay more attention to the sweetness or bitterness, you're going to perceive it also as sweeter or more bitter.

James Harper

Directing attention.

Angry music might direct our attention to bitterness.

Happy music might direct our attention to the sweetness.

And at this point, I started playing the why game.

Whatever the answer you're given, you just keep repeating, but why?

But I did seriously ask Janice, why might happy music direct our attention to sweetness?

Prof. Janice Wang

It's a really good question and the answer is very complex.

James Harper

And really Janice's answer boiled down to potentially its reasons of nature or nurture.

So nurture.

Prof. Janice Wang

The association between the sweetness and red color.

That's a classic associative learning because ripe fruits are red.

James Harper

But nature might also be at play.

And Janice suggested that phenomenon of very high pitch sound, how that leads to sweetness.

That's unlikely to be an association that you experienced very much growing up.

Prof. Janice Wang

With the high pitch ethereal and sweetness, that is not a lived experience.

James Harper

And as I dug deeper and deeper into this research, I learned about so many ways you can potentially increase the sweetness of coffee beyond just the sound.

How is the cup that holds the coffee shaped?

What does it feel like?

What's its color?

The bag the coffee beans are in?

What does it look like?

What does it feel like?

And I got right to the precipice and asked perhaps the biggest question.

Using all this cross-modal learning, could we turn just a plain glass of water into the most sublime coffee experience you've ever had?

And the answer is absolutely not.

Prof. Charles Spence

You know, we can't turn water into wine yet through music or other psychological shenanigans.

If I'm giving you a glass of water, there's not much I can do.

There's not much in the taste experience to begin with.

I can't, you know, magic taste of flavors out of nowhere.

James Harper

We cannot turn water into coffee using sounds and other shenanigans.

So all those effects Felipe mentioned earlier, trombones and bitterness, sweet tinkling pianos, how big are the effects, like actually?

Felipe Reinoso

For instance, if you're asking them to evaluate how bitter was this coffee in a scale from one to seven, so these changes, they might be in, you know, one point or half point of a one to seven scale.

James Harper

A difference of half a point, maybe a point in a seven point scale, which is more or less.

Felipe Reinoso

Usually it's like a five to 10% modulation in ratings.

James Harper

So the effects, if you're lucky, could be as big as 10%.

A 10% increase in the perception of sweetness.

And I wasn't really sure what to do with a number like that.

I mean, it's not nothing, but it's a long way from turning water to coffee.

Prof. Janice Wang

Thank you for bringing this up.

James Harper

Like, I've actually debated this with a number of researchers I spoke to, including Janice Wang.

I mean, it's really not earth shattering.

It's like, oh yeah, okay.

So the perception of sweetness went up from, you know, six to seven out of 10.

Prof. Janice Wang

Yeah, I mean, that's actually quite a bit, like 10% is...

James Harper

Okay, okay.

It's funny, I mean, to a lay person like myself, I'm like, it's interesting, but it's not revolutionary.

And I wonder why they're not bigger.

What we can do to get bigger effects, why they're so small?

Prof. Janice Wang

Oh, interesting question.

Because, I mean, as a psychologist, I would say that, wow, 10% difference in taste perception, that's huge.

James Harper

And when I brought it up with Charles Spence, it's an incremental piece.

Yep.

And your point is?

That was a moment where I got a glimpse of the bigger picture.

Why 10% can be dramatic.

Prof. Charles Spence

Maybe I'm selling yogurts as an international company or something, or I'm a Nescafe.

If I could add 5% sweetness to every cup of coffee people made at home, simply by optimizing the sound, how valuable would that be?

So even the tiniest effect suddenly becomes hugely important, potentially hugely important, at the scale of tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of people.

James Harper

Across perhaps billions of people?

A 10% increase in sweetness just by playing with some sounds.

I mean, yeah, that could change how many, many millions of people relate to their coffee.

Diego Campos

I will complement it with a multisensory stimulation to enhance the tasting experience.

James Harper

Or in the case of Diego Campos, on the world stage in front of his judges, maybe his coffees were perceived by the judges to be 10% sweeter.

And that might have been the difference between him and the person who came second?

Of course, it's basically impossible to know.

But now I want to tell you about something Diego could have done, that I guarantee would have made him lose.

Using sound to make his espressos taste more watery.

And despite that, this happens in coffee bars around the world all the time.

And as an industry, I really don't think we properly appreciate how truly damaging this is.

Felipe Reinoso

One of the most interesting studies that I have conducted and published with coffee is the one related to noise, to background noise.

James Harper

Tell me about that study, what happened?

Felipe Reinoso

What we wanted to do is to try to observe if the background noise, like noise that you listen, would have an effect on the different tasting aspects of a coffee experience.

James Harper

Let me walk you through Felipe's study.

So first up, he recorded some classic cafe restaurant noise.

And participants would hear this noise in three different ways while they tried to enjoy a coffee.

The first way, jack up the volume.

He jacked it up to 85 decibels.

You know, this is what a typical cafe or restaurant noise level might be like, you know, where you have to like shout to be heard.

I personally find 85 decibels really loud.

The consensus in the medical community is, if you are exposed to 85 decibels over a prolonged period of time, it can cause hearing loss.

So that's the first variant, a participant trying to enjoy a coffee with that racket.

The second test was drinking that coffee.

But this time, Felipe played with the frequencies to approximate what it would be like to be in that sort of noise environment.

But you had those big, thick over-ear headphones on and the sound changed from this to this.

Felipe Reinoso

They're very good at blocking high frequencies, but not so much low frequencies.

James Harper

And in the third setting, Felipe approximated what it would be like if instead of wearing over-ear headphones, the participant was sat in that busy cafe wearing noise cancelling type of headphones, like what I use, Apple's AirPods Pro.

And the sound shifted from that regular racket to this.

Felipe Reinoso

And what we saw is that the coffee tastes generally more watery for most people when they are listening to the very loud background noise comparing to the other two.

You become less sensitive to the flavour experience.

And how significant was that?

Well, this was very interesting because more than half of the participants, they had this type of effect.

James Harper

The evidence suggests very noisy environments make coffees taste more watery.

But why?

And to get an answer, I spoke with another researcher.

Dr. Fabiana Carvalho

I am Dr. Fabiana Carvalho, and I am a neuroscientist.

And, well, I've been doing research in neuroscience for 23 years now.

James Harper

And I asked Fabiana for her theory, key word there, theory, as to why loud environments make coffees taste more watery.

Dr. Fabiana Carvalho

Sometimes our neurons cannot deal with overload.

So they kind of stop processing something to process something else.

But we can also think about attentional aspects.

You know, it's just like the brain cannot pay attention to so many things at once.

Our attentional capacity is limited.

So if something is really calling your attention, like a loud noise, your brain can no longer pay attention to other stimuli such as taste.

James Harper

After all these conversations, I began to wonder, how often is it that we, you know, us specialty coffee professionals, we serve these very special, high quality specialty coffees to our customers, but the environment they're drinking acoustically, it's so loud, so noisy, the flavors are getting watered down.

And I can say from my own experience, it was only this year that I literally had to walk out of a specialty coffee cafe after I had paid five euros for what I hoped to be an amazing espresso, but it was just too loud.

I couldn't concentrate on the coffee.

And let's just put this in context.

The coffee pickers have done overtime picking just the ripest, reddest cherries.

The farmer took a big risk with their processing to get these really unique flavors.

The roaster has done like five different test roasts to get what they think is the best expression of this bean, the barista.

Years, maybe even a decade of experience, and they have pulled a shot worthy for God himself.

And we serve it in a loud environment.

And you know what?

We might as well just pour it down the drain.

But I have some very good news.

Because fixing a loud environment, it's so simple.

First things first, measure how loud is your cafe.

And you don't need fancy, expensive decibel meters.

Download an app on your phone.

Hell, even my Apple Watch has a decibel meter, which I use all the time.

If the noise is above 75, 80 decibels, there are cheap, easy solutions.

The first, obviously, just turn down the stereo.

And the second, just buy some sound dampening materials.

Put them on the walls, hang them from the ceiling.

I've been at restaurants where they put them under the tables.

It's a couple of hundred bucks at most.

And I would know.

I've done it in my studio.

Felipe did this research because he feels the same way I do.

Felipe Reinoso

It's like an invitation for people to be very much aware of the quality of the environment while having a nice coffee, you know.

Think about the environment, because that also can bring you more quality of life, can give you this moment of relaxing and really concentrating on the tasting experience that you're having.

James Harper

So now I'm drawing a line under everything we've been talking about, you know, these insights into sonic seasoning.

And I want to tell you about something totally different.

I want to show you something rather peculiar, strange about scientific research into coffee.

So there was one key book that I used when researching this series.

It is The Craft and Science of Coffee, edited by Britta Fulmer, a coffee scientist working at Nestle, who also gave me a lot of great editorial input as I made the series.

Now, this book is frankly not an easy read, very technical.

But what it did is it brought together the leading scientists who have worked with coffee and some specialty coffee peeps and has presented everything we know with a lot of certainty in the world of coffee science.

And I mean, everything is covered here.

Like you've got roasting, water for extraction, freshness, brewing for excellence, sensory evaluation, over 500 pages.

But things get rather curious when you compare the references in different chapters.

So let's look at the chapter on crema, you know, that dark luscious foam that sits on top of an espresso.

This one article on crema links to over 30 academic studies on the formation of crema.

Over 30 times in different parts of the world and universities, scientists have thought, hey, let's study crema.

But when you go to the chapter on coffee grinding, there's maybe a dozen references, tops.

And, you know, some of these are all dating back to the mid 80s.

In fact, look, there's one here, 1976.

Espresso crema has had a lot of scientific attention, but not when it comes to coffee grinding.

But if you talk to any barista and you say, hey, what's more important to understand, how grinding affects coffee or how crema is made?

Let me tell you, grinding is fundamental to producing a great coffee.

If you play around in your kitchen, you know, how you grind your coffee dramatically impacts the flavors.

If you grind very coarse, you might get a very sour brew.

If you grind very fine, you get a very bitter brew.

To me, that's kind of more important than how crema is formed.

I challenge you, find me a barista who disagrees with that.

So why is there so little published academic research exploring coffee grinding?

I want to show you this journey I've been on trying to answer that question because it revealed to me that actually there are very long standing problems in coffee science.

And this really matters because it can act as a bottleneck to the growth of the coffee industry and to how good your coffee can be at home.

And so to understand why there is so little published academic research in coffee grinding, on a blustery spring day on the outskirts of Parva, northern Italian city, I went to visit a leading coffee grinder manufacturer, Fiorenzato, who are also the sponsor for this episode.

To understand from them, how do they approach R&D?

Now, Fiorenzato have been manufacturing coffee grinders for decades, mostly focused on the cafe market, but also recently started making coffee grinders for people at home.

Denis Girardi

I walked up the office stairs next to the factory and met this man.

Okay, my name is Dennis Girardi, I'm the sales director in Fiorenzato.

James Harper

So companies sometimes do work with academia.

And I asked Dennis, basically like, why is it when I open up, first and foremost, the craft and science of coffee, there is so little published academic research about coffee grinding in the references?

Denis Girardi

That's a very good question, actually.

To analyze what's happening with your coffee into a coffee grinder, okay, one of the reasons is that all the equipment you use is very expensive.

You're talking about molecular analysis, you have to, you go in a very little dimensions, okay, which are not so evident, they are not so easy to detect without using very expensive technology.

James Harper

And basically, the first thing Dennis tells me is that it comes down to money.

Let's explore that question.

How much money does it cost to do coffee science?

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

You see that these are now all kinds of instruments, a huge range of different instruments, each one is capable to measure something, Let me show you how expensive just the equipment is.

None at all, these are all gas chromatography, the computers are, these computers are all dedicated computers.

James Harper

So as part of my research for the series, I visited the University of Applied Sciences in Zurich, and Professor Chahani Retin, the head of the Coffee Excellence Center, I had the privilege of him showing me around.

Okay, I'm counting one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, um, 11, 12 perhaps, very technical machines, and all kind of in this room overlooking Zurich itself and the lake.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

It's a fantastic view on the lake, and yeah, we have something like 15.

So these are all, this lab is focusing what we call chromatography.

So gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, size occlusion chromatography.

James Harper

Now each of these machines is about the size of like a large office printer.

And while speaking with Chahan, I gestured to a selection of them.

I'm putting up, I'm ballparking this at 150,000 euro.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

Well, much more.

Much more.

Yeah, much more.

It's more than a million, of course.

James Harper

Chahan's beautiful chemical lab overlooking Lake Zurich has had many millions of dollars invested into it.

So this is what it costs in the equipment alone to do the molecular analysis of coffee.

And the vast majority of coffee companies just don't have the money to do this sort of work themselves.

But of course, there are some exceptions.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

Here are some standards instruments, you know, for rose degree humidity measurements and that's all.

James Harper

You know, it's funny.

Chahan showed me tens of millions of dollars worth of scientific kit.

And, you know, my jaw was like on the floor.

Just can't believe this much money is being put into coffee research.

But the way Chahan spoke about it, it was almost a bit embarrassing.

Like it wasn't big enough.

And I think this comes from the fact that, you know, before Chahan became the director of the Coffee Excellence Center at this university, he worked at Nestle.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

And then I got an offer for a position at Nestle in the Nestle research labs.

James Harper

In terms of what Nestle has, how does it compare to everything I just saw?

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

They have much more.

James Harper

More than that?

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

Yeah, that's just a different world.

Nestle has, of course, I would say the 20 times, 40 times what we see here.

They have people, hundreds of scientists.

James Harper

Nestle employs many dozens of really smart scientists, all doing what I presume to be cutting edge coffee research.

And they can do it because they have two products that make them a lot of money.

Nescafe instant coffee and Nespresso capsules.

And I did actually try to schedule some interviews with some Nestle coffee scientists.

The scientists themselves, they were really nice, really eager to help me understand coffee science even better.

And it all came to a crashing stop when their communications department said, no.

And you know, it's no surprise really.

It's understandable.

They're a for-profit company.

They've sunk in the order of hundreds, potentially even billions of dollars into coffee research over the decades.

The last thing they want to do is make that information freely available so that others can take their market share.

All this to say, there is actually a lot of scientific research in coffee, which is hidden away from public access.

It's not just Nestle, although they are the biggest fish in this pond.

Now, a company doesn't necessarily have to do all this research themselves.

They could also partner with a university who have the scientists and the equipment to do the research.

And the company can help cover the cost.

But even here, partnering with a university like this, it isn't that cheap for a coffee company.

Prof. Willliam (Bill) Ristenpart

Okay.

Testing, testing.

Yeah.

It looks like it's recording.

James Harper

For example, I spoke with Professor Bill Ristenpart at the UC Davis Coffee Center.

And he was really frank.

Prof. Willliam (Bill) Ristenpart

I'll just give you a sense for like, what we mostly use the funding for is to support the students.

At the University of California, at least, that's roughly $50,000 to $60,000 US dollars per year.

That's what it costs to support a grad student.

James Harper

$50,000 to $60,000 per grad student per year.

So if you're a coffee company, and you're partnering with the UC Davis Coffee Center for some research, I don't know, if you're lucky, the study would need just one grad student for the year.

So, you know, you fork out 50K.

If it's a very complicated study, you might need several grad students.

I mean, it could easily run up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But despite these high costs, there are actually quite a number of coffee companies that do partner with academia.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

Many of our projects are with specific partners.

James Harper

And I was wondering, why would a commercial coffee company partner with a university, give them, you know, a not insubstantial amount of money to gain this scientific knowledge, which is then freely shared with the world, including their own competitors.

And here's the thing.

Oftentimes, it's not shared.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

And the knowledge created is shared only among the two of us.

James Harper

But sometimes the information is shared, once the company that has funded the research has applied for a patent.

So they feel like it's now commercially safe to release this information for the wider world.

Prof. Chahan Yeretzian

So in general, all the results come out, but a little bit delayed.

And then they will be open to everybody because the machine is out, it's patented.

But the science can be out, but perhaps not for the same commercial use, you know, because it's protected.

James Harper

And, you know, up until about five years ago, if you were to look at the state of scientific research in coffee, this would have been your assessment.

Jenn Rugolo

You see, in a lot of areas of coffee science, there is no publicly available information.

It is proprietary and it's very hidden and hard to access.

James Harper

This, by the way, is Jen Ruggler, who is behind the Specialty Coffee Association's flagship educational magazine.

Jenn Rugolo

And I edit the SCA's biannual publication named 25.

Sustainability, science and business are the three things that we're trying to sort of balance on a regular basis in the publication.

James Harper

So as Jen explained it to me, this is the situation.

Coffee science is very expensive and you publish very little of it.

If you're a decently sized company, but, you know, not an SLA, you could partner with a university, discover the science, patent some technology or other to make money off that science and then release the data.

There is no guarantee, though, that the data will be released.

Maybe if you're lucky, a university at some point decides to study some coffee science and then make that information publicly available.

And frankly, this whole situation, it's not great if you are a part of the specialty coffee community.

The individual businesses in the specialty coffee industry, very few of them are big enough to fund academic research.

It's a community filled with people obsessed with trying to find quote unquote quality coffee.

And yet so many of our scientific questions around coffee are going unanswered.

And then over the years, I learned through Jen of a new way of doing coffee science.

Peter Giuliano

We know that in coffee, we're under-researched and under-innovated.

James Harper

This is Peter Giuliano, the chief science officer at the Specialty Coffee Association, announcing the launch of a new organization.

Peter Giuliano

This year, the board of the Specialty Coffee Association decided to launch a new initiative called the Coffee Science Foundation.

So what we recognized was we need an institution that can aggregate industry funding towards collaborative, and that's important, collaborative, pre-competitive, and scientifically rigorous research to benefit the coffee industry.

James Harper

And this organization, look, it's really, really new.

Founded just before the pandemic.

But over time, hopefully it'll do what, you know, a trade body should do.

You take a little bit of money from all your members so you can do research that benefits all the members.

So that's the state of research in academia and coffee.

But here's something that I found kind of weird when I first learned about it.

In the world of grinding, very little academic research has been done, period.

It doesn't appear to be the case that the research was done, but not released publicly.

From what I could figure out, it has not been an area of academic scientific focus.

Now, of course, I love a good mystery, so I was dying to get to the bottom of this one.

I don't know exactly.

And I did speak with Peter Giuliano, the chief science officer at the Specialty Coffee Association.

Peter Giuliano

It's a question I have as well.

I think probably the reason is because grinding works pretty well.

James Harper

He was like, yeah, there is so much we could explore in the world of coffee grinding.

It's incredibly important.

But at the same time, the state of technology right now with grinding, you know, our cups of coffee, they're pretty good.

And we have other more pressing things to look into right now.

Peter Giuliano

You know, it's not like climate change, which is a big event that people are worried about.

There's no equivalent to that.

There's no moonshot in grinding, you know.

James Harper

So if that's the case, I know that Fiorenzato spends a lot of money on R&D.

Dennis Girardi

So what exactly are they looking into?

As far as Fiorenzato is concerned, this is a company that growth dramatically in the last four years.

This is a company that in just four years went from 10 million euro to 40 million euro.

So most of the energy and the money was involved to keep up with the sales and the growth.

The R&D nowadays is more focused on doing something that is mainstream for everybody.

So we are very focused on problem solving.

And we are very focused on give what the barista wants, make some simple innovation to make the mainstream market happy and satisfied about our grinders.

James Harper

Problem solving, giving the baristas what they want.

But what does this look like in practice?

So here we have the all ground machine.

So Fiorenzato recently released a new grinder for the home market, which allows the home barista to make any kind of coffee they want.

Espresso or even a filter coffee.

And the major innovation here was the thing inside a grinder that actually grinds the coffee.

Giulia Bagato

And of course, everything started from the burrs.

James Harper

The burrs.

And this, by the way, is Giulia Bagato, marketing manager for Fiorenzato.

Giulia Bagato

We need to study, to design, to create burrs capable of grinding coffee for espresso and for filter because, you know, there are two very different kind of grain size, granulometry.

James Harper

Let me explain why manufacturing burrs, you know, the metal things that actually grind the coffee that do it well for both filter and espresso, isn't that simple.

So you just ground some coffee.

Now let's shake that coffee powder onto a white piece of paper and then get out a ruler and a microscope and measure the size of every single one of those coffee particles.

Then count how many there are of different sizes.

So everything between, I don't know, 0 and 10 microns is in this bucket.

Count how many are between 20 and 30 microns, put them in that bucket.

And then create a graph that basically shows how many of each different size of coffee particle there are.

This is called a distribution curve.

And for the record, please don't try to do this at home.

It'll take you a million years.

Fiorenzato has a machine that does this in seconds.

Giulia Bagato

This is the particle analyzer.

They're pretty pricey pieces of equipment.

They're quite expensive, right?

James Harper

Now, for espresso, what the industry has decided just through kind of trial and error and practice, a good curve for espresso is one that has two peaks.

You have a peak of very, very small fine particles.

So a high number of them and a peak somewhere around the middle.

Let's say 300, 500 microns, whatever it happens to be.

But the industry consensus for a filter coffee is that you don't want two peaks.

You just want one peak.

And you want most of your coffee particles hovering around the, I don't know, let's just say 700 micron level.

Giulia Bagato

So we made a lot of tests in order to have very good curves, both for espresso and for filter coffee.

James Harper

Fiorenzato did is they designed the burrs so that when you grind it finer for espresso or when you grind it coarser for filter, the curve itself shifts from that two peak to one peak.

Giulia Bagato

It's also about the geometry of the burrs, because if they are very close to each other, they work on specific parts of the blades.

And when they started to widen, they work in other parts of the blades.

So this is the trick.

James Harper

But when developing the burrs for the all ground grinder, OK, the shape of the curves, yes, it matters.

Giulia Bagato

Time to grind some coffee and then see the extraction.

James Harper

But what also matters is how does it taste?

Testing, testing, testing, testing.

And the flavor testing took place in a top secret lab.

OK, so here we are heading into the Bat Cave.

Jokingly referred to as the Bat Cave, which is basically just a room with a padlocked door and the glass is frosted so you can't see in from outside.

Giulia Bagato

It's our secret lab where all the projects of the R&D team take life.

James Harper

This is like a 3D printer.

I see some designs I haven't seen before here, which I probably shouldn't talk about.

Super secret.

And there's this level of secrecy around the Bat Cave because, well, many of Filandato's innovations are actually patented.

Before they get to the patent stage, you've got to keep it secret.

Coffee grinding, it's a competitive business.

Giulia Bagato

Maybe we can go upstairs?

James Harper

So that's the R&D side.

Dennis Girardi

But, you know, as Dennis stated earlier.

And the money was involved to keep up with the sales and the growth.

James Harper

While R&D is very important, most of the money has frankly been used not in R&D, but in keeping up with the mind.

Giulia Bagato

There's a smell of metal in the air.

Oh, wow.

This is a robot.

Oh, my God.

What is this?

James Harper

And that is a serious challenge.

When I was there at the factory, I saw how they have invested millions of dollars in a robot.

Giulia Bagato

It's crazy.

So here we have a robot literally drilling holes into these bodies of metal with amazing precision.

James Harper

And, you know, I just showed you earlier how they had designed these new burrs.

You know, the things that actually cut the coffee.

They designed these new burrs that could do a two peak distribution for espresso and a single peak for filter.

But, you know, once you design burrs like this, then you actually have to manufacture it.

In the last few years, they brought the creation of the burrs themselves in-house.

This is a key piece to what allowed them to be experimental in the burr geometries themselves.

However, the machines to make burrs are extremely expensive.

OK, so the first thing that's happened, it's amazing.

Giulia Bagato

There's this giant saw, this continuous saw that's just like cutting through the metal.

I mean, that that must be very hard to cut.

James Harper

And when you are, first and foremost, a manufacturing company, there are many things that may not go to plan.

Giulia Bagato

For a small, a very small screw.

James Harper

Each grinder that Fioranzato manufactures, it's got many hundreds of unique components.

And on the day I visited, they had a problem.

Giulia Bagato

So, I mean, I'm looking at pallet after pallet after pallet.

I mean, heaven knows, over 100 grinders, more, 200 grinders.

James Harper

So in a corner of their warehouse, I saw hundreds of almost finished grinders just waiting, gathering dust.

They all have this easy opening click mechanism where a barista can easily open up the grinder and clean the burrs.

But for that click mechanism to work, you need one particular extremely durable screw.

Giulia Bagato

If only one is missing, the production is stuck.

James Harper

This was the post-COVID supply chain crisis.

Giulia Bagato

Can't you just go down to the hardware store?

James Harper

And I did ask Giulia, like, can't you just use any old screw for this?

Giulia Bagato

No, we cannot because, of course, we need to guarantee high quality to our customers because we want to push a lot these products.

So we don't want to cause any problem to our customers.

James Harper

You want a very high quality product for a very discerning customer?

Giulia Bagato

Exactly.

James Harper

Well, I hope you find this little screw soon because this is going to fill up pretty quick.

So that's how R&D is done in an actual coffee company.

In the case of Fioranzato, you know, working with academic science, it's just not the top of their agendas.

They're focusing on growth, building out a robust supply chain, a robust factory, creating something like the grinding burrs for the all-ground grinder, or even that easy opening click mechanism.

These innovations require this enormous investment on the production side just to manufacture and deliver the product.

That's where so much of their money goes.

So we've come to the end of the first series of the Science of Coffee.

Now, do you want to go deeper into coffee science?

If so, there are plenty of ways to do it.

In the show notes, I put links to many of the educational resources that I've used and you can go deeper as well.

They include books, online learning platforms, websites.

But if you're like me, you will have many burning questions about coffee.

Some of which can only really be answered by coffee scientists, if at all.

But the problem is, they're really busy.

Professor Borison Putt, case in point.

Prof. Willliam (Bill) Ristenpart

My email inbox just gets flooded with like random requests from all over the world and I just don't have the bandwidth to handle 2,000 undergraduates here per year, plus running a coffee center, plus all this other stuff I do and handle random questions.

So what I would recommend is attend, for example, Specialty Coffee Association events.

James Harper

So if you do have burning coffee science questions that you cannot find an authoritative answer to on the internet, this is a bit of a long-winded way to do it.

But attend Specialty Coffee Association events, the Lecture Series, Ricoh, Barista Guild events, the Coffee Roasters Guild, the Green Coffee Summit, Coffee Sensorium, the Coffee Technicians Guild.

There are so many places you can go.

Attending any of these events, guaranteed, you will find a bona fide coffee scientist in attendance.

Get to know them and ask your questions that way.

And if you are a coffee company, do consider supporting the work of the Coffee Science Foundation.

There are so many things we've yet to figure out about coffee.

Contribute what you can so we can all learn more about this beautiful, delicious beverage that gives us so much meaning and joy in our lives.

So thank you for listening to the final episode on the science of coffee.

But don't worry, this is just the first series, and I am actively planning a second one.

And this is where I want to hear from you.

What do you want me to cover?

Tell me directly on Instagram.

Find me at filterstoriespodcast.

And yeah, send me a message, get in touch.

Now, you know, these sorts of podcasts take a million years to make.

So while I am very busy running around making the second series, I'll drop a few episodes here or there on this feed, which I think you're going to find interesting.

And if you liked this series and found it helpful in your coffee journey, the best thing you could do is tell people about it.

So go on Instagram, do a screen grab of the podcast player, and do a stories post.

Tag me at filterstoriespodcast and I will say thank you.

And if you want to go above and beyond, you could also write a review on Apple Podcasts and rate it on Spotify.

I've got links in the show notes.

That really helps the algorithms to prioritize this show in the search results.

Now, this episode is the product of many very smart people generously offering me their time.

They include Felipe Reynoso Cavallo, Charles Spence, Janice Wang, Fabiana Cavallo, Chahan Yaretzin, Bill Ristenpott, Peter Giuliano, and of course, the really wonderful team at Fiorenzato, Giulia Bargato and Dennis Girardi.

I put a link to the all ground grinder in the show notes, so you can check it out for yourself.

Now, what if for some bizarre reason, you've decided to start the Science of Coffee with this episode?

Well, let me tell you what is in the other five.

The first episode looks at good water for coffee.

And in this episode, we spoke about how coffee companies sometimes partner with academia.

And that's exactly what the water filtration manufacturer BWT did with the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

And I'll show you what that collaborative research looked like, where they understood the impact of magnesium in water on coffee flavors.

The second episode is on the Science of Coffee Extraction.

And in the second half of the episode, I show you how Marco, a manufacturer of coffee brewing equipment for cafes, how they came up with the SP9.

And if you worked in coffee, you might remember the yellow splurty model, and even the octopus from many years ago.

And it all culminated in the SP9, a brewer which eliminates many variables to get much more consistently extracted coffee.

The third episode explores coffee genetics and its role in helping coffee farmers combat climate change.

And much like in other areas of coffee science, academic research in genetics is quite underfunded.

And so I explore with Triboca, a green bean supplier, how they work with their farming partners in Kenya to combat climate change with the very limited genetic selection they have.

The fourth episode explores the development of espresso machine technology.

And I take you into the factory of Eversys, the manufacturers of a fully automatic coffee machine, to show you how through many years of R&D, they've figured out a way to make espresso as well as a barista can.

And in the episode before this, I explore the science of creating and maintaining good latte foam.

And I go to the original Oatly factory in Sweden, and I show you the development work that went into their barista edition, and why it's so good for creating latte foam.

Now, the Science of Coffee was produced by me, James Harper, and I also write and play the piano music.

I want to give a big thanks to Peter Giuliano and Bridget Foleman for their editorial guidance.

And thank you so much for listening.

Take care.

Enjoy going deeper into coffee science with the links in the show notes.

And I'll speak to you next time.