In the last episode, I discovered that rinsing my Chemex filter papers was a waste of time! As a result I’ve managed to claw back over seven days of my life left on earth. 

But why stop there? 

The coffee industry is full of elaborate ways of brewing and savouring coffee: fancy drippers, cold metal balls, “slurp-able” cupping spoons.

These are very fun, but how many of them actually affect the flavour of our coffee?

I fear elaborate coffee gear is wasting our time and money. They're distracting us from the existential crises in coffee that actually require all our attention now. For example, the issue of farmers who grow delicious coffees quitting the business because it’s just getting too hard. 

But to figure out whether a popular new coffee tool was actually waste of time or not, I needed to think like a scientist. 

This episode is the journey I went on to rewire my brain: I had to learn what good evidence looks like, what to do if I can’t find good evidence, and why it’s important to focus mostly on experimental results while resisting the allure of a compelling theory. 

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Discover this episode’s sponsor BWT’s water filtration products. I use their Penguin magnesium filter cartridges and cafes can use their BestAqua ROC

Do a Certificate of Advanced Studies with the Coffee Excellence Centre

Read Georgiana’s paper on soup slurping

Learn more about Signal Detection Theory

Explore BWT White Paper on the effects of magnesium (German)

Browse Christopher Hendon’s book Water for Coffee 

Take Barista Hustle's Water course 

Watch James Hoffman's water video

Morten Munchow - Coffee Mind website

Jeremy Nelson - LinkedIn

Samo Smrke - Instagram

Georgiana Juravle - Google Scholar

Young Baek - Instagram

Frank Neuhausen - LinkedIn

Sergio Barbarisi - LinkedIn

Alessandro Genovese - LinkedIn

BWT Water and More

Marco Beverage Systems

ROEST

Sustainable Harvest

Mahlkönig

The Science of Coffee is a spin-off series from James Harper's documentary podcast Filter Stories

 

Join me at World of Coffee Dubai, 18-20 January. Grab your tickets here.

What does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here.