The UC Davis Coffee Center is engaged in comprehensive sensory research using trained panel descriptive analysis to investigate how different parameters related to coffee brewing impact the flavor, and how these can be manipulated to an individual's desired effect. Of these factors, time can be an important variable—in multiple ways—and this talk will highlight two recent projects. The first investigated the time-evolution of coffee flavor extraction during the brewing process. By dividing a drip brew into eight parts and evaluating the flavor change every 30 seconds, it offers a more detailed picture of observable extraction changes. The second experiment investigated time elapsed post-brew, comparing how quickly perceptible changes occur when coffee is held in a carafe, in order to understand the stability of flavors depending on holding conditions. Both of these studies offer preliminary data that can be immediately useful to the industry in developing and preserving desired flavors in the coffee brewing process.

Today’s lecture is presented by Mackenzie Batali, a second-year graduate student in Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis, focusing her research in coffee sensory analysis. Previously she received a chemistry degree from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and worked as a flavor chemist before transitioning into the coffee world. She has spoken previously about her work on coffee fractionation at ASIC 2018.

If today’s lecture piques your interest, you can also read more about Mackenzie’s fractionation experiment in Issue 11 of 25 Magazine.

Special Thanks to Softengine Coffee One, Powered by SAP

This episode of the Expo 2019 Lectures podcast is supported by Softengine Coffee One, Powered by SAP.  Built upon SAP's business-leading Enterprise Resource Planning solution, Softengine Coffee One is designed specifically to quickly and easily take your small-to-medium coffee company working at any point along the coffee chain to the next level of success. Learn more about Softengine Coffee One at softengine.com, with special pricing available for SCA Members. Softengine: the most intelligent way to grow your business.

Related Links

• Read a full episode transcript on SCA News
• Listen to other episodes of the SCA Podcast 
• Learn more about the upcoming 2020 Lecture Series at the Specialty Coffee Expo 
• Read "Less Strong, More Sweet," a feature by the team at UC Davis on this experiment in Issue 11 of 25

Table of Contents

0:00 Introduction
3:10 An overview of the coffee science research taking place at UC Davis
26:00 How does brewing time impact the chemical properties of coffee?
37:00 Summary and conclusions
42:30 Outro