The Science of Coffee

So you’ve just taken a sip of a very rare coffee, and flavours of passion fruit explode in your mouth. But here’s the thing: that flavour of passion fruit is not coming from your mouth. It’s not even coming from your nostrils. It’s being picked up behind your eyes! In this first episode of The Science of Coffee's second series, I unravel how our sense of smell and taste works to help you be a bett...

We’re back with another series of The Science of Coffee! Across 10 science stories, narrative audio producer and coffee professional James Harper takes you on a journey into coffee's hidden microscopic secrets. James has spent the last year traveling to Central America, Greece, Norway, Switzerland and interviewing dozens of the world’s leading coffee scientists. This insights will help you appreci...

Imagine you’ve got a cup of coffee in front of you. You haven’t tasted it yet. You therefore don’t know what it tastes like, right? Wrong. Some scientists argue that you actually do know what it will taste like (more or less), and the act of tasting simply confirms what you have already imagined it will taste like. And that’s because a growing body of research is revealing that sight, sound and to...

When was the last time you picked up a cappuccino with a mountain of foam perched on top? Maybe these are the cappuccinos you make every morning at home. I personally really, really dislike them! The foam is cold, raspy, and gets in the way of the actual coffee liquid. How much better would your mornings be if, instead, your cappuccino had that creamy, silky “microfoam” you find in a specialty cof...

A good espresso is a sublime experience: rich, sweet, and wonderfully caffeinated. But, who woke up one morning and thought to themselves, ‘I’m going to build a contraption that forces a tiny amount of super hot water with incredible pressure through a bed of very finely ground coffee’? Well, the fact is, the first “espresso” machine built 150 years ago was awful in almost every way. Worst of all,...

How can you make better coffee at home? Well, an easy way is to buy higher quality beans. But, I’m concerned this is going to get harder and harder for you in the future. Climate change is making coffee taste worse while also pushing farmers into financial hardship. In this episode we explore how genetic development can produce a coffee tree that might save the day. Is there a wild coffee tree hap...

How you brew your coffee dramatically affects what you taste. And I do mean dramatic! Brewing up the same bag of coffee beans can taste like a slice of heaven, or a slap in the face. So, what exactly is happening at a microscopic level when water swirls through coffee grinds? Why does boiling water extract certain flavours, while letting the kettle cool for five minutes make it taste markedly diff...

A newer, updated version of this episode is out — listen here instead ! ----- Water really matters when you’re brewing coffee. Different waters can dramatically change how a single coffee will taste. But what is the right water for the best coffee? In this episode I will give you the answer, but I will first take you back billions of years to tell you the story of a single mineral and how it's res...

The Science of Coffee is a journey into coffee's hidden microscopic secrets to help you make even better coffee at home. Across six episodes, documentary maker and coffee professional James Harper takes you deep into the world of water for coffee, coffee extraction, plant genetics, espresso technology, latte foam and sonic seasoning. Press the Subscribe button so you don't miss future episodes! Th...