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The Science of Coffee

James Harper

34 episodes

The Science of Coffee is a journey into coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets to help you make even better coffee at home.

More about the show

Documentary maker and coffee professional James Harper travels the world and speaks with leading coffee scientists to help you appreciate coffee more deeply.

You are going to get taken into the science of water, coffee extraction, plant genetics, espresso technology, latte foam, sonic seasoning, our sense of taste and smell, organic farming, roasting, grinding and freshness, and how to think like a scientist.

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

Follow James on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O Listen to Filter Stories: https://bit.ly/3ajoT5

Episodes

  1. Coffee Quality, Part 3: When the “quality” myth hits the farm

    · 30 min · S3 E15

    For twenty years, the 2004 cupping form profoundly shaped the specialty coffee world. But on the hillsides of coffee farms, some of the form’s byproducts have been disadvantaging producers. In this episode, we follow…

  2. Coffee Quality, Part 2: How “quality” became a myth

    · 26 min · S3 E14

    If you ask two specialty professionals what makes a high-quality coffee, you’ll likely get a surprisingly consistent answer: clean, sweet, juicy, bright. To an outsider, they would be forgiven for thinking coffee…

  3. Coffee Quality, Part 1: The birth of specialty coffee flavours

    · 24 min · S3 E13

    For the longest time, coffees were dull and bitter. But then a small group of pioneers changed the world. In this episode, we travel back to the 1960s and ’70s to meet the trailblazers who realised coffees could taste…

  4. How specialty coffee woke up to water’s role in flavour

    · 26 min · S3 E12

    For the longest time, the coffee community only cared about water’s impact ruining espresso machine boilers and kettles. But what about water’s impact on coffee flavour? In this episode, I tell the story of how the…

  5. The two ingredients in water that ruin your coffee, and the ancient story behind them

    · 39 min · S3 E11

    550 million years ago, earth was perfect. We had perfect water for coffee AND we were living in a vegetarian paradise! But then Earth changed—violently. The planet shifted from a peaceful, plant-eating paradise to a…

  6. Getting great water for coffee, step-by-step. Part 2: How to measure and treat your water

    · 43 min · S3 E10

    Water massively impacts your coffee’s flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing… …until now! In this special collaboration with Lucia Solis (Making Coffee podcast), I guide…

  7. Getting great water for coffee, step-by-step. Part 1: Alkalinity, hardness and why it matters

    · 26 min · S3 E9

    Water massively impacts your coffee’s flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing… …until now! In this special collaboration with Lucia Solis (Making Coffee podcast), I guide…

  8. Farm to port: why specialty costs more

    · 54 min · S3 E8

    Every time we open a bag of beautiful specialty coffee — like Erick Bravo’s from Finca El Chaferote in Huila, Colombia — we’re drinking something that’s been on a long journey. And I mean long! Over 1500 kilometers…

  9. Why one Colombian farmer chose specialty, and the other walked away

    · 47 min · S3 E7

    I travel to Colombia’s Huila region to answer a question that’s puzzled me for years: if specialty coffee pays more, is better for the environment, and brews tastier cups—why don’t more farmers grow it? I speak with…

  10. The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 2

    · 39 min · S3 E6

    Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way. But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a…

  11. The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 1

    · 29 min · S3 E5

    Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way. But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a…

  12. The Speed of Heat: How to roast more coffee, faster!

    · 52 min · S3 E4

    To roast coffee faster, you need to turn up the heat….right? No! In this episode, we explore the three powerful methods of heat transfer that revolutionised roasting. We’ll journey from humble beginnings—when…

  13. Coffee Roasting: How baby plant food transforms into delicious coffee flavours

    · 48 min · S3 E3

    A mother coffee plant gifts its baby everything it needs to grow—a green seed packed with food. But when we roast coffee, we hijack that gift and turn it into something else: flavor. But what is flavor, at a…

  14. Fruit juice or creamy almonds? Your guide to controlling cold brew flavors

    · 47 min · S3 E2

    When I started making cold brew this last year, I treated it like hot brew filter coffee. But no matter how I adjusted the grind or tweaked the brew time, I hardly got any differences in flavor… Then it hit me: cold…

  15. Hot vs Cold: The science behind temperature and taste

    · 45 min · S3 E1

    For years, I used cold brew as a last resort—the only brew method to tame dark, oily beans that were too bitter for hot water. Then one day, I took a chance on a Guatemalan Gesha and brewed it cold. The result? A…

  16. Introducing: Season 3 of The Science of Coffee

    · 2:03 · Trailer

    We’re back with another series of The Science of Coffee—and this time we’re diving even deeper into coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets! Over the past year, narrative audio producer and coffee professional James…

  17. Freshness and Grinding, Part 2: How grinders work deep inside

    · 47 min · S2 E10

    Deep inside your coffee grinder, tiny changes can have massive consequences. This episode takes you deep inside Mahlkönig’s grinders to show you how coffee is ground and the importance of particle sizes on flavour. If…

  18. Freshness and Grinding, Part 1: Protecting your coffee’s flavours

    · 50 min · S2 E9

    For your coffee to taste its best, it’s crucial you buy fresh roasts and grind fresh.… .….Or maybe not. When I began creating this episode, I was convinced that ‘fresh is best’. But, after delving into the science of…

  19. What Is Good Science? Part 2: How to think like a scientist

    · 47 min · S2 E8

    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…

  20. What Is Good Science? Part 1: How to brew coffee like a scientist

    · 46 min · S2 E7

    Should you rinse your filter paper before making a filter coffee? Almost everybody in coffee internet says you should. But what if most of coffee internet was wrong? In this episode, I show you how I try to answer this…

  21. Organic Coffee, Part 2: Why don’t we see more organic coffee farms?

    · 41 min · S2 E6

    Farming coffee organically is amazing because soils are more alive, birds and insects are more plentiful, farmers avoid getting sick with agrochemicals. But, if it’s so great, why is less than 10% of the world’s coffee…

  22. Organic Coffee, Part 1: The magic of soil

    · 39 min · S2 E5

    The world’s farming soils are deteriorating quickly. Conventional coffee farming where plants are grown using agrochemicals allowed farmers to reap huge harvests these last 70 years. But these agrochemicals have been…

  23. Coffee Roasting, Part 2: Roasting made easy

    · 46 min · S2 E4

    Roasting coffee can be maddening. Just 4° Celsius is enough to make the same green beans taste distinctly different! And there are so many things roasters can play around with: temperature, time, fan speed, drum speed,…

  24. Coffee Roasting, Part 1: How heat transforms coffee beans

    · 38 min · S2 E3

    What flavours do you want from your coffee? Every coffee bean begins its life green. And if you brewed it up without first roasting it, you’d get a yellow-green cup of grass-flavoured water. But, as soon you apply heat…

  25. Smell and Taste, Part 2: Are you and I tasting the same flavours?

    · 39 min · S2 E2

    Ever wonder why you and your friends can taste the same coffee, but you can’t agree on the flavour notes? Join me as I explore this metaphysical mystery! I speak with leading scientists and ask: are the flavour…

  26. Smell and Taste, Part 1: How to be a better coffee taster

    · 45 min · S2 E1

    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…

  27. Introducing: Season 2 of The Science of Coffee

    · 2:17 · Trailer

    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…

  28. 6) Sonic Seasoning

    · 54 min · S1 E6

    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…

  29. 5) Latte Foam

    · 43 min · S1 E5

    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,…

  30. 4) Espresso Technology

    · 43 min · S1 E4

    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…

  31. 3) Plant Genetics

    · 1 h 03 min · S1 E3

    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…

  32. 2) Coffee Extraction

    · 53 min · S1 E2

    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…

  33. 1) Water For Brewing Coffee

    · 1 h 02 min · S1 E1

    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…

  34. Introducing: The Science of Coffee

    · 3:39 · Trailer

    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…

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