{"id":32232,"date":"2022-09-30T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/?p=32232"},"modified":"2022-09-29T19:09:59","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T00:09:59","slug":"can-lasers-change-the-way-we-make-cold-brew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/can-lasers-change-the-way-we-make-cold-brew\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Lasers Change The Way We Make Cold Brew?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Everybody loves lasers. This is a statement of fact, corroborated by a long-running Saturday Night Live sketch<\/a> and countless movies and television shows. James Bond\u2019s nemesis Goldfinger<\/a> and his Austin Powers-equivalent Dr. Evil<\/a> use lasers nefariously, while on Star Trek, the Federation utilizes them for an array<\/a> of beneficial purposes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the antics of supervillains and sketch comedians, lasers have also proven incredibly useful. From the mundane (think printers and barcode scanners) to the extraordinary and innovative (laser eye surgery, fiber optic cables\u2014lasers were even used to discover the gravitational waves between two black holes<\/a> in 2015), lasers have changed the way we operate. Can they change the way we make cold brew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Fiction to Fact<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Many modern applications of laser technology\u2014or any technology\u2014involve doing things faster. Likewise, many of the technologies we use in the real world started as whimsical ideas, existing only in the fictional world. There\u2019s no better example of this than Star Trek<\/em>: everyone has a communicator<\/a>\u2014er cell phone\u2014in their pocket. Those communicators even contain pretty remarkable universal translator<\/a> apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 90s\u2019 a scientist was granted a patent for a \u2018phaser\u2019<\/a>\u2014Star Trek\u2019s version of a raygun. While not on the same level of sophistication as its Star Trek equivalents, directed-energy weapons ranging from small arms to ship-mounted cannons, Hans Eric Herr\u2019s invention used lasers to generate strong beams of ultraviolet light, enough to stun or kill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re still waiting on a few sci-fi gadgets to become viable: warp speed<\/a> might take a century or two to perfect, and if you\u2019ve seen The Fly<\/em><\/a>, you\u2019ll know how transporters worked out for Jeff Goldblum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, of course, we continue to wait for the on-demand meal creation of the replicator<\/a>. In the meantime, scientists in Germany have set their lasers to \u2018extract\u2019 to develop a cold brewing process that is upwards of 300 times faster than traditional brewing methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cold Brew: The Final Frontier<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Cold brew\u2014coarse-ground coffee steeped in cold water then filtered\u2014is notoriously slow to make, generally needing a steep time of between 16 and 20 hours. Aside from the basic sci-fi coolness of drinks brewed with lasers, this experiment could herald a new age of cold brew convenience and made-to-order coffee concoctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea to experiment with lasers and coffee came to Dr. Anna Rosa Ziefu\u00df, a scientist in the technical chemistry department of the University of Duisburg-Essen<\/a> (UDE), as part of an ideas competition put on by working group chair Professor Stephan Barcikowski. Previously, Dr. Ziefu\u00df\u2019s work had focused on the interaction between laser light and inorganic materials such as gold. Still, Prof. Barcikowski encouraged the team to think beyond their own research to new applications of ultra-short pulsed lasers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other inspiration came from less academic quarters. It was the television show \u2018The Big Bang Theory,\u2019 in which, Ziefu\u00df says, \u201cthe actors irradiate everything possible with a laser,\u201d that  prompted her research. \u201cWhy not try this with coffee powder?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team at UDE used one of the lab\u2019s ultrashort-pulsed lasers to zap ground coffee suspended in water 80,000 times per second for three minutes, extracting caffeine and other flavor compounds before straining it through a regular paper coffee filter. Because the process never raised the temperature of the liquid more than a few degrees, the resulting beverage can best be described as cold brew. In the paper, published in the journal Nature<\/em><\/a>, the researchers deliciously describe the brew as a \u201cbrownish-colored suspension, strongly reminiscent of a freshly brewed coffee even after filtration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warp Speed Cold Brew<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The researchers used a light-roasted Costa Rican coffee from Essen-based Coffee Pirates<\/a>, rested for ten days and coarsely ground. Ziefu\u00df says that the team relied less on personal preference and more on hard data when analyzing the finished brew. \u201cAs taste differs between humans, scientists will always refer to measurements,\u201d she explained. \u201cTherefore, we analyzed the liquid phase (the final liquid coffee) and the head-space (the vapor after heat treatment) of the laser coffee and the traditional cold-brew variant. Within our data, we found no significant differences between the composition of both.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the standard-issue cold brew and the futuristic sci-fi laser coffee tasted basically the same. A coffee brewed with lasers in three minutes harkened the same sensation and flavors as cold brew steeped for 24 hours\u2014and the lasers did it 300 times faster.  Imagine if your hurriedly microwaved leftovers the next day tasted as good as when you were eating the carefully prepared, lovingly presented meal the night before (now that\u2019s <\/em>science fiction).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To analyze the final product, researchers compared the laser brew against the standard cold brew, along with a regular hot-brewed coffee. The researchers found the laser brew\u2019s acidity comparable to cold brew, but lower than the hot-brewed coffee. Caffeine content, meanwhile, was 25 milligrams per 100 milliliters, less than the cold brew and closer to the hot-brewed coffee\u2014an added bonus for those of us for whom cold brew is too caffeinated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside colleague Tina Friedenauer, Dr. Ziefu\u00df is exploring the commercial possibilities of this speedy cold brew. Naming the project LEoPARD, an acronym for \u2018Laser-based Extraction Offers Pure and Advanced Refreshment Drinks,\u2019 the colleagues also hope to utilize the ultrafast laser extraction process for other products. \u201cWe want to expand our production from coffee to further aroma compounds (like tea or matcha) in the future,\u201d Ziefu\u00df says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science fiction is always brewing up new ideas, which inspires scientists to attempt to bring those ideas into reality. In the near future, you might be able to walk into your local coffee shop and order a cold brew\u2014or even a \u201ctea, Earl Grey, hot<\/a>\u201d\u2014and watch as your beverage is made in front of your eyes using lasers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lasers are objectively awesome. But they might also help us make cold brew in a zap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1173,"featured_media":32322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"beyondwords_generate_audio":"","beyondwords_project_id":"","beyondwords_content_id":"","beyondwords_player_style":"","beyondwords_language_id":"","beyondwords_title_voice_id":"","beyondwords_body_voice_id":"","beyondwords_summary_voice_id":"","beyondwords_error_message":"","beyondwords_disabled":"","beyondwords_podcast_id":"","beyondwords_hash":"","publish_post_to_speechkit":"","speechkit_hash":"","speechkit_generate_audio":"","speechkit_project_id":"","speechkit_podcast_id":"","speechkit_error_message":"","speechkit_disabled":"","speechkit_access_key":"","speechkit_error":"","speechkit_info":"","speechkit_response":"","speechkit_retries":"","speechkit_updated_at":"","_speechkit_link":"","_speechkit_text":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCan Lasers Change The Way We Make Cold Brew? - Fresh Cup Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/freshcup.com\/can-lasers-change-the-way-we-make-cold-brew\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can Lasers Change The Way We Make Cold Brew?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lasers are objectively awesome. 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