Coffee shows an appealing bitterness when properly roasted and prepared. But how do the compounds that make coffee taste bitter develop during roasting and how do you analyze and identify them? What lessons can be learned from academic research on coffee roasting to make coffee even more pleasantly bitter-tasting? And after a century of intensive research, why does research still not know exactly what makes coffee bitter at all?

Learn more as Dr. Sara Marquart, curator of the “Cosmos Coffee” exhibition at the Deutsches Museum, shares excerpts of her academic research into bitterness during her Ph.D. at TU Munich in Food Chemistry focused on the highly sophisticated elucidation of reaction pathways and kinetics leading to bitter tastants in roasted coffee. 

Also, I will jump in occasionally to help you follow along. 

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 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 

Episode Table of Contents

0:00 Introduction
2:00 An overview of coffee’s sensory universe
8:15 The different types of bitterness and Sara’s work discovering what bitter compounds are in a cup of coffee
19:15 How to control for bitterness during roasting
24:30 Audience Questions