Need a QUICK pick me up?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science saying…
Don’t you just love cold brew? It’s iced coffee’s less acidic, less bitter cousin. But, it normally takes over TWELVE hours to make! Is there a FASTER way to get that same great-tasting cold brew?
Anna Ziefuß and team from University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany experimented – WITH LASERS! They pulsed a laser through ground coffee and water for three minutes. Each pulse lasted a picosecond – that’s one TRILLIONTH of a second! These short pulses packed a punch WITHOUT heating up the coffee. Then, they compared their laser-brewed coffee with twenty-four hour cold brew.
Results? The laser-pulsed cold brew had a similar acidity and flavor profile to traditional cold brew… But it extracted caffeine THREE HUNDRED times faster!
This laser coffee machine could be the same size as your average Nespresso or Keurig.
Pew pew pew! Set coffee to STUN! One laser-pulsed cold brew comin’ right up!
Reference: Ziefuß, A. R., Hupfeld, T., Meckelmann, S. W., Meyer, M., Schmitz, O. J., Kaziur-Cegla, W., Tintrop, L. K., Schmidt, T. C., Gökce, B., & Barcikowski, S. (2022). Ultrafast cold-brewing of coffee by picosecond-pulsed laser extraction. Npj Science of Food, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41538-022-00134-6