#81 | The Science of Coffee Freshness | Samo Smrke, Expo Lectures 2019

Specialty Coffee Association Podcast

Coffee freshness is one of the core values of specialty coffee. But why is preserving the freshness so important? We might strive to maximize coffee’s potential to keep its vibrancy as fresh as the day when roasted or we keep coffee fresh to ensure quality and consistency. Regardless of why we may want to keep coffee fresh, understanding the fundamentals of freshness and applying them in our daily routine will help to improve our cup of coffee.

In this lecture, Samo Smrke explores the topics of roasted coffee freshness as seen by a scientist’s perspective. Two particular fields will be looked into detail: chemical freshness or loss of coffee aroma during coffee aging, and physical freshness or degassing (also called outgassing) of coffee, a process of gradual gas release after coffee roasting. If you’re already familiar with Samo’s work, you’ll be excited to learn that today’s lecture includes his newest findings that haven’t yet been presented.

Samo Smrke is a scientific associate at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in the group of Professor Chahan Yeretzian. He is involved in research projects in collaboration with industry partners and in fundamental research on various topics of coffee chemistry, research of coffee aroma using mass spectrometry, on-line monitoring coffee roasting processes, linking instrumental analysis of coffee aroma to sensory analysis, studying coffee freshness and degassing of coffee. Samo is actively participating at coffee conferences, is one of the co-authors of the SCA Freshness Handbook and Water Handbook, and has contributed to scientific papers and book chapters about coffee science.

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 of this episode 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

3:15 The Main Causes for Coffee Losing Freshness
9:45 Scientific Approaches to Measuring Coffee’s Physical Freshness
31:45 Scientific approaches to measuring coffee’s chemical freshness
44:40 Linking physical and chemical freshness and the impact on the sensory experience
54:30 Audience questions
1:02:30 Outro

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