Researchers devise coffee machine that can tell good coffee from bad
By Donald Melanson 
posted Feb 13th 2008 1:55PM
posted Feb 13th 2008 1:55PM
It looks like coffee technology could be about to take another leap forward, with Nestle researchers now touting that they've devised a machine that can tell the difference between good coffee and bad coffee -- espresso, in particular. Apparently, the machine has "nearly" the taste accuracy of a panel of trained espresso tasters, who, if this machine is any indication, may soon have to kiss their envious job goodbye (like so many others that have been forced to confront the cold hard reality of the machines taking over). While there's apparently still quite a bit of work to be done on the coffee tasting machine, Nestle eventually sees it being used as a quality control device for the entire coffee industry.
[Via Single Serve Coffee]
[Via Single Serve Coffee]
Starbucks should give these a try...
I was going to add that the title should include:
;Starbucks trembles.
I heard yesterday on NPR that Starbucks is closing later this month for 3 hrs to go over the "basics" of coffee making. I believe it's a Tuesday from 5.30 until 8.30.
They're trying to return to core principals (maybe not quite so many CDs for sale).
Maybe this machine will keep them on track in the future.
I'll stick to my Saeco.
I always lose the spring in my step when I'm talking to an otherwise well adjusted person who starts gettin' all gushy about Starfucks without the conversation even coming up. I'll betcha the only thing they've ever had was diner/work coffee. I betcha. That's like saying the Ford Festiva roXors because it's technically not a go-cart.
oh but hey, at least Starpukes' wifi is almost as free as, oh, every other coffee joint anywhere. oh well, at least you can buy DRM music there.
In addition the the training, they should maybe buy better beans and roast them properly instead of turning them into charcoal. Not all beans are created equal, and not all beans support a super dark roasting. Starbucks beans are so over roasted that it doesn't really matter what the origin of the bean is, because all you can taste is the roast... For example, a lot of Ethiopian coffee tastes much better with a mild city roast. Yeah, I'm a coffee snob...
hey fahnboi so you ever shut up?? You sound like a complete ass.
interesting.. looks like To:Hell / warriorz (nice name) entire post history of two is flaming me. so some troll (yeah i guess i have a bad habit of feeding the trolls) invented another engadget account for the sole purpose of slandering me. my guess is it's Markus.
CraigJ:
If you were really a coffee snob then you'd know that terms like "city roast" are meaningless.
Starbucks buys different types of beans from all over the world, though they do not buy the cheap Vietnamese stuff like you see in supermarket coffee. You can see when you order a regular coffee at Starbucks that they serve a different type of coffee pretty much every day, and you can look yourself to see where the beans for that type came from. "House blend" at Starbucks is not a product; it just means you get whatever they choose to serve that day. You're never getting the same coffee. (You're not even necessarily getting a blend.)
Starbucks roasts their beans to a level that's common to most of the world. American coffee is usually roasted very lightly - way towards the green end of the scale. Most of the world thinks pretty derisively of us for this - in Japan, they even sell "American coffee" which is just weaker and lighter than regular coffee. Starbucks can probably be credited with at least introducing Americans to what coffee is actually supposed to taste like.
I'm not saying Starbucks coffee is the best. I personally go to independent coffee shops near me that are better sometimes (though they're not as convenient, so I do go to Starbucks most days). Some of these places roast their beans even darker than Starbucks does, and their beans are no better - anyone ever try Porto Rico in NYC?
What I am saying is that most of the criticism people level against Starbucks is misguided. Starbucks does not "burn" their beans - they roast them the way everybody else in the world outside of America does. If people want to criticize them, at least do so comparing them to other good coffee shops, not the weak Vietnamese crap you get at your local diner that you only like because you're used to it.
@Jeff.
"If you were really a coffee snob then you'd know that terms like "city roast" are meaningless."
How is city roast a meaningless term? "city roast" refers to the a level of color the bean acquires during roasting. other terms include French, Viennese, etc... City roast, is also referred to as American roast. I get my beans from a small roaster that roasts beans in small batches and applies the appropriate roast to the specific bean, and uses a spectrometer of some sort to measure specific levels and rations of various compounds in the coffee during roasting. Very high quality, and unfortunately, very expensive. My weekly pound of beans costs between $15 and $25, but for that I get absolutely delicious coffee, that has been roasted the same day...
"Starbucks buys different types of beans from all over the world, though they do not buy the cheap Vietnamese stuff like you see in supermarket coffee. You can see when you order a regular coffee at Starbucks that they serve a different type of coffee pretty much every day, and you can look yourself to see where the beans for that type came from. "House blend" at Starbucks is not a product; it just means you get whatever they choose to serve that day. You're never getting the same coffee. (You're not even necessarily getting a blend.)"
Uh, Duh? What does that have to do with anything in my comment?
"Starbucks roasts their beans to a level that's common to most of the world. American coffee is usually roasted very lightly - way towards the green end of the scale. Most of the world thinks pretty derisively of us for this - in Japan, they even sell "American coffee" which is just weaker and lighter than regular coffee. Starbucks can probably be credited with at least introducing Americans to what coffee is actually supposed to taste like."
That's the point, they seem to roast all of their beans to the same level, somewhere around a French roast. The further point is, that some beans taste better with a lighter roast. My personal favorites are Yirgacheffe, and Misty Valley varieties. the Misty Valley beans in particular have a very fruity flavor that is ruined by a French roast. For these beans a Full City roast (or city+, or regular, or American if you prefer) yields a better cup of coffee. On the other hand, I particularly like some Mexican coffees, which seem to be the best with a Vienna roast which compliments the earthy, chocolaty flavors of the bean. Again, this is my point: appropriate roast for the bean.
"I'm not saying Starbucks coffee is the best. I personally go to independent coffee shops near me that are better sometimes (though they're not as convenient, so I do go to Starbucks most days). Some of these places roast their beans even darker than Starbucks does, and their beans are no better - anyone ever try Porto Rico in NYC?"
Just because a coffee place is "independent" doesn't mean they are any better or worse than Starbucks...
"What I am saying is that most of the criticism people level against Starbucks is misguided. Starbucks does not "burn" their beans - they roast them the way everybody else in the world outside of America does. If people want to criticize them, at least do so comparing them to other good coffee shops, not the weak Vietnamese crap you get at your local diner that you only like because you're used to it."
If by "roast them the way everybody else in the world" you mean they indiscriminately apply very dark roast to all their beans regardless of the character of the specific bean, then I guess you are correct...
At last!
I can almost guarantee that these machines will say the Nestle coffee is the best and everything else sucks.
Really? What gives you that idea?
The Nespresso is supposed to be a very good quality coffee, but recycling the aluminum pods (in the US) is a real pain. In Switzerland, apparently, you can drop them off somewhere, but not most places.
Of course, as with any other technology like this, it'll take a long time before people take the word of a machine rather than that of a person, especially since you can only go so far saying what coffee is good coffee. People who are used to cheap coffee that tastes like death might not like Monsooned Malabar, for example, just because it's not bitter as hell and it doesn't rot your insides.
Of course, it wouldn't help Starbucks much since their problem (at least in the UK) isn't that the coffee is technically BAD, it's just a nothing-coffee. It's just bland enough to not offend as many tastebuds as possible. Get a cappuccino there and it tastes like... well, warm milk with some coffee flavouring.
Does Starbucks make espresso ? ... I don't what you call that stuff. Thank god for the independent coffee shops of N America.
i second that. kinda makes me sad; for example i really really like peet's coffee but am yet to have an even tolerable espresso there
Will it help the Heart of Gold understand what makes a good cup of tea?
Almost, but not quite exactly.
Beautiful HG2G ref! +1 for you.
...completely unlike tea
Great...this will be just like with Inkjet cartridges that have the expiration date embedded into them. If you don't use them within a certain amount of time - they go bad. Sorry. This coffe is out of date. Please purchase a fresh bag of Java at your neighbourhood store.
Because we all know how much good coffee Nestle makes :(
Can I get one of these for my work break room...
I like coffee flavored coffee. Almost impossible to get nowdays, and when you find it, it tastes like dung. So I for one welcome our new coffee tasting machine overlords.
Has cancer been cured yet?
Yeah it sucks that those super genius doctors and researcers at NESTLE have wasted their time researching this when they should be curing cancer. I'm sure they'll get right on that.
Yes, almost, thanks to coffee:
http://www.voanews.com/lao/archive/2005-11/2005-11-19-voa2.cfm
Actually, there is a possibility that Superevil's comment was actually in reference to Denis Leary's "No Cure for Cancer" which featured a rant on coffee-flavored coffee. I don't know if Argot also commented in reference to Leary when he mentioned coffee-flavored coffee but I couldn't ignore the coincidence.
I laughed so hard I cried and couldn't breathe the first time I saw "No Cure for Cancer".
I think you mean "enviable," not "envious".
Interesting that anyone (or anything) claims to be able to judge 'good' coffee, when it's such a subjective experience. A few years back I talked my mother into trying an espresso at a very good coffee bar (not starbucks or peets), and, she got physically sick after drinking it. But mine was good (or even excellent). Like trying to identify good music, or a good painting. Must be a slow news week despite the activities in Barcelona ...
just because something is measured subjectively doesn't mean that it's purely un-objective. i can't put giraffe feces in my coffee mug and claim it to be l33t.
Note that they don't say the machine can tell you if its good or bad coffee it can only be used to identify specific tastes and aromas in the coffee.
coffee tasting cannot be left to a machine. Unless it has the emotion chip.
a new job for Data when he retires!
I work with with mass spectrometers and PTR-MS is a new and expensive methods of MS. . The MS type I use are two CID (collision induced dissociation) MS which is a older tech than PTR and one costs $200,000 and the newer one costs $350,000. Granted these are research grade machines but this thing is going to be damn expensive.
The guy that runs the Coffee Roastery in Scottsdale is an Organic Chemist, or some such, and uses some sort of spectrometer (not sure exactly what) and over time has developed a method for roasting beans based on the presence of specific compounds in specific ratios. I don't know exactly what he does, but it is the best damn coffee I've ever tasted. http://www.arizonareviews.com/thevillagecoffeeroastery.htm
How does it know what kind of coffee I like?
Wow it's actually a wife from the 30's. As for taste, maybe it could use some of those analytical skills to look at a home-brewed cup.
I want jew balls to reply to my comments irrelevantly.
The problem with Starbucks (hence the reason someone thought this machine was needed) is that its coffee sucks. Why does its coffee suck? Its not due to Starbucks, its due to their consumers.
People who shopped at Starbucks twenty years ago went their for the appreciation of the bean. Ten years ago yuppies thought it was cool, today its the place where everyone, including uber-fat women wearing clothes too small for them, to go get glorified chocolate milk. Everyone adds loads of honey or ginger or cinnamon, which originally was just added in a dash to give a little bit more flavor to the finish of a drink.
I only buy coffee at a place where the Barista can tell me about the beans used and the process of making coffee. If I go in and they say "whats a Barista?" I leave.
Starbucks has become a fast food joint, and hence, isn't worth its name anymore. Hencemore, this machine.
You do realize you can still go in and order a plain old regular coffee at Starbucks and then look on the bag and read all about where the beans came from and what type they are, right?
Oh, and you don't have to add any milk, cream or sugar if you don't want to.
This device won't tell you if the coffee is good. It will, however, quantify the chemical signature of a pre-determined 'good' coffee for later comparison. So, when one of you coffee afficianados walks into a coffe bar and says "thy coffee doth suck", they can test it against the ideal for that blend, and tell you, "no, verily, thy taste buds doth suck".
Of course, this also means they can finally tune the protein synth to spit out brew that tastes like coffe rather than TasteeWheat.
does it come with a 'pretentious' meter?
"You think that's good coffee? You've obviously never had hand-picked Honduran roasted over a Hawaiian volcano and strained in the purest unicorn tears. Moron."
http://www.tagsum.com/news/10349/Researchers-devise-coffee-machine-that-can-tell-good-coffee-from-bad
My Italian grandmother rolls eyes.
I better check a cup of Tim Hortons coffee on this.
SUBJECTIVE, MICHAEL? NO. THE TASTE OF COFFEE IS ONLY SUBJECTIVE IF YOU SAY YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. KNOWING THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ORIGINS AND JUDGING THE QUALITY IS BOTH AN ART AND A SKILL, WITH TONS OF KNOWLEDGE THAT THE MACHINE WILL MOST LIKELY NOT GET DUE TO THE FACT IT CANNOT PREDICT WHAT ORIGINS WILL BLEND TOGETHER TO MAKE THE FINISHED PRODUCT UNIQUE, CONSISTENT AND OF COURSE, DESIRABLE....NOT TO MENTION AFFORDABLE.
The industry uses a spectormeter prevalently called AGTRON for roasting consistency. Neuhaus Neotec also makes a fine spectrometer as well. BUT THEY ONLY MEASURE ROAST COLOR.
JEFF, CHARBUX ROASTS DARKER THAN MOST. SCANDANAVIA DOMINATES, ALONG WITH FRANCE TO PRODUCE "EUROPEAN" COFFEE AND THEIR ROASTS ARE FAR LIGHTER. I DONT KNOW WHERE YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION ABOUT THE MAKEUP OF BLENDS, BUT THEY ARE TELLING YOU LIES. ...AND VIETNAMESE COFFEES ARE 99% ROBUSTA, THEREFORE NOT "WEAK", BUT EXTREMELY ACIDIC. THATS WHY FOLGERS AND MAXWELL HOUSE STEAM THEM TO MAKE THEM MORE PALATABLE, AS THE COFFEE MARKET TRADES ROBUSTAS AT .40 PER LB LOWER THAN STANDARD ARABICAS.
YOU WANT GOOD COFFEE? Check these guys out.....They roast for Cruise Lines, REstaurants and Hotels. I had their coffee on a Norwegian Cruise Line trip and even had one in a great Italian restaurant in Manhattan........I saw them again on Continental Airlines and they even won the Gold Medal as Besi Brew in the USA..and they're from TEXAS ! ! ? ? ?
www.freshbrewgroup.com
I can't get over how so many people seem to think that they qualify to tell me what I like and don't like, or what I should think is good and what isn't? I personally, have tried Starstucks several times, and have yet to finish one cup of their bland, overrated brown tinted stuff. And for the price, I can afford to have my own coffee maker, brew it, enjoy it black, and save the car gas for more entertaining exploits.
Bottom line: Sometimes you get a good cup of coffee and unfortunately at times you get a bad cup of coffee no matter what coffee shop you go to.... anywhere in the world! But my personal experience with Starbucks is that there are certain employees that really know how to make a good product and some just don't get it at all and shouldn't be behind the counter. I hope their efforts improve the quality of every cup that is handed out! I personally, am looking forward to see if their efforts really make a difference. Good Luck.
Love your post Denny. Finally someone who seems reasonable and not so judgmental.
Hey Jeff - it is obvious you know nothing about coffee. Starpuke buys the lowest grades possible and if they ever knew anything about roasting, they forget what little they knew. First of all it is not a Specialy Coffee Shop. It is all about marketing and it did well at that. It convinced the "I like the BEST" crowd pay high prices for low quality coffee. Now it serves coffee drinks from push a button vending machine.
If you really want GREAT Coffee, look for a Specialty Coffee place that tells you what you are REALLY drinking and says it with PRIDE. A Café that supports Fairtrade Organic coffee growers. Starpuk may have ONE fairtrade coffee in ONE shop out hundreds and says it supports Fairtrade.
It is all BS marketing.
What snobs you all are. A lot of us have tasted coffee from many different places and actually like Starbucks the best. I am not fat and I do not drink frappuchinos. Forgive them for making a buck. It is called the free market. They are good to the kids who work there and seem to be a pretty reputable company. I like it, so sue me!
Damn, people need to get off their lazy asses and make their own coffee.
All,
Since I have been making my own cappucino and espresso every day for 15 years I am wondering why so few people get the clue and do the same. I saved about $15,000 and did not have to stand in line...
does it come with a 'pretentious' meter?
"You think that's good coffee? You've obviously never had hand-picked Honduran roasted over a Hawaiian volcano and strained in the purest unicorn tears. Moron."
i'll keep my tranquilizer dart ready. get a high and low at once...
"This device won't tell you if the coffee is good. It will, however, quantify the chemical signature of a pre-determined 'good' coffee for later comparison. So, when one of you coffee afficianados walks into a coffe bar and says "thy coffee doth suck", they can test it against the ideal for that blend, and tell you, "no, verily, thy taste buds doth suck".
the other height of hilarity... too amazing...
Yes indeed a new way of making a bland coffee to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Just like Budwieser a bland beer that appeals to a large market of shall we dare say uneducated people in the ways of world tastes. What Nestles wahts to do is make every cup taste the same no matter who brews it or what compnay sells the bean.
Mediocrity and corporate blandness will be the rule of the land.
Coffeee is a stple beverage and is brewed in many ways around the world to try and make it taste the same everyu where is a detestable goal it will elimanate regional and cultural tastes and tradtions and make it one more bland product of a dismal corporate run world.
Finally an idea who's time has come!