Chilled coffee beans could result in more flavorful coffee, according to researchers at the University of Bath in England.
Their new study examined bean grinding at different temperatures and found that the colder beans yielded smaller and more uniform coffee grounds,
according to a press release posted online by Science Daily.
"What you're looking for is a grind that has the smallest difference between the smallest and largest particle," said Christopher Hendon, a former chemistry PhD student at the University of Bath who now works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"If you have small grinds you can push flavor extraction upwards. We found that chilling the beans tightens up this process and can give higher extractions with less variance in the flavor — so you would have to brew it for less time, or could get more coffee from the same beans."
Coffee beans at temperatures ranging from room temperature to -196° C were examined in the study, published in the journal Nature.
"All of this will impact on how we prepare coffee in the industry," said Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, co-owner of the Colonna & Smalls coffee shop in Bath that was involved in the study. "I bet we will see the impact of this paper in coffee competitions around the globe, but also in the research and development of new grinding technology for the market place."
This year's World Barista Championships are set for June 22-25 in Dublin, Ireland.
In December, the
U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast record exports and consumption of coffee for the 2015-2016 marketing year.
The price of coffee beans has fluctuated widely in recent years, with arabica nearly doubling in 2014 as drought devastated Brazil's top growers,
Reuters reported. Since then, prices declined, reaching two-year lows in January before edging upward again. In May, average prices were about $1.22 per pound, and J.M. Smucker Co. cut retail prices for its flagship coffees by 6 percent.
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