While cold brew coffee has been in existence since the 1600s in Japan, it never became a popular fixture in the US until about 2013. Lurking more in the underground coffee bars, it was a little-featured beverage, and its lack of popularity suddenly attracted a crowd of hipsters when the temps rose. As the iced coffee drinkers of the summer discovered this strange new concoction, they found the stomach aches they got from real coffee were gone.
The cold brew requires 24 hours to steep so the flavor can be extracted without the bitter taste, and many hate the wait and the process involved. According to Popular Science, researchers with Australia’s University of New South Wales wanted to find a way around the delay and to get their cold brew faster following a different experiment. A drastic change in the brewing sprang forth to them: the use of ultrasonic waves during the brewing process.
Chemical engineering professor Francisco Trujillo is exceptionally excited about this change and considers it the best way to enjoy coffee now. Speaking with New Scientist about the publication of their research in the journal Ultrasonics Sonochemistry, he could not restrain his excitement at their change for the impatient. Working on a different experiment, Trujillo wanted to find out if using acoustic cavitation could make coffee more of an antioxidant.
Using a Breville Dual Boiler BES920 espresso machine outfitted with a Langevin transducer, 38.8 kHz frequency sound waves were targeted at the coffee. While no changes in antioxidants were reported, the coffee’s flavor was remarkably better than without it. Now focusing on the cold brew extensively, the report indicates Trujillo and his fellow researchers started their trial and error on the cold brew.
In the end, they found that a one-minute brew could be achieved with their equipment. While New Scientist pegs the cost for the initial equipment around $10k, Trujillo claims the lack of additional equipment during the experiment kept costs down. This also means it can potentially be replicated at a significantly lower cost. With this new information, now all the post-grad liberals can make their cold brew while they wait to hear about the latest pro-Palestine protest updates.
