[abujazar]

And this is why you can't use "100 regular coffee drinkers" to judge the quality of the brewing method. Most people can't even taste (or care about) the difference between arabica and robusta beans or whether it's red or white wine.

[tjcvirage]

Sure you can. You can absolutely use those 100 participants if your aim is to develop and market a process that can then be used to make a product for those same types of people. Samples generalise if your sample is representative, and in this case, for large commercial coffee extraction companies, third wave coffee aficionados are not in their target audience.

[abujazar]

The product is moving into a different territory, though. I doubt these guys even know how to pull a proper espresso shot as a baseline for the test. I'm sure you can grind espresso coffee beans to a powder and just shake it until it achieves a flavor similar to espresso, but that doesn't mean the resulting drink can really compare to something that was brewed at the right temperature and pressure.

Technically you can also buy a bottle of grape juice from the grocery store, let it sit on the kitchen sink with a yeast lock for a few weeks and call it wine, and technically it even is, but it's also going to taste quite shitty.

[klausa]

> I doubt these guys even know how to pull a proper espresso shot as a baseline for the test.

You could just read the linked paper?

> Esp was prepared using a Sanremo Cube espresso machine. Brewing parameters were standardised following the supplier's guidelines: extraction time of 35 ± 3 s, pressure of 9 bar, and boiler temperature of 122 °C, with the corresponding group-head temperature of 94 ± 1 °C. A total of 21 g of ground coffee (GS = 2.6 ± 0.1; ∼262 μm) was placed in a ridged coffee basket and tamped using a constant-pressure tamper (MHW Flash Constant Pressure Tamper 2), applying 13.6 kg of force. The BR was reduced from 2 to 1.7 following the recommendations of the coffee roaster for better flavour (1 g of coffee grounds yielding 1.7 g of coffee brew).

1:1.7 is a bit short for my preferences (I like longer shots, usually aim for ~2.5); but otherwise that sure sounds like a pretty good double to me!

[abujazar]

You're right. But I drink my espresso hot, so I don't quite see how it can compare : )

[hultner]

I jumped on this at first as well. But to be honest if their target demographic is industrial production of coffee like beverages (like those Star Bucks soda can ”coffees”), well then it might not be so bad. I was thinking that a lot of flavour compounds of espresso breaks down quite rapidly while the drink cools, so the method of cooling all drinks to equal temperatures could be enough to skew the results regardless, but again for commercial coffee based soft drinks this is already the case. Headline is a bit misleading though.

[kzrdude]

I like good quality coffee.

But I also need my coffee: I'll drink whatever quality coffee is being offered, as long as it's the best I can get that morning.

[jemmyw]

Wine ruins the taste of coffee regardless of colour