How do you like your coffee? Hot? Cold? or Laser-extracted?
Researchers from Germany developed a laser-powered extraction technology that can produce cold brew coffee nearly 300 times faster than conventional extracting methods. This could pave the way for a new kind of coffee we could drink more often in the future!
How The Laser Coffee Was Made
A chemistry research team from the Universitat Duisberg Essen (UDE) in Germany has created and successfully tested a lightning-fast, laser-charged cold-brew method that can produce the flavor of a cold-brew beverage in only a few minutes, as reported first by New Atlas.
The technology is taken from the field of laser synthesis and processing of colloids (LSPC), which uses a laser beam to vaporize metal solids in solvent solutions and produce suspensions of nanoparticles.
The team produced 125-picojoule pulses lasting only 10 picoseconds using a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd: YAG) laser set to the 532 nm range.
For three minutes, they pumped it through a coffee-and-water solution at 80,000 times per second without boosting the temperature by more than a few degrees.
The outcome was filtered before being compared to a hot drip-filter coffee and a 24-hour cold brew. The acidity of the laser coffee was surprisingly lower than that of the hot coffee and nearly identical to that of the 24-hour cold brew!
In terms of aroma, cold-brew coffee had the highest concentration, hot-brew coffee had the lowest, and laser coffee had a midrange level.
This means that laser coffee could be the future morning best friend we all need since it has lower acidity and is fairly aromatic!
At the same time, no ingredients were discovered in the laser coffee that wasn't also present in the hot or cold brews.
But the million dollar question arises, is laser caffeinated enough to keep you going through the whole day?
Caffeine Levels
According to the study, caffeine levels were closer to that of hot coffee, but the researchers point out that the laser method rapidly extracts caffeine and that both caffeine and trigonelline levels could be comparable to a cold brew with a few extra minutes under the laser.
Only the cold-brew and laser-brew contained volatile aromatic chemicals like pyridine and diphenol, which evaporate during the brewing process and steam a tempting hot-brew aroma, as noted by New Atlas.
"The cold brew and the ps-laser-brew show the highest alkaloids' concentration, while their amount in the hot variants is decreased ... The chemical composition of ps-laser-extracted coffee is very similar to conventional cold-brew coffee," the researchers wrote in their study.
The team is now set on commercializing the technology. They are now focused on creating laser-extracted coffee systems that we might enjoy someday in cafes, stores, or even homes.
According to the study's lead author Dr. Anna Rosa Ziefuss, laser-extracted coffee is only the "beginning". The team will soon employ the method on tea and matcha.
One day, we might just find ourselves at Starbucks ordering a venti-sized laser coffee!
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
