17 Sep 2015 Now what about fermented coffee?

Coffee’s already quite popular – how are you improving it?

We’re not rewriting coffee, we’re shining a new light on it. People are starting to look for coffee that’s not just bringing the morning buzz, but interesting in terms of flavour. At the moment, the coffee industry only has two tools to control the flavour: choosing the beans, and roasting. So fermentation is a really powerful third tool.

How does it work?

We do our fermentations directly on the processed green beans. We slightly humidify them, and sprinkle them with the bacterial strain, either as a fluid or a powder. After fermentation we do a roasting right away, which sterilises everything and removes the microbes, but the chemical changes remain.

How do the bacteria affect the flavour?

It’s not the bacteria themselves that confer the flavour; the bacteria produce enzymes that induce specific chemical reactions within the beans. We’re focusing on lowering bitterness and astringency, and we know specifically which molecules are responsible for which flavours. Trigonelline, for instance, causes bitterness.

But isn’t coffee supposed to be bitter?

If you look at market surveys, bitterness is the number one taste that people dislike the most in coffee. Also, bitterness tends to overpower the more subtle flavours, so by removing it you allow the more floral and fruity notes to shine.

Did you get the idea from kopi luwak (the expensive and controversial Indonesian coffee made from cherries which have passed through the bowels of a civet)?

Kopi luwak made me realise the potential of fermentation in coffee, but I thought there must be a better way to do it. We use a very controlled process, and we’re not just reducing bitterness, we’re bringing out new flavours, and removing some of the irritant chemicals as well. Caffeine, actually, is one of the irritants – we’re lowering the caffeine by about 15%.

What’s next?

With increased understanding of biology we can do things with microbes that we couldn’t before, so we’re looking at foods beyond just coffee. Fermentation could replace a lot of the artificial flavouring, a lot of the chemicals that have been used in the food industry for the last 40 years, and we can do it naturally and in a better way.

Afineur.com: http://www.afineur.com/

See more here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/camilledelebecque/cultured-coffee-reinventing-coffee/

Related reading:

These Scientists Want to Bring You Civet-Poop Coffee Without the Civets