![]() For $64, customers can buy 32 pucks, picking from a list of specialty coffee roasters. After use, the capsules can go into the curbside recycling bin. The pucks are then shipped to the customer in aluminum capsules that look like Nespresso pods. They then brew the coffee into a liquid extract which is flash-frozen in nitrogen at minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit to lock in the flavors. The beans are then precisely ground into uniform particles that optimize flavor and aroma. Freshly roasted coffee beans arrive at the Cometeer factory in Massachusetts from roasters around the country. Under the company’s CTO, the team invented machinery that grinds, brews, freezes, and packages the coffee into pucks. Roberts hired a team of scientists and brought on Howell as an adviser. “We’re a platform that allows independent farmers and roasters to share their craft, by unlocking the full flavor of the coffee.” “We’re a technology company in the coffee industry,” he says. He believes that other methods, like dehydrating it or bottling it, would result in the loss of some flavor compounds. ![]() As he explored the chemistry of coffee, he decided the best way to preserve the complexity of flavor is by flash-freezing, which refers to quickly freezing something at an extremely cold temperature, much like the fruit in the freezer section that is frozen at peak freshness. For the past five years, he has been focused on building the machinery that will transform roasted beans into pucks. It may seem like an odd background for a coffee entrepreneur, but it’s actually pretty useful. Trained as a computer scientist, Roberts started his career working at a software firm. But once you begin to appreciate the flavors contained in the bean, many people want to drink it black.” “Milk and sugar often mask the flavor of the coffee. “It’s often a revelation when someone really tastes good coffee for the first time,” says George Howell, one of the country’s best-known specialty roasters and an adviser to Cometeer. For the first time, I was able to taste different notes, like a fruitier flavor in one and an almond flavor in another. But I decided to do a taste test over the weekend, testing three different roasts from Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, George Howell, and Equator, all of which had been frozen into Cometeer’s pucks. To be perfectly honest, I tend to treat my morning coffee as a vehicle for caffeine and coconut milk creamer, too. Until I got into coffee, I thought it was just a bitter base for my cream and sugar.” “But a lot of those compounds don’t actually make it into the consumer’s cup. “The best coffee has more flavor compounds than the best glass of wine,” says Matthew Roberts, co-founder and CEO, who began building Cometeer five years ago. Cometeer aims to deliver coffee that has already been precisely ground and brewed, then flash frozen to preserve the perfect taste and aroma. There are dozens of specialty coffee roasters all over the country that carefully source beans and roast them to highlight their flavor: An experienced barista knows how to grind the beans to the correct fineness, then adjust the temperature of the water to extract the right flavors, techniques that may go over the head of the average coffee drinker. Cometeer is the newest company in the booming craft coffee industry, which is estimated to be worth $85 billion in five years.
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