Good for the Heart

How I got into (The Other) Java

In the spring of 2025, I took a class where I learned all about the roasting and brewing of coffee, including several topics that helped me learn about basic concepts in Chemical Engineering.

One of my favorite concepts from the class included reverse engineering a pot of coffee. In the class, the students all had an end of the year Coffee Competition, where we brewed a pot of coffee for our peers and special judges to determine a winner. We had to use beans that were roasted a week before the competition, so a big part of the class was learning how to know how many unroasted beans, roasted beans, and water you'll need for a pot of coffee. On top of that, we also had to use the least amount of energy possible in both the roasting and brewing processes, so we also had to calculate how much energy we used in each part of the coffee brewing process.

At the beginning of the class, I had a lot of misunderstandings about coffee as a whole - such as caffeine content in different roasts, valuable flavor profiles in a cup of coffee, and how coffee was made in general. This class helped me learn a lot about roasting, and it ultimately led me to getting my own roaster and roasting beans for myself, my family, and friends.