STiR coffee and tea magazine

42 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 6, 2018 (December / January 2019) By Dan Shryock T he room looks like any other college lab with a significant exception. Drip cof- fee makers, grinders, AeroPresses, and Chemex urns replace typical laboratory apparatus. Coffee beans are the focus of attention. This is the setting for "The Design of Coffee: An Introduction to Chemical Engi- neering," an undergraduate course at the University of California, Davis. Approximate- ly 2,000 students enroll in this class each year. It is one of the most popular electives on this Northern California campus and it also holds a lofty credit as the birthplace of the UC Davis Coffee Center. William Ristenpart and Tonya Kuhl, co-directors of the coffee center and profes- sors at UC Davis, developed the course in 2012 to enhance their understanding of laboratory techniques. "We were sitting around thinking about how we could improve our labs and do things that are interesting," Ristenpart recalls. "Then we asked our- selves 'Why don't we have a course using coffee as a tool to teach core engineering and scientific principles.' "Coffee has its mystique," he says. "People don't know much about it except that they drink it a lot." The class's success led Kuhl and Ristenpart, who both have doctorates in chemical engineering, to look beyond an introductory course. "It quickly became apparent there was a huge unmet need not only in terms of education but in terms of research," says Ristenpart. "We started putting together a coffee initiative on campus," he says. First US coffee research center The coffee center, housed in the UC Davis College of Engineering, is the first multi- disciplinary university research center in the US to address the challenges and needs of the coffee industry, according to the university. As interest in the center grew within the coffee industry, a building – a potential home – became available on campus. Soon after, the university gave permission for organizers to begin fund raising for a permanent coffee research center. Donations already total $2 million and both research projects and building renovations are mov- ing ahead. Professor William Ristenpart inside the "The Design of Coffee" lab. UC Davis textbook for coffee studies Centering Research on Coffee Photo by Dan Shryock/STiR

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