STiR coffee and tea magazine

44 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 6, 2018 (December / January 2019) William Ristenpart, co-director of the coffee center at the University of California, Davis, watches students prepare a video for their "The Design of Coffee" class. Research underway Research projects are underway. Risten- part and professor Jean-Xavier Guinard are teaming with the Specialty Coffee As- sociation on a two-year project to rethink everything from scientific assumptions, sensory data, and measurement tools, to the consumer research behind the indus- try's understanding of coffee. Guinard, a sensory scientist, is known for creating a new coffee tasters flavor wheel. "SCA developed a part of [the flavor wheel] in collaboration with the sensory sci- ence department at UC Davis and we cur- rently are supporting two major research projects on brewed coffee at the center," says Peter Giuliano, the association's chief research officer. "Additionally, we work with the coffee center lab to do testing for our certified home brewer program." Giuliano underscores the university's international reputation as a leader in agri- culture and food-focused research and its history in the fields of wine, beer and sen- sory science. "The coffee center is a continuation of that tradition and we know that through science, research and education, UC Davis can contribute to coffee in the same way it did those other special agricultural products," he said. As evidence of the university's research success, professor Juan Medrano, a geneticist in the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, co-authored the first public genome sequence for Coffea arabica. That genetic road map was made available in January 2018. Collaborating with Medrano on the sequencing were plant scientists are Allen Van Deynze and Dario Cantu, and post-doctoral research scholar Amanda Hulse-Kemp, all from UC Davis. And while their work is not affiliated with the coffee center, both Deynze and Cantu are among the more than 35 members of the center's faculty. Ristenpart envisions several long-term initiatives. A planned network of interna- tional field stations, for example, would channel on-the-ground research data for com- parative analysis. One station is under development in Nicaragua. Another is an extended study of the effects of climate during the storage of green beans. "There has not been a lot of research on that," he says. "We'll have a whole dedicated room with banks of environmental chambers each of which can successfully modulate the temperature and humidity profile. We can take the same beans, store them under different conditions and see how the effects of chemical and biological degradation mechanisms that effect coffee quality through storage." Ristenpart also sees growth in coffee education. "Something sorely lacking in the coffee industry is a pipeline of tal- ent. If you have a vineyard and you want someone with expertise in how to run a winery, you know where to go," he says, referring to the university's viticulture and enology programs. "Right now, cof- fee doesn't have that. What I see long term – 10 years is probably the right time scale – is a master's degree focusing on coffee science. All the training focusing on coffee. That would go a long way to- ward making a very rigorously trained, scientifically adept workforce for the cof- fee industry," he said.

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