STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 29 "There's massive demand [for coffee] and it keeps increasing," Stopforth says. "Production is struggling and the reason being is there's a lot of defores- tation happening. That's helping to kill the climate." Dr. Chahan Yeretzian, a professor for analytical chemistry, bioanalytical chemistry, and diagnostics, and head of the Coffee Excellence Center at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, sees the Atomo project as an oppor- tunity "to understand coffee better." "People focus on new experiences and the focus has shifted a little bit away from some religious rules to the experience of coffee, expanding the meaning of coffee," Yeretzian says. "So, I think I was prepared for this kind of project in the sense that I always pushed people to do things that have been taboo in the past." What is upcycling? The path toward Atomo's non-coffee started in Stopforth's garage where he's "always tinkering and hacking things," he says. "I drink a lot of coffee, and I started to get disappointed in coffee quality." That scientific hacking led him to identify what's actually in a cup, the polyphenols, the micronutrients. For Stopforth, the focus was on the com- pounds extracted from a roasted coffee bean and not the bean itself. Key to Atomo Coffee's product development is the concept of upcycling. The Upcycled Food Association, founded last year, has established a definition: "Upcycled foods use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to hu- man consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment." Atomo is upcycling plant waste products from American farmers. Think of leaves and stems and roots and pits in ag commodities today," he said. He discovered that with the right processes, those components found in a cup of coffee could be replicated. And, none of these plant products come from coffee trees. The raw materials are washed, dried, and prepared. But before roasting begins, a proprietary technique targets key molecular compounds that repli- cate green coffee beans. The materials then are roasted, ground, and brewed. Jarret Stopforth and Andy Kleitsch of Atomo, the non-coffee coffee. As a licensed Q-grader, I cup coffees produced all over the world by all manner of processing methods — washed, natural, wet-hulled, the full range of honeys, and lately, many different kinds of processing experiments, including anaerobic fermentation and processing with wine yeasts. But I'd never tasted a non-coffee coffee (a cof- fee-like "beverage") before getting my hands on a couple cans of Atomo. I approached it in exactly the same way I evaluate any cold-brewed coffee, by tasting it at refrigerator temperature and assessing its body (mouthfeel), flavor, and finish (aftertaste). Then, I add a splash of milk and evaluate it in that format. The classic version presented vaguely like coffee in aroma, a roasty-sweet profile with distinct savory undertones, the most prominent of which resembled teriyaki sauce, which carried into the flavor. Other tasting notes include carob, lily, dried apple, and a prominent throughline of scorched mesquite. The body is fairly thin (not viscous), but quite smooth, and the finish is rather bitter with prominent teriyaki notes. With milk, perhaps its most appealing presentation, smoky chocolate notes surface and the bitterness subsides. The nitro version, which I would expect to be brighter and richer, is actually a bit flat and sour, wood-prominent, though not as savory. Milk does not improve it. Who would enjoy this coffee? Someone who likes a low-acid, roast-prominent coffee, first and foremost — and cold-brew, of course. And some- one who isn't particularly concerned with what is actually in this coffee-like beverage that contains no coffee. Atomo does taste somewhat like cof- fee, just not particularly high-quality coffee. What Does Atomo What Does Atomo Taste Like? Taste Like? By Kim Westerman, STiR's resident Q-grader

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