Espresso Without the Heat

I make a latte every single day. It's become a whole ritual — pull the shot, pour it over ice and almond milk, done. I even get my beans shipped monthly from Atlas Coffee Club. I love my espresso machine, even if I've been eyeing an upgrade lately. So this research out of UNSW caught my attention. Scientists rigged a filter basket with a transducer that vibrates at ultrasonic frequencies. Those vibrations create tiny collapsing bubbles that fracture the coffee grounds and pull out the flavor in a couple of minutes — at room temperature, no heat required. They ran a blind taste test with a hundred coffee drinkers and nobody could tell the difference from a regular shot. It uses 75% less energy, which honestly doesn't matter much for your home setup, but at industrial scale — think companies bottling cold brew by the thousands — that's significant. Weird that the future of espresso might be a physics trick, not a better boiler. Who knows if it'll ever make it into home kitchens, but it's fun to think about. Scientists Invent a Way to Brew Espresso With Ultrasonic Waves—No Hot Water RequiredResearchers have demonstrated they can make coffee comparable to conventional espresso using ultrasonic waves. Because the process doesn’t need hot water, it co…wired.com