Public Lab Research note


Testing coffee spectra at Toscanini's

by warren | August 29, 2012 22:00 29 Aug 22:00 | #3562 | #3562

I visited Toscanini's in Central Square, Cambridge, today, and Gus and Lucy were very willing to nerd out with me and the countertop spectrometer prototype. Lucy brought over samples of all their coffees and we collected some spectra of each.

I have to reformat the spectrum graphs so the labels don't run over the data! But in any case we scanned:

  • Barisimo Clockwork espresso
  • Barisimo Deanimator decaf espresso
  • Barisimo La Fatima light roast brewed coffee
  • Dancing Goats dark roast brewed coffee

We did not measure the amount of coffee we put in, which we probably ought to do (we did at Mystic Brewery yesterday -- 25 ml each). But you can still see some interesting variation. This isn't quite science yet... just a proof of concept. It'd be very interesting to gather a lot of data, and see if there are really consistent differences.

Espresso in the countertop spectrometer at Toscanini's

Spectral analysis of coffee at Toscanini's


2 Comments

if you brought this to dwelltime, it would be well-received.

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Yeah, i imagine so -- but i don't know anyone there. There's a new version coming out thought which I may bring over, a fancy looking one which i hope they'll like.

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