Re: Science fields for coffee industry

cpl593h wrote:
More and more I see myself going into the
coffee industry on some level. The science of roasting, the science of
espresso... it's what I want to do. Live what you love!

What are fields of science that are most applicable to coffee?
Obviously organic chem., but is that the best thing to go after?

Organic chemistry or Biochemistry to a PhD level is required if you
want to do fundamental research on coffee as a plant or food product.
For roasting and other processing aspects, mechanical or industrial
engineering would be the fields of choice. Be warned, however, that
most of the funding comes from the big four whose intent is to create
cheaper, more industrialized commodity grade coffee.

The shining exception is Brazilian research, who quite wisely want to
stop competing with Vietnam in selling crud beans to Nescafe. All the
science news from there is about setting up super premium plantations
for espresso destined coffees. Their approach is not really about
producing the ultimate cup in some tropical rain forest, but more about
producing boatloads of high quality coffee with intensive US style
agricultural methods -- think $15 bottles of California or Aussie wine,
rather than $1000 Richebourgs, and you'll get the picture. So perhaps
some Portuguese language courses might be in order. Illy an a few other
large Italian companies are participating in this effort, so Italian
would also be good too.

Outside of hard science, there is a growing literature on coffee as a
commodity and as an occupational field, with literature coming out of
economics and anthropology departments. Development experts in
particular are beginning to see coffee as an interesting subject.
There's probably no need to major in this, but keeping up with the
literature will help keep you abreast of the way the industry is
organized, teach you the language, and help get you access into the
trading part of the business.

.

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