Beyond the Basics
CBE Elective Links Engineering Principles with Coffee Brewing
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering (CBE) Assistant Teaching Professor Nicholas Corrente and Assistant Professor Ashley Guo are offering an innovative, lab-based elective that connects 18 department students with the engineering principles behind coffee brewing.
"It can be easy to forget that chemical engineering principles show up in processes all around us in daily life," Corrente explains. "Coffee brewing is something that many people do every day, and while it might seem simple, it's a surprisingly rich engineering problem dealing with heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid flow through porous media, and particle size distributions all at once."
While an idea for such a course had long been batted around within the department, it really took off, according to Guo, when Mictrotrac, a division of global technology company Verder Scientific, gave a demonstration to the department in fall 2024.
"The topic of a course focused on coffee came up, and it was clear there was excitement from both the department and Verder," Corrente recalls. "And from there, it was just a matter of developing a collaborative curriculum that targets design of experiments, lab skills, ChemE principles, data-driven problem solving, and hands-on learning in a pressure-free and fun environment."
According to Guo, in the resulting course, students are developing experimental design and evidence-based decision making skills, learning to identify which process variables to measure, and systematically collecting data during brewing trials. "They are using their findings to understand the underlying mass and heat tr
ansfer relationships that govern extraction and inform better brewing protocols," she says.
A Case Study in Coffee Brewing
Junior CBE major Kendra Buffaloe, who is slowly switching from her favorite iced caramel macchiato to hot and less sweet coffee as a result of the course, says she decided to take the course to "see more daily life applications of mass and heat transfer, while also learning a bit more about the thermodynamic principles that are all around us.
"Knowledge is valuable—but learning doesn't have to be monotonous, especially if you are reflecting on simple things from your daily life, such as coffee making."
Simply put, Corrente says, "the course treats coffee brewing as a chemical engineering case study.
"It proceeds from extraction—how soluble compounds move from ground coffee into water—and goes from there. We cover two main brewing approaches: percolation and immersion. We also get into design of experiments," he continues. "Instead of changing one variable at a time, students set up factorial experiments to see how variables interact, like whether the effect of grind size depends on water temperature—and then analyze their own data and figure out what actually matters."
In the final analysis, by showing that the numbers and sensory experience go together, it is the engineering that helps to explain why one cup of coffee tastes better than another.
A Robust and Well-Balanced Partnership
Buffaloe reports that she is “loving the collaboration with Verder. I appreciate how they regard us as future scientists and are passionate about their craft.”
Verder has generously provided industrial grinding and sieving equipment for the class to test out, while a greatly appreciated donation from CBE alumnus Erik Dienemann has helped to purchase a complete set of equipment for student use throughout the course.
Two visits are scheduled at Verder so that students can learn first-hand how to use specialized equipment such as particle size analyzers, thermogravimetric analyzers, and more.
Ultimately, Corrente says the curricular partnership “will expose the students to the kinds of characterizations they’d see in industry.”
