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Technology

The Quality of Your Coffee May Soon Be Determined by a Robot (bloomberg.com) 35

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
The days of experts gathering in a sealed-off room to sip coffee and grade beans on their color, aroma and taste may be numbered. From a report: An Israeli company has developed a handheld device that is able to scan beans to determine their quality. The machine, powered by artificial intelligence, will need a human to input the quality parameters first, but after that, it will be able to classify coffee before it's even roasted. The company has completed a pilot program with Carcafe, the Colombian division of Volcafe, one of the world's largest coffee traders. A shift to computers would upend the traditional way coffee has been graded by humans, known as cupping. The well-paid and trained examiners, or Q graders, at the ICE Futures U.S. exchange in New York conduct the laborious task of determining the quality and value of the coffee beans received by the bourse. Trading houses and roasters also usually have their own graders.

Cupping is an involved process, not unlike that undertaken by wine sommeliers. Q graders weigh the coffee and grind it into a cup. They sniff the dry grounds, taking notes on the fragrance. Water heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit (93 Celsius) is poured over the grounds and the graders smell the wet coffee. After 4 minutes, the crust that forms on top of the cup is broken and grounds and foam are removed. After waiting 15 minutes for the coffee to cool, and only then is the coffee slurped up in a spoon. "It's the human that establishes the sensorial part," said Oswaldo Aranha Neto, a coffee industry veteran who just joined Demetria as a board member. "You need to teach the robot what to do."
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The Quality of Your Coffee May Soon Be Determined by a Robot

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  • Does this mean the shitty, burned Starbucks coffee will get better?

    • Does this mean the shitty, burned Starbucks coffee will get better?

      They apparently intend for it to be like that, perhaps to sell more flavorings and whatnot.

      • Re:Starbucks? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Amouth ( 879122 ) on Friday April 16, 2021 @04:28PM (#61282234)

        They intentionally over roast their beans for two reasons - one any bean, regardless of quality, tastes the same burned - two over roasting ensure the same flavor at the store, which drives consistency in product regardless of the franchise's ability to run their store. This gives them the benefit of consistency across the chain which (surprise is what people want more than quality, McDonalds proved this years ago). and then the added benefit that they can buy low grade beans as an input to their process which controls their COGS ensuring good margins.

        So yeah this changes nothing for Starbucks - they will continue to buy low grade beans and over roast them and sell them to people who don't know what good coffee is.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Amouth ( 879122 )

            didn't realize the didn't actual franchise.. still rest of the comment stands

          • Without knocking your preferences, I think what GP is saying is that you can't get a good cup from Starbucks at all, as they intentionally cock up the process to make all their beans taste the same (burnt and shite).

            I'd say that if you're ever getting a decent cup from Starbucks, there's something amiss with the quality control at that franchise.

          • If you are buying Starbucks a lot, you are not even trying to get good coffee. Sorry, but Mr.Coffee drip at home will do a better job of making better coffee with almost anything (excluding folders) than any Starbucks is capable of.

            • I know everyone hates on Folgers. BUT...I do like Folgers Black Silk.

              It's actually good coffee (in my opinion!)

              Maybe it follows the Starbucks pattern of lots and lots of roasting to cover up bad beans. I don't know- I am not an expert. But I know what I like. AND, many guests have said that it is good coffee. A little cream and sugar will do that.

      • They apparently intend for it to be like that, perhaps to sell more flavorings and whatnot.

        Bingo. It's only palatable if it's a 50-50 coffee/creamer mix.

    • I guess the nuances of coffee eludes me.

      To me, it is all pretty much he same...just a hot, very bitter liquid, that is pretty much only consumable if you put enough sugar and heavy cream in it, to where it is akin to hot chocolate (and add booze to it on weekends).

      I've tried coffee that is supposed to be "good"....and on its own, it all tastes the same to me unadulterated....hot and bitter.

      Am I the only one?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • No it’s bitter if you’re a super taster. I never enjoyed coffee until I used a french press and even then I still add sugar and cream. Super tasters are more sensitive to bitter flavors. I don’t care for many beers for that same reason.

          • No itâ(TM)s bitter if youâ(TM)re a super taster. I never enjoyed coffee until I used a french press and even then I still add sugar and cream. Super tasters are more sensitive to bitter flavors. I donâ(TM)t care for many beers for that same reason.

            Now, here's the weird thing.

            I actually like bitter in beers...I'm a big fan of IPA's....although I like a good balance of bitter vs aroma hops in them..

            And with coffee, while I don't care for it by itself, I think it works great if you booze it u

      • There are different types of coffee, you might not have found one that you like. Some of the more popular types of coffee that are described as fruity, are more acidic, I hate those. After decades of trying different types and different ways of brewing, my wife and I finally found one that tastes really good. Some people will go as far as roasting their own beans. If you compare it to beer, there's a lot of horrible beers, including budweiser, which was really popular at one point in time, in the U.S.

      • I guess the nuances of coffee eludes me.

        To me, it is all pretty much he same...just a hot, very bitter liquid, that is pretty much only consumable if you put enough sugar and heavy cream in it, to where it is akin to hot chocolate (and add booze to it on weekends).

        I've tried coffee that is supposed to be "good"....and on its own, it all tastes the same to me unadulterated....hot and bitter.

        Am I the only one?

        My country of origin is a coffee exporter. I grew up in the hilly north where coffee is grown. The taste of homegrown, fresh coffee is something I haven't tasted in over 20 years.

        Different varieties of coffee produce different flavors (or rather, "hints" over the flavor). It can be bitter, but the other flavors that come with the roasting process compliment it. This is specially true if the coffee has been sun-dried (as opposed to industrial hot-air-dried) and then "artisan" roasted over a clay "comal" (a

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      They've built a very successful business selling $3/cup coffee, then selling $2 more in tutti-frutti flavoring to make it palatable. If you don't want everything to be pre-burned "french roast" go to a competitor, there are lots. (McDonald's sucks, too, I get better coffee at the gas station.).

    • Does this mean the shitty, burned Starbucks coffee will get better?

      No.

      For the life of me I don't understand why anyone likes Starburnt, err...I mean Starbucks" coffee. It's burnt, bitter, and watery, all at the same time. (But at least it costs more!)

      I'm no coffee snob, but in my experience nearly any mom & pop coffee stand produces better brew than Starbucks. (And I like that the money is going to people in my community rather than a giant megacorp.)

      I live north Seattle where coffee-mania is a thing (too much of a thing, IMHO). It just baffles the hell out of me that

  • I'm not aware of any people who actually prepare or consume their coffee that way. Maybe they exist, but I haven't met them. I don't see how an AI would do any better following that set of steps. Maybe it will discover that there's no real correlations between the data it gathers and the human ratings and that the people doing this all along were just full of shit. Most wine sommeliers are full of shit too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      I think there's a broad spectrum between checking for 'good' / 'bad' coffee and "floral, with hints of chocolate"
      • It's not too hard for the average person to lump anything into broad categories like good or bad. I'm sure most people who drink wine regularly could reliably tell you if something is closer to $2 per bottle or $20 per bottle. That isn't to say you can't have inexpensive wine that's good or that there's no bad wine that's more expensive, but I think people could reliably do that without needing so-called expert judges employing the kind of process described in the summary. That's a bit like telling me that

    • This is a nothingburger article. The process of 'AI' helping sort things on a conveyor belt has been in industrial applications for decades. This is just a case of "hey look we have this sick AI to look at coffee and see the underdeveloped beans, bro!". Boring and probably of limited value to the average coffee consumer.

  • Please. Also, crumby coffee coming to a counter near you.

  • I don't even drink coffee, you insensitive robot!

  • I look for the guy for the erotic relations. I will communicate to you.Adds to my friends =>> http://bit.do/fNCuA [bit.do]

  • Miniaturisation of lab equipment like spectrum analysers (e.g NIR) combined with advances in Machine Learning and AI is making this a very interesting new area for investment in R&D.
    BASF already have a product in the market which does much the same thing. [basf.com]
    Their analyser is a bit bulky but the hand held NIR scanners are shrinking rapidly not only in size but also cost.
    I know of one NIR sensor that sells in volume amounts for around $5 and can fit in a smart phone.
    A bit like putting LIDAR in smart phones,

  • "I've developed an AI app that will detect cancer using just a photo of your face...after humans train it to do that reliably and without error, it will work great."

    Reminds me of my friend that boasted he could have been a major league baseball player, if it weren't for his hitting, catching, and running.

  • If the point is determine what is good coffee and what is bad coffee, wouldn't it be just as useful to use the humans first and let them tell you whether the coffee is good or bad along with all of its notes, then use gas chromatography to see what compounds are in that coffee and at what concentration. Using those references, one could then determine if future coffee is good or bad.

    Of am I oversimplifying?

  • I've been roasting my own at home for a decade. I buy 20 lbs at a time of green coffee and it comes out the way I want it 4 oz at a time. French press, burr grinder, filtered water are the way. Costs a fraction of anything commercial and is 10x better.

    I doubt this will do anything to improve quality, just cost cutting for the chemical sawdust like Folgers. Letting them use cheaper shitty shit.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Around the year 1994 University of Milan developed a machine vision system for an italian coffee maker. The device camera looked at the coffee beans placed on the conveyor belt feeding the coffee roaster, and it separated the good beans from the bad ones. Don't know if they patented the system or if, more likely, they preferred to keep it as a trade secret. For sure this innovation, together with others I knew about, had an impressive impact on the quality of their coffee, as I could verify by myself.

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