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The Science of Coffee

by James Harper

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Latest episodes

  • Coffee Quality, Part 3: When the “quality” myth hits the farm

    December 8, 2025 · 30 min

    For twenty years, the 2004 cupping form profoundly shaped the specialty coffee world. But on the hillsides of coffee farms, some of the form’s byproducts have been disadvantaging producers. In this episode, we follow two producers whose…

  • Coffee Quality, Part 2: How “quality” became a myth

    December 8, 2025 · 26 min

    If you ask two specialty professionals what makes a high-quality coffee, you’ll likely get a surprisingly consistent answer: clean, sweet, juicy, bright. To an outsider, they would be forgiven for thinking coffee quality is universally…

  • Coffee Quality, Part 1: The birth of specialty coffee flavours

    December 8, 2025 · 24 min

    For the longest time, coffees were dull and bitter. But then a small group of pioneers changed the world.  In this episode, we travel back to the 1960s and ’70s to meet the trailblazers who realised coffees could taste distinctive…

  • How specialty coffee woke up to water’s role in flavour

    July 28, 2025 · 26 min

    For the longest time, the coffee community only cared about water’s impact ruining espresso machine boilers and kettles. But what about water’s impact on coffee flavour?   In this episode, I tell the story of how the specialty coffee…

  • The two ingredients in water that ruin your coffee, and the ancient story behind them

    July 28, 2025 · 39 min

    550 million years ago, earth was perfect. We had perfect water for coffee AND we were living in a vegetarian paradise!   But then Earth changed—violently. The planet shifted from a peaceful, plant-eating paradise to a darker, more brutal…

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  • Getting great water for coffee, step-by-step. Part 2: How to measure and treat your water

    July 14, 2025 · 43 min

    Water massively impacts your coffee’s flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing… …until now! In this special collaboration with Lucia Solis (Making Coffee podcast), I guide her through the two…

  • Getting great water for coffee, step-by-step. Part 1: Alkalinity, hardness and why it matters

    July 14, 2025 · 26 min

    Water massively impacts your coffee’s flavours. But most of us struggle to fix our water because water science is confusing… …until now! In this special collaboration with Lucia Solis (Making Coffee podcast), I guide her through the two…

  • Farm to port: why specialty costs more

    June 23, 2025 · 54 min

    Every time we open a bag of beautiful specialty coffee — like Erick Bravo’s from Finca El Chaferote in Huila, Colombia — we’re drinking something that’s been on a long journey.   And I mean long! Over 1500 kilometers north up and down…

  • Why one Colombian farmer chose specialty, and the other walked away

    June 9, 2025 · 47 min

    I travel to Colombia’s Huila region to answer a question that’s puzzled me for years: if specialty coffee pays more, is better for the environment, and brews tastier cups—why don’t more farmers grow it? I speak with two producers in the…

  • The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 2

    May 19, 2025 · 39 min

    Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way.  But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a living from it? In this…

  • The hard business of selling beautiful coffee, part 1

    May 19, 2025 · 29 min

    Volume. Cheap. Lame flavours. This is the traditional way of growing coffee in Brazil, and almost every farm does it this way.  But what if you wanted to produce beautiful, distinctive flavours instead—and make a living from it? In this…

  • The Speed of Heat: How to roast more coffee, faster!

    March 24, 2025 · 52 min

    To roast coffee faster, you need to turn up the heat….right? No!  In this episode, we explore the three powerful methods of heat transfer that revolutionised roasting. We’ll journey from humble beginnings—when roasting three kilos took…

Full episode archive on Apple Podcasts →

About the show

The Science of Coffee is a journey into coffee’s hidden microscopic secrets to help you make even better coffee at home. Documentary maker and coffee professional James Harper travels the world and speaks with leading coffee scientists to help you appreciate coffee more deeply. You are going to get taken into the science of water, coffee extraction, plant genetics, espresso technology, latte foam, sonic seasoning, our sense of taste and smell, organic farming, roasting, grinding and freshness, and how to think like a scientist. Press the Subscribe button so you don’t miss future episodes! The Science of Coffee is a spin-off series from James Harper’s documentary podcast Filter Stories. Follow James on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2Mlkk0O Listen to Filter Stories: https://bit.ly/3ajoT5