A Coffee Lover Uses Coffee to Teach High School Chemistry
Here’s a way to really utilize coffee that includes drinking it, assessing roast profiles, assessing it for its flavor properties, studying the physics of brew methods, and learning from coffee masters – all at your local high school.
Yes, Merek Chang, a high school chemistry teacher down in a little town outside Los Angeles, chose the most excellent brewing of coffee as a teaching vehicle and slam dunked the interest factor for his students. He himself had undergone a coffee chemistry class in college at U.C. Davis, but he made his a lot better.
We at home who brew our coffee don’t really think too much about what goes into the brewing process. As long as it’s good. Although, we may check out the latest brewing equipment which often comes with pretty science-y explanations for what’s going on and that can be so impressive that we splurge out $500 - $3,000 for a brewing machine. Or not.
However, these lucky students really dove deep into the molecular world of coffee, courtesy of donated equipment. They made their own roasting profile experiments, grinding experiments and brewing experiments – followed by tasting of the coffee (black, of course) from authentic coffee sipping cups. They had to get over the black coffee part. Coffee data tables were made, and science history was made, and these high schoolers will never look at coffee in a cup the same way again.