Rachel Carlson

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

And this time with a special guest, our colleague Sasha Pfeiffer.

Sasha, how's your love of science these days?

We love it.

We love it.

Shout out to all science teachers.

Question for you.

Is your husband or are you a coffee drinker?

So today on the show, from your dreaming hours and waking coffee-making hours indoors to your time with critters outdoors, science has fun answers for you.

You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

Okay, Rachel and Sasha, we have so much to get through today.

Sasha, I'm going to let you pick the first story.

Oh, you're making me want coffee.

And even though there's a technique the industry uses to measure the concentration of coffee, that misses those other aspects of flavor, like acidity or brightness or fruity or sweetie or nutty notes that coffee drinkers care about, which causes all kinds of problems.

Yeah, with, say, the degree of bean roasting.

You know, coffee consumers may be familiar with roast type, a light, medium, or dark roast.

But a light roast from a national coffee chain may be considered a dark roast by your local gourmet coffee house.

Sasha, they basically ran voltage through a cup of coffee.

And based on the electrochemical response, the scientists found they could get a quantitative sense of the acid levels and the intensity of a cup of joe.

Basically, they could tell how strong the coffee was and how dark the roast was.