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Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tetsts people with normally developped taste buds would pick

by stinos 11y ago

Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tetsts people with normally developped taste buds would pick the freshly ground one from the pre-ground one. The difference in taste is just too big to ignore (or at least the difference between the ground vs pre-ground I have here at home is). Unlike the improvements you compare them to, which can usually not even be measured with devices, let alone heard.

bambax 11y ago
Nespresso capsules are made of aluminium and completely sealed, so they probably retain all the qualities of the coffee inside until the very moment they're used. Blind tests would be very interesting, I hope that's what's coming in a future article!
- theCodeStig 11y ago
  Coffee goes stale due to oxidization, and contact with the gases that coffee itself puts off (commonly known as off-gasing). You can halt the oxidization in a capsule if you replace the oxygen with an inert gas, but how will you prevent off-gasing?
  - liquid8r 11y ago
    When you roast beans, you introduce CO2. For a few hours after roasting, CO2 escapes, which is the process called degassing or off-gassing. When you grind, more CO2 escapes. Limiting CO2 impact on coffee is well understood by the industry -- you can degas in a nitrogen environment, for example. We at HiLine Coffee did a lot of testing with different single-serve pods, and I can assure you that you can tell the quality changes over time (what you get with 1 month old pod and what you get after 6 months taste very different). This is one of the reasons why Nespresso, Keurig and other large manufacturers don't state the date of the roast on packaging. People wouldn't want to buy 6 months old coffee. Instead they buy coffee that is "best consumed by" a date in 6 months, whatever that means, particularly since stale coffee doesn't have any discernible health effects other than sadness from poor taste. After spending more than a year working on new ways to better preserve ground coffee in single serve packaging, we determined that the only sure way to deliver fresh and great tasting coffee in a pod is to roast for each individual order. This is the model that we are testing now. If you want to try it, check us out at https://www.hilinecoffee.com https://www.hilinecoffee.com or send us an email for free sample.
jarek 11y ago
Not that I love the gold-plated set, but: "Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tests people with normally developed ears would pick the gold cables from the copper one. The difference in sound is just too big to ignore (or at least the difference between the gold vs copper I have here at home is). Unlike the improvements you compare them to, which can usually not even be measured with devices, let alone described." Either you measure it and do a double-blind or it's just another subjective perception. See those tests that suggest people can't tell expensive wine from cheap wine without context.
- lukesan 11y ago
  But as with other things based on taste: the perception matters most, not a scientific double blind study. If my perception makes me prefer one coffee over the other, I am happy.
  - jarek 11y ago
    Of course, but if we fall back to perceptions and tastes, noone gets to sniff at people for using week-old pre-ground coffee if they like it well enough.
- zimpenfish 11y ago
  http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-taste-the-same http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-t... Also includes the hilarious "white wine with food colouring" test - "In one test, Brochet included fifty-four wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn’t stop the experts from describing the “red” wine in language typically used to describe red wines." [edit to undo monospaced text]
- jghn 11y ago
  I get what you're saying, although while I personally am far from a coffee aficionado I certainly can tell the difference w/ a lot of their tomfoolery. The same can not be said w/ the audiophile stuff, not at all. I dabble with fancy coffee now that I've got a few solid shops on my commute to work (the rest of the times I'm stopping at Dunkin Donuts, lest you think I'm more of a snob than I think) and my own personal policy is that for whatever variable X is involved that I'll only continue with X as long as I can tell a noticeable & pleasant difference. So for instance, I'll only get pourovers at places where I notice a difference between that and the standard (which implies quality of technique, according to the coffeenistas), or whatever beans they're using for a pourover if my reaction is "meh" I'll not get it again but other times I'll get it multiple times a day until they run out. Agreed that this is all anecdotal and not double blind, and agreed that short of nuking things from orbit that double blind is the only way to be sure. However, as someone with very little skin in this game other than sometimes I want something better than Dunks, I can tell you that some variables matter to me and some don't.
peteretep 11y ago
> Your suspicion is likely wrong though Doubt it; I'm sure you could buy very bad capsule, which might give the game away, otherwise ... are you familiar with: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tas...

by stinos 11y ago

bambax 11y ago

Nespresso capsules are made of aluminium and completely sealed, so they probably retain all the qualities of the coffee inside until the very moment they're used. Blind tests would be very interesting, I hope that's what's coming in a future article!

theCodeStig 11y ago
Coffee goes stale due to oxidization, and contact with the gases that coffee itself puts off (commonly known as off-gasing). You can halt the oxidization in a capsule if you replace the oxygen with an inert gas, but how will you prevent off-gasing?
- liquid8r 11y ago
  When you roast beans, you introduce CO2. For a few hours after roasting, CO2 escapes, which is the process called degassing or off-gassing. When you grind, more CO2 escapes. Limiting CO2 impact on coffee is well understood by the industry -- you can degas in a nitrogen environment, for example. We at HiLine Coffee did a lot of testing with different single-serve pods, and I can assure you that you can tell the quality changes over time (what you get with 1 month old pod and what you get after 6 months taste very different). This is one of the reasons why Nespresso, Keurig and other large manufacturers don't state the date of the roast on packaging. People wouldn't want to buy 6 months old coffee. Instead they buy coffee that is "best consumed by" a date in 6 months, whatever that means, particularly since stale coffee doesn't have any discernible health effects other than sadness from poor taste. After spending more than a year working on new ways to better preserve ground coffee in single serve packaging, we determined that the only sure way to deliver fresh and great tasting coffee in a pod is to roast for each individual order. This is the model that we are testing now. If you want to try it, check us out at https://www.hilinecoffee.com https://www.hilinecoffee.com or send us an email for free sample.

jarek 11y ago

Not that I love the gold-plated set, but: "Your suspicion is likely wrong though - I have no science to back this up but am 100% sure in blind tests people with normally developed ears would pick the gold cables from the copper one. The difference in sound is just too big to ignore (or at least the difference between the gold vs copper I have here at home is). Unlike the improvements you compare them to, which can usually not even be measured with devices, let alone described." Either you measure it and do a double-blind or it's just another subjective perception. See those tests that suggest people can't tell expensive wine from cheap wine without context.

lukesan 11y ago
But as with other things based on taste: the perception matters most, not a scientific double blind study. If my perception makes me prefer one coffee over the other, I am happy.
- jarek 11y ago
  Of course, but if we fall back to perceptions and tastes, noone gets to sniff at people for using week-old pre-ground coffee if they like it well enough.
zimpenfish 11y ago
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-taste-the-same http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-t... Also includes the hilarious "white wine with food colouring" test - "In one test, Brochet included fifty-four wine experts and asked them to give their impressions of what looked like two glasses of red and white wine. The wines were actually the same white wine, one of which had been tinted red with food coloring. But that didn’t stop the experts from describing the “red” wine in language typically used to describe red wines." [edit to undo monospaced text]
jghn 11y ago
I get what you're saying, although while I personally am far from a coffee aficionado I certainly can tell the difference w/ a lot of their tomfoolery. The same can not be said w/ the audiophile stuff, not at all. I dabble with fancy coffee now that I've got a few solid shops on my commute to work (the rest of the times I'm stopping at Dunkin Donuts, lest you think I'm more of a snob than I think) and my own personal policy is that for whatever variable X is involved that I'll only continue with X as long as I can tell a noticeable & pleasant difference. So for instance, I'll only get pourovers at places where I notice a difference between that and the standard (which implies quality of technique, according to the coffeenistas), or whatever beans they're using for a pourover if my reaction is "meh" I'll not get it again but other times I'll get it multiple times a day until they run out. Agreed that this is all anecdotal and not double blind, and agreed that short of nuking things from orbit that double blind is the only way to be sure. However, as someone with very little skin in this game other than sometimes I want something better than Dunks, I can tell you that some variables matter to me and some don't.

peteretep 11y ago

> Your suspicion is likely wrong though Doubt it; I'm sure you could buy very bad capsule, which might give the game away, otherwise ... are you familiar with: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tas...