‘Like drinking a music festival’: this is ultrasonic

Australian scientists have developed a method of brewing coffee by blasting ground beans with sound waves – and it produces a powerful cup

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I’m looking at a coffee that’s thick, cold and the deep brown colour of 90% dark chocolate. It tastes like coffee but, weirdly, without any bitterness. It is the only coffee I’ve had that was made by blasting ground coffee beans with sound. They call it ultrasonic coffee.

It wasn’t made by a barista but by two chemical engineers in a lab at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Dr Francisco Trujillo, a senior lecturer in the school of chemical engineering, and the PhD student Nikunj Naliyadhara explain the coffee they’re about to make is sonicated, or hit with ultrasonic waves. I have no idea what that means. But they grind coffee beans, pack them into a portafilter basket (the handled device you’ve probably seen your barista twist and untwist) and connect the portafilter to a Breville espresso machine. And just like your barista, they press some buttons. The machine makes soft whirring sounds.