For that perfect cup of coffee: The Samuel R. Scholes Jr. Chemistry Lecture
Renowned coffee expert and University of Oregon Assistant Professor of Chemistry Christopher Hendon will deliver Alfred University’s 2021 Samuel R. Scholes Jr. Lecture in Chemistry at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 20 on the Zoom platform. His talk, Espresso: First Principles and Current Challenges, will address the two principal goals of every devoted coffee drinker: How to brew a delicious cup of coffee, and how to brew that cup over and over, whenever you want.
Renowned coffee expert and University of Oregon Assistant Professor of Chemistry Christopher Hendon will deliver Alfred University’s 2021 Samuel R. Scholes Jr. Lecture in Chemistry at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 20 on the Zoom platform. His talk, Espresso: First Principles and Current Challenges, will address the two principal goals of every devoted coffee drinker: How to brew a delicious cup of coffee, and how to brew that cup over and over, whenever you want.
The following day, Wednesday, April 21, the second part of this unique Scholes Lecture will be held at 9 a.m. also on the Zoom platform. Alfred University faculty, staff, and students can build on what they learned the night before and brew their own cups of espresso in their homes, offices, apartments or dormitories. Professor of Chemistry John D’Angelo will provide samples of coffee for brewing. For further information on obtaining ground or unground coffee beans as a first step to an expert-level cup of espresso, contact D'Angelo. Supplies are limited!
Hendon has been finetuning his quest for the perfect and reproducible cup of coffee (preferably espresso), since his graduate student days at the University of Bath, in England. In addition to the chemical properties of the coffee bean (in its pre- and post-roasted conditions) Hendon has also investigated the properties of different waters used in the brewing process. His article “The Role of Dissolved Cations in Coffee Extraction,” for example, reviews adjustments in the amounts of sodium, magnesium and calcium in water that change the flavor profile of the brewed coffee.
Hendon also collaborated with Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, a three-time UK Barista Champion, Hendon, to write Water for Coffee: Science Story Manual, explaining “We wanted to give people all of the science they needed to understand the issue, and they could choose what to do with it.”
Alfred University’s Samuel R. Scholes Jr. Lecture in Chemistry is sponsored by the Division of Chemistry, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The lecture will follow a social period that begins at 6:45 p.m., also on the Zoom platform, which will include the Chemistry Division’s Outstanding Senor Award ceremony.