Page 14 - EUREKA Winter 2017

What Ottawans are tasting in their morning java is what Carleton’s
mass spectrometers are actually measuring.

Excellence Voucher for Innovation and Productivity program Chemistry professor Jeff Smith, director of CMSC, thinks
combined with NSERC Engage support, Carleton’s coffee he can help do that using mass spectrometry. He likens a
project focuses on beans from Huehuetenango, Guatemala. mass spectrometer to a hyper-precise scale that can identify
All of the coffee being tested is from specific farms in this compounds in coffee’s aroma. Knowing what compounds
one area; all of the beans have experienced the same stor- are present as coffee begins its downhill slide could help
age, milling and transportation conditions. Bridgehead manage its inventory by selling at-risk beans
Clark and Hansen head to Huehuetenango every March sooner, while rationing sales of beans that are likely to last.
to choose the best beans, but back home, the results are a “If you had a thousand people in a stadium, and you could
mixed bag. Some will have aged prematurely while others measure every person’s mass to three decimal places, and
have not, so Bridgehead has to buy a large number of small you knew that their mass corresponded to the name, you
lots in order to make sure it has a few extraordinary coffees could name every person simply by putting them on a very
to choose from when they arrive in Canada. good scale,” says Smith. “That’s essentially what we’re doing
“They produce some of the best coffee we’ve ever tasted,” with the coffee.”
Clark says, “but they also produce a lot of not-so-great The research design follows Bridgehead’s roasting cycle.
coffee. So we have to filter through it quite carefully. We’re Weekly samples are received immediately after roasting,
picking through the community’s coffee for the very best, mirroring what’s being served in local cafés. What Ottawans
and these coffees are about as similar to each other as you are tasting in their morning java is what Carleton’s mass
can get, yet they have their own flavours and their own spectrometers are actually measuring.
unique aging processes that we need to understand in order Once the coffee is in the CMSC it’s brewed in painstaking
to have a more reliable buying process. It’s worth the risk detail. A specialized grinder ensures an identical grind. A
because we get amazing coffees, but there’s this uncertain- high-end handmade Moccamaster coffeemaker measures
ty that we’d like to overcome.” water and temperature. Even the water comes from the

Smith and master’s student John McFarlan analyze data in the Carleton Mass Spectrometry Centre.

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