Review
“I have learned many things from this book. But above all I have learned thy it is scientifically wrong to order a ‘long’ expresso as I have always done - you cannot play around with physics and chemisty: if you interfere with important parameters like time and volume you will jeopardize the quality aspects of expresso.”–Roberto Satolli, Director of Occhio Clinico”In my 30 years working in the food service industry, I have rarely come accross a text that so thoroughly and yet so manageably treat its topic . . . Anyone who wants to truly understand the chemistry behind the process if brewung expresso should read this book.”–Thomas J Kelly, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.”Trust the Illy family, with its decades of (more…)
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Not a casual read in any sense of the word. This book is written for chemists and physicists. However, if you have a burning need for an answer about some technical aspect of what it takes to make espresso and enough time, energy, and/or education to figure out the necessarily scientific explanations, this is the place to find it.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:02 am
Unlike many coffee related books, this one goes a lot further. This book approaches coffee with a scientific approach, not a descriptive approach, which makes it harsher to read, but which provides info unavailable elsewhere.
By no means should this book be considered as your first coffee related book. Cover coffee basics through other more appropriate books. Once you’ve read a couple, if you really want to go deeper into the knowledge of coffee, this this book is for you. It requires that you have a scientific background though. You will see some chemistry formulas and it does discuss kinetic energy; it’s somewhat technical.
I would give it a perfect 5 star rating, but I feel that some information in this book lacks relevance. In purchasing this book, I wanted to understand the science behind coffee to help me make better coffee. I felt that many passages of this book were irrelevant towards that goal.
Hope this helps !
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:37 am
I liked this book because it makes a good showing on my shelf. People at my house say “Akmed, you are a coffee chemist?” I say, “yes, everything coffee does for me this book can undo. Ever drank too much coffee and can’t sleep? This book solves that problem! Sleep for days after reading this book! I did. And you can too.” One of my friends borrowed the book just before she quit coffee and died of severe depression. I’m not saying she read the book, but carrying it around seem to have the same effect. I hope everyone with too much time and energy will read this book, as they too will suffer a lingering malaise.