Coffee roasting is often described as an art, but rarely a science, let alone rocket science. That is something Dubai-based entrepreneurs Hatem Alkhafaji and Anders Cavallini have set out to change.
The pair are currently working on the Space Roasting Capsule (SRC), an ambitious project that would see coffee beans launched into space, in a bid to produce the perfect roast.
In short: a capsule will be shot into space and the heat of the re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere would roast the beans as they float in a pressurised tank in a zero-gravity environment. Thus producing, according to Alkhafaji and Cavallini, perfectly roasted beans.
"If gravity is removed, the beans float around in a heated oven, giving them 360 degrees of evenly distributed heat and roasting to near perfection," they claim in a discussion with space journal, Room.
According to the duo's website: "Our Space Roasting Capsule ‘SRC’ is a patented technology, the first of it’s kind with the capability to roast coffee beans in zero gravity".
When speaking to The National, Alkhafaji revealed that a test launch is expected to take place this year in the third quarter, and by 2020 the first launch will have taken place.
As well as the SRC, the pair are also working on the Space Station Cafe, a cafe/museum hybrid, which will open in Dubai in 2020 and serve the space-aged brew. It is somewhere that Alkhafaji hopes young people will gather to learn and talk about science and technology.
According to Alkhafaji, the start-up is registered in California, USA, where the design and manufacturing is taking place.