The Science of Coffee — Chapter 5 of 10
They started arriving before email existed. Handwritten. Stamped. Mailed to the co-ops where Puroast was sold in California, and forwarded to Kerry and Jim Sachs.
The first few were easy to read as enthusiastic customers. But by the time the tenth, the twentieth, the fiftieth letter arrived — all saying the same thing — it became impossible to ignore.
“I had to give up coffee completely because of my stomach. I missed it every single morning. With Puroast, I can drink it again. This coffee changed my life.”
— One of hundreds of letters received by Puroast in its early years
Letter after letter. Hundreds of them. The details varied — some people had dealt with acid reflux for years, others had been told by doctors to give up coffee entirely, others had simply lived with the discomfort because they loved it too much to quit. But the conclusion was always the same: Puroast was different. Puroast let them drink coffee again.
Kerry and Jim had set out to bring the best-tasting coffee in the world to the American market. That was the mission. That was what the Andean farmers had given Kerry — the secret of the roast, the knowledge that the flavor of coffee had been lost to industrial speed, and the possibility of getting it back.
Nobody had told them their coffee would change how people felt. Nobody had planned for this. And yet here were hundreds of handwritten letters from real people whose mornings had been given back to them.
Kerry knew the coffee tasted better. He had experienced it himself on that veranda in the Andes — the smoothness, the richness, the complete absence of the bitterness Americans had always accepted as part of coffee. The traditional roasting method unlocked the flavor that industrial flash roasting buried. That much he understood.
But flavor alone does not fix a stomach. Flavor alone does not let someone who has been told to quit coffee by their doctor pick up a cup again. Something deeper was happening. Something chemical. Something real.
The volume and consistency of the letters made it impossible to write off as coincidence. One letter is anecdote. Ten letters is a pattern. Hundreds of letters, all with the same story, is a signal that demands an answer.
Kerry and Jim had to know. Not just for themselves — for the people writing those letters. If something in their coffee was genuinely helping people who had been forced to give up one of life's great pleasures, then that something needed to be understood and verified. It needed science.
There was a scientist at UC Davis — the same university where the biomass furnace had been tested and confirmed years earlier. His name was Dr. Takayuki Shibamoto, and he was one of the most respected coffee chemists in the world. He had spent decades studying the science of coffee. He knew its chemistry deeply.
Kerry and Jim brought him the letters. And then they brought him the coffee.
Dr. Shibamoto listened carefully. He was polite. He was professional. And he was unconvinced. The science of coffee chemistry had already been thoroughly studied, he explained. Roasting could not fundamentally change the acidity of coffee in ways that hadn't already been mapped. What these customers were describing was most likely a placebo effect — the power of expectation, not the power of chemistry.
But out of scientific curiosity, he agreed to put the coffee to the test.
What he found next would change his mind — and the history of coffee — forever.
Sources
Medical Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Puroast Coffee is not a drug or medical treatment. If you have a medical condition, consult a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to your diet.
