If you're a coffee lover, one of the most pressing questions you'd probably want to get an answer to is how to make a perfect cup of coffee. Well, this one's really for you because Mathematicians have found the formula that will influence your coffee's flavor.
A research published in SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics was conducted by a team from Mathematics Applications Consortium for Science and Industry (MACSI) at University of Limerick (UL). These researchers were able to come up with a model which led them to conclude that size of the coffee grains plays a key role in its flavor.
William Lee at the University of Portsmouth shared a better understanding in the variables that influence the product.
"Our overall idea is to have a complete mathematical model of coffee brewing that you could use to design coffee machines, rather like we use a theory of fluid and solid mechanics to design racing cars." Dr. Lee told BBC News.
According to the studies, the smaller the granules, the more bitter the taste and if you opt to make your coffee less bitter, the grains should be larger.
"What our work has done is take that [observation] and made it quantitative," said Dr. Lee.
"So now, rather than just saying: 'I need to make [the grains] a bit bigger', I can say: 'I want this much coffee coming out of the beans, this is exactly the size [of grain] I should aim for."
This scientific approach should help millions of coffee drinkers just like Dr. Lee, considering that coffee is one of the top consumed drinks in the world. The research also aims to help in the design of coffee machines that use precise mathematics to make the "perfect cup" for coffee lovers.
