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Comment by peteforde | Hacker News Reader

Last year I backed a project called Osma. https://drinkosma.com/

It uses acoustic cavitation to extract flavor and caffeine from coffee without any heating in about one minute.

I use it every day and I like it. I love the strong flavor of cold brew, and my stomach appreciates the lack of acidity. There is a learning curve but if you're a HN reader, chances are the amount of experimentation required to dial in your version of perfection is an upside, not a downside.

I paid less at the time, but today the kit is selling for US$695. Note that as with all things coffee, it's only as good as your grinder. I ended up pairing my Osma with a Sette 270: https://baratza.com/grinder/sette-270wi/

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i'm honestly baffled by the cold brew fad, as every cold brew i've tried tastes like the day old, cold coffee that it is, not rich and nuanced like freshly hot brewed coffee.

but i'm with you on the grinder. i have the sette 30 and it's fast and consistent, with little waste. i primarily do single serving grinds for brewed coffee with it. the gearbox broke but baratza sent me a new gearbox for free (i believe there was a manufacturing defect in the early models). i got the 30 (the number of grind settings) because i wanted it primarily for pour over rather than espresso. the great thing is that the grind adjustment mechanism can be upgraded (along with the controller faceplate to get presets) and effectively turns the 30 into the 270, which i may do if i ever decide to get an espresso machine.

edit: i also got the courser burr, taking the grind size up to roughly a medium grind, which is perfect for pour over. the included burr is better suited to the fine grind needed for espresso.

I am not a food snob in any sense, but cold brew tastes very different from old coffee. It is not even close.

I agree, and I don’t much like cold brew. I’m not particularly a snob about brewing methods (I use a French press out of pure laziness exactly as a recent article making the rounds suggested), but I do have a snobbery about beans (light roast, generally natural process fermentation). I don’t think I even dislike cold brew per se, I think it’s just often wasted on nondescript coffee so there’s not much flavor to distinguish.

Now I’ll gladly destroy any hipster cred I might have accrued saying the above: I do quite like stashing half a pot of yesterday’s coffee, in an open pint glass, to make iced coffee for the next afternoon.

It sounds like you know your stuff, so I'm confused. What you're describing (old, cold coffee) is nothing at all like what I'm enjoying.

What comes out of my Osma is fresh, ice chilled (by uh, ice), rich and all of the flavor notes are present. There's a nice foam on top that is technically not crema, but cavitation bubbles. It's strong like a well-poured Espresso shot, but with none of the burnt acidity.

I promise you that if you cupped what comes out of my machine alongside a literal glass of old, cold coffee... one tastes like victory and the other would make you gag.

i'd love to taste yours in the hopes of finding something enjoyable. i've tried cold brew at some of the fanciest cafes in LA (with foam even) and none of them made me want it again.

it reminds me of the IPA fad with beer. i tried a bunch and they were generally extra bitter (and strong) rather than tasty. still don't get that one.

Same. I tried to like cold brew because I’m into coffee. I don’t know if I have a rare gene switched on or something because it tastes horrible to me. If other people were tasting what I’m tasting it couldn’t be popular.

yah, i can drink it, but it tastes old so i don't prefer it. at a cafe i'd much rather get a hot espresso drink (latte, mocha, or cappuccino) since i can't make those at home, and at home, delicious fresh hot coffee. i really don't 'get' cold brew, in either sense.

I can’t stand hot drinks of any sort except like hot chocolate in the winter. While iced coffee mostly hits the spot for a cold coffee, cold brew is a nice change every one in a while. So I’m glad the fad here even if the flavor isn’t as great as it could have been hot.

that's fair. to each their own.

Depends on the weather for me. Winter in NZ at the mo and I wouldn’t dream of it but a couple of years ago in Hawaii I walked past a cold brew coffee shop and it was exactly what I wanted.

I'm a little confused about the "acoustic cavitation" and what a "diaphragm pump" is.

The majority of home and "prosumer" espresso machines use vibratory pumps - how is this any different? Also, the recirculation of already brewed coffee back into the pump seems really strange to me. Didn't the coffee world decide percolators we're gross a couple decades ago precisely because of this reason?

Recirculation is possible with Osma but not at all recommended, officially or by me. If I saw Osma and thought it was a recirculation system, I'd be weirded/grossed out, too.

I'm not sure what a vibratory pump is, but acoustic cavitation is the same kind of action you can use to clean silver or wash clothes. Millions of tiny bubbles. Try a Google search for "acoustic cavitation cleaner".

I wonder if the cavitation is a reference to using ultrasound for extraction? Something like what is described here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.84981...

This looks like an interesting machine, I wonder if there's a way to try one?

My eyes read soma

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