MILAN – A company called Space Roasters says it plans to use the considerable heat of reentry from space through Earth’s atmosphere to roast coffee beans. It will then sell them for the perfect cup of joe.
Space Roasters is the brainchild of Anders Cavallini and Hatem Alkhafaji. The Dubai pair’s plan is to shoot a pressurized tank filled with 300kg of green coffee into space.
The capsule would be fired on a rocket to a height of around 200km. The beans would then be roasted in the heat generated by the craft’s 20-minute re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, with temperatures in the pressurised tank being kept to around 200C. In the interview, the two entrepreneurs claimed they were already in discussion with private rocket companies such as Rocket Lab and Blue Origins in a bid to find a suitable launcher.
In an interview with Room magazine, the founders of the company say space is the place to look for a next-level brew. “Coffee has been roasted the same way for centuries now, and as space science has improved many technologies, we believe it is time to revolutionize coffee roasting using space technology,” the pair told the magazine.
Their theory is essentially that gravity accounts for the flaws in coffee roasting: “beans tumble around, break apart, and are scorched by contact with the hot surfaces of the roaster.” But, “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.”
Once back on Earth, the planet’s first space-roasted beans would be used to make coffee that would be sold for the first time in Dubai, where the pair’s company is based. It is not clear how much they would charge for a cup.
