Coffee tech company Brownback announced on the 5th that it launched the “Coffee Sensory Data Quantif..

Coffee tech company Brownback announced on the 5th that it launched the “Coffee Sensory Data Quantification Project” in collaboration with Seoul National University’s Food Business Lab and Mirano Coffee Academy and completed the first offline research session in Apgujeong, Seoul, on May 31.

This study is the first large-scale systematic sensory evaluation project in the domestic coffee industry that combines companies, universities, and field experts. With 60 members of the nation’s top coffee expert panel, including Cuprader and Sensory Professional, participated, 3,000 sensory evaluation data derived from 50 espresso extraction conditions were collected over a total of seven hours.

The ultimate goal of this project is to quantify the correlation between the physical variables of espresso extraction and the sensory evaluation of experts, and build an ‘AI-based coffee quality prediction model’ based on this.

The evaluation was conducted according to strict standards independently designed by the research team. The panel quantified five indicators and comprehensive evaluation items representing aroma strength and flavor type, flavor characteristics such as acidity and sweet taste, and texture of mouth on a scale of 1 to 10 points.

In particular, Brownback’s coffee machine “Aware” played a key role in maintaining variable control and consistent extraction conditions in this session. Advanced hardware technology, such as controlling the pressure per second mounted on Aware and controlling the degree of pulverization of 64,000 steps, was used as a reliable data collection infrastructure for academic research.

“In the meantime, coffee sensory evaluation has relied heavily on the subjective experiences of experts,” said Oh Mi-ran, president of Mirano Coffee Academy. “The vast data generated by this 60-member panel will become an objective standard database for future coffee research.”

“This study is a symbolic attempt to connect subjective human senses and objective mechanical extraction variables, namely sensory and physical data, with AI,” said Moon Jung-hoon, a professor at Food Business Lab at Seoul National University. “The predictive model to be built will present new quality standards in the specialty coffee market, which was difficult to standardize, and will be a catalyst for raising the global competitiveness of the domestic food technology and coffee industry to the next level.”

“In this study, Aware has proven its value as a precise research infrastructure beyond just coffee extraction devices,” said Son Jong-soo, CEO of Brownback. “Through these attempts that combine art and technology, we plan to lead the coffee industry by providing various solutions that help cafes as well as the world’s first physical AI coffee machine.”

Based on the data obtained in the first session, Brownback will begin to analyze the data in earnest with the Seoul National University Food Business Lab. By reflecting the collected data and AI models in its software, Aware Connect, it plans to revolutionize recipe optimization and quality recommendation functions based on physical AI technology.