Photo credit: UC Davis Coffee Center
In 2013 a single elective course called “The Design of Coffee” taught by Professor William Ristenpart sparked a revolutionary academic endeavor in the heart of California's agricultural powerhouse. Fast forward more than a decade: on May 4, 2024, the University of California, Davis held a grand opening celebration for its groundbreaking Coffee Center, a facility intended to bring focus and rigor to a historically under-represented product in academia: coffee.
Professor William D. Ristenpart, the center's founding director, shares: “The UC Davis Coffee Center is the first university facility in the nation dedicated entirely to coffee. Our goal is to help elevate the entire coffee industry by developing and delivering world-class education and research."
This innovative center represents a paradigm shift in the academic approach to coffee studies. While universities have long researched various aspects of agriculture and food science, coffee—despite its global economic and cultural importance—has largely been left on the back burner of academic inquiry.
The journey to establish this unique facility has been fueled by widespread industry support. Ristenpart says, "The Coffee Center has been funded entirely philanthropically. The first key milestone was the founding gift we received from Peet's Coffee in 2016 to name the pilot roastery in the center. Since then, we've received generous gifts from La Marzocco, the Curtis family, Folgers, Toddy, Probat, Josuma Coffee, Bridge Coffee, Behmor, Cropster, and many others."
This collaborative effort between academia and industry underscores the center's potential to bridge theoretical research and practical applications, and it’s been gaining traction for years. That original class has grown. Ristenpart said “The Design of Coffee” had 2,091 students during the course of this past academic year.
Beyond the classroom, the Coffee Center is already birthing research projects including the cloud-based quality assurance application Roastpic, which we covered in April. Ristenpart is also excited about other projects. "We are doing a deep dive on the dynamics of roasting, with philanthropic support from Probat. We are systematically varying the roast profile and deconstructing mechanistically how it impacts the quality of the beans."
One of the most distinctive aspects of the UC Davis Coffee Center is its interdisciplinary approach, drawing students from engineering and food science (those are particularly Ristenpart’s field) and also plant science, sociology, and many other aspects of coffee. This holistic approach reflects the complex nature of coffee as not just a beverage, but a global phenomenon that touches on agriculture, chemistry, economics, and culture. By bringing together more than fifty experts from various fields, the center aims to foster a comprehensive understanding of coffee that could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and innovations.
Looking to the future, Ristenpart expresses the center's collaborative vision: "We are eager to partner with talented people from around the world to make that vision a reality." This global perspective promises to position the UC Davis Coffee Center as a hub for international coffee research and education and, hopefully, to point the way to more such academic investments.