Coffee, such a delicious, simple beverage can be damn confusing at times. When I was growing up, coffee was just coffee. Confession : I grew up drinking instant coffee. I loved it to bits to be honest. My mum would beat it – mix it with some water and stir the hell out of it. And then whenever we wanted coffee, we took some of that beaten stuff from the fridge, added it to our milk with lots of sugar and never really questioned the science behind it.

But today, I am older, wiser and have a much more refined palette. I know that coffee is a fruit and what we call a “coffee bean” is actually the seed inside that fruit. In its raw form, the bean is green, but it turns brown when roasted. Once roasted, we grind it and extract the flavor through brewing.

Now the real magic and science lies in the extraction. Of course, there’s also a fascinating world behind how coffee is grown and processed (that is, how the fruit is separated from the seed), all of which deeply influences its taste. But that’s a story for another day.

So for us to enjoy coffee, we must first extract it. We can’t just pop beans in our mouth, well we can - but I am sure that’s not how we want to consume caffeine everyday. To truly savour it, the flavour must be drawn out through brewing. It would be like eating grapes instead of drinking wine (for adults, of course). 

Now you must be wondering  - what’s with the crushing? Can’t I just extract coffee from beans? Yes, you can. But it’ll take days. And it won’t even taste good. But when you grind beans and pass those grounds through water, you can extract coffee in seconds and it’s much tastier. 

That’s what espresso is. When hot water is pushed through coffee using pressure. 

Of course, there’s a lot of science behind making the perfect espresso shot. Things like how much coffee you use, the temperature of the water, the pressure, and the timing - all of it matters. But hey, you’re 10. You don’t need to worry about any of that just yet. You’ve got enough homework already.

Now I am sure your curious brain is thinking about instant coffee. First, I’ll tell you what it’s not. It’s not espresso. It’s not fresh ground coffee. And it’s not tasty. The story is in the process of making it. Coffee is first extracted - from not very high quality coffee grounds. Once extracted/brewed - it is freeze dried. Freeze drying is a process that helps remove water and what you are left with is powder. That powder, my friend, is instant coffee. 

During this process, coffee loses its taste and smell. Unless made very carefully - in small batches from high quality beans, it’s tough to retain that stuff that makes coffee, coffee. 

So when you are a few years older, and you want to drink real coffee – you now know what to drink. Now go study.