Artificial Intelligence, AI used in coffee blending by Kaffa Roastery of Finland
August 04 - 2024
Coffee Geography Magazine
Coffee blending is a highly advanced skilled profession to keep the end product always consistent for customers who expect a brand with that unique taste. Coffee beans from the same origin often taste different due to temperature fluctuation which makes sourcing and sampling alternatives beans crucial task for tasters and blenders. In that case, they might then combine a coffee bean from Africa with another one from South America to come up with the desired blend.
Kaffa Roastery in Helsinki, Finland has recently used artificial intelligence to ease the burden of the sourcing and tasting of the beans to find the exact blend types.
The “AI-Conic” blend was introduced at the Helsinki Coffee Festival where the blend is a mixture of four kinds of beans, including Fazenda Pinhal from Brazil. The joint project was conducted between Kaffa Roastery and Elev, an AI developer.
Svante Hampf, founder of Kaffa Roastery
Elev explained about the project that its computer models, similar to ChatGPT and Copilot, created a blend that would “push the boundaries of conventional flavor combination.”
Svante Hampf is the founder of Kaffa Roastery who wanted to do an experiment to see what blend the computer would produce.
“We basically gave descriptions of all our coffee types and their flavors to AI and instructed it to create a new exciting blend,” Hampf said.
The “AI-conic” blend combined beans from Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia and Guatemala. It is described as “a well-balanced blend of sweetness and ripe fruit.”
Hampf said he thought the combination was “somewhat weird.” He was surprised that the AI program chose to make the blend out of four different kinds of beans. Most humans choose only two or three beans.
However, after the first blind test of the new blend, Kaffa’s coffee experts agreed that the AI-assisted blend was perfect. There was no need to change.
Elev’s Antti Merilehto said “AI-conic” is an example of “how AI can introduce new perspectives to seasoned professionals.”
Hampf called it a “first step,” adding, “I think AI has plenty to offer us in the long run. We are particularly impressed of the coffee taste descriptions it created.”