I saw Peter Giuliano tweet about attending the UC Davis class ECM1, The Design of Coffee, and he mentioned the book The Design of Coffee: An Engineering Approach
by William Ristenpart (Author), Tonya Kuhl (Contributor).

I doubt I'll have a chance to attend the class, but the book looks pretty interesting, especially when it's described as a "non-mathematical introduction to chemical engineering, as illustrated by the roasting and brewing of coffee. Hands-on coffee experiments demonstrate key engineering principles, including material balances, chemical kinetics, mass transfer, fluid mechanics, conservation of energy, and colloidal phenomena. The experiments lead to an engineering design competition where contestants strive to make the best tasting coffee using the least amount of energy"

Has anyone picked up this book or taken the class that would care to comment?

Here's a teaser for the class, taught by the author:

We were at a winery in Paso Robles in the summer of last year. The young lady pouring our wine turned out to be a chemical engineering student from Davis. I knew about the class and asked her if she had heard about it. She said it had been her favorite class at Davis and was heavily attended (as you can see from Peter's posts).

Love this. I'm very tempted to pick up the book. I've also recently become aware on Twitter of a few people teaching middle- and high-schoolers how to brew coffee properly. Some are even selling the coffee they brew to teachers and donating the profits to worthy causes.

It looks like fun.

Each group will recieve a score defined by the ratio

Final Score = Blind Taste Test Score / Total Electrical Energy

The only ingredients you are allowed to use are green coffee beans and water

The book is terrific...written in a very classical 101-type lab manual way, but details experiments to do in a kitchen environment, not a lab. Very little scientific background is needed for enjoying this book and actually doing many of the experiments in your own kitchen.

I'm surprised they didn't use a cheap, optical refractometer for some of their experiments....

Dave, would your description/recommendation change much if you're talking to somebody with a scientific background (possibly lacking in the chemistry direction...)

Max
Good question. The manual is for anyone interested in thinking more quantitatively about coffee by rolling up their sleeves and doing some experiments in their kitchen.
It's really meant for college non-science majors and has an engineering- like focus on maxing flavor while minimizing energy consumption.
It is an actual lab manual, with rules of behavior in the lab! Authentic minus the class bells telling you that the period is over.