Coffee Without Beans? A Startup Brews a New Cup of Joe
Shopping for meatless meat and milkless milk? Try coffeeless coffee, too.
Atomo’s coffeeless coffee is made from upcycled ingredients, e.g. sunflower seed husks and watermelon seeds, which undergo a patented chemical process.
Source: Atomo Coffee Inc.
A block away from the Starbucks on Seattle’s busy Western Ave., a woman bends over a coffee grinder and a black kettle full of bubbling water sits on a hot plate. The air is thick with the roasty aroma of fresh-brewed java. The scene would be entirely unremarkable except for a few outstanding details. One, the woman is wearing a lab coat. Two, there’s a steaming glass beaker instead of a mug. And three, not a single coffee bean was involved in making it.
This is the office of food tech start-up Atomo Coffee Inc., where a team of food scientists and chemists led by friends and co-founders Andy Kleitsch and Jarret Stopforth are working on what they hope will be the successor to meatless meat, eggless eggs, and milkless milk. Atomo’s coffeeless coffee is made from upcycled ingredients, e.g. sunflower seed husks and watermelon seeds, which undergo a patented chemical process to yield molecules that mimic the flavor and mouthfeel of the real thing. The resulting grounds are brewed just like a regular cup of coffee. And yes, it has caffeine.