You say that TDS changes the flavor of the coffee, and this sifter may alter that flavor because of a change in TDS. Agreed.
if the solids are truly dissolved I don't think they will be coming out of solution quite that easily. if you are talking about suspended solids now that's a different story and this sifting might get rid of some of the fines that hang in the coffee after brewing. On that though leaving the cup set out for a bit, a lot of the suspended stuff settles out and that would change the flavor too right?
Use your swiss gold / French press and you will see what I mean in the bottom of your cup after half an hour. I have a vac pot and the filter on that seems very fine and it gives a very clean pot of coffee. One could arguably say that using a finer filter may get rid of the solids just as easier perhaps even easier as you don't have to do all the manual labor of sifting now.
Whats the difference between 'fines' and 'finely ground coffee'. If you break a crumb in half, do you have half a crumb, or two crumbs? Will this sifter sort by shape of ground as well? One could feasibly use the sifted out fines in an espresso then?
Yes it's a new gadget to play with, but is it really functional? of COURSE the person selling it is going to try dearly to convince you it's the next best thing since sliced bread, they want to profit off you but is it really? I could stick the coffee under a pyramid, next to a sea urchins shin splinter, and pray to the moon fairy but is that really going to do something new to make it better that can't already be obtained with just a different filter method, brew method etc etc.
To put it another way, think of Sea Salt. Salt is Sodium Chloride. NaCl, plain and simple. it doesn't matter where you get it, NaCl is NaCl and all taste the SAME. People however like sea salt, say it taste better, but the reason is NOT because it's from the sea directly, but because of minor impurities in it, impart a slightly different flavor (salt fines maybe??) that people tend to like over the purer stuff. (It's not the Salt flavor they like it's the imperfections in it) Now let's do a little marketing spin and glamorizing and suddenly Sea Salt is the shiznit. But oh WAIT!! that's not good enough, you have to have PURE Sea Salt to really be an affectionato. If if's truly pure then that would actually ruin the flavor because you are removing the little things out of it that are what is wanted, and this wonderful sea salt would taste just like any other salt. UNLESS, you are actually marketing the pure impurities..
People like starbucks too, but is it really a better way to do coffee?
If this thing ever comes to market it will be very interesting to hear your report as you put it to the test.
Aaron
