The two ingredients in water that ruin your coffee, and the ancient story behind them

550 million years ago, earth was perfect. We had perfect water for coffee AND we were living in a vegetarian paradise! But then Earth changed—violently. The planet shifted from a peaceful, plant-eating paradise to a darker, more brutal world. And in this new world, the chemistry of water was forever altered. This is the wild story of how earth-shaking forces and the spirits of long-dead critters ruin your coffees today. This story will help you remember the two invisible ingredients in your water that have a huge impact on coffee flavour and your brewing equipment: calcium and hydrogen carbonate. Read Marcia Bjonerud’s amazing book, Reading the Rocks Please spread the word about The Science of Coffee! Leave a 5 star rating on Spotify Follow me on Instagram and tag me in an Instagram story Write a review on Apple Podcasts Discover how I make these Filter Stories episodes by subscribing to my Substack newsletter Season 3 of The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organisations: The Coffee Quest | BWT | TODDY | Algrano | Probat Note: this is a reworked version of my 2022 episode Water for Brewing Coffee. Check out Standart , the award-winning coffee magazine. Get a free magazine and a free bag of coffee by clicking here . How does Perfect Moose detect what kind of milk is in the pitcher? Click here to find out. Pull a shot on the gorgeous Slayer Steam Single . What does the Marco MilkPal look like to you? WALL-E? Something Steve Jobs would be proud of? Check it out here .

You can listen to The two ingredients in water that ruin your coffee, and the ancient story behind them online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The two ingredients in water that ruin your coffee, and the ancient story behind them is an episode from Filter Stories - Coffee Documentaries by James Harper.

This episode is 38:40 long.

This episode was published on Jul 28, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Filter Stories - Coffee Documentaries when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.