Irwin Donis-González talks coffee postharvest management on Environmentality podcast
Biological and agricultural engineering assistant professor of cooperative extension Irwin Donis-González recently appeared on Dr. Brendon Anthony’s Environmentality podcast to talk coffee postharvest management. The episode, which premiered on October 21, was part of a six-part series on the podcast called “What is Sustainable Coffee?” that ran from September 27 to November 8.
Donis-González works directly with industry to develop postharvest solutions to help growers get the most out of their crops. As a postharvest engineer, he studies everything that happens from the time a coffee cherry is picked to when it’s roasted at home or in a coffee shop. This means developing solutions for drying, storage and packaging to make sure the beans arrive safely.
On the podcast, Donis-González talked about his personal interest in coffee and how, as director of Latin American relations at the UC Davis Coffee Center, his work is helping growers around the world, particularly in his native Guatemala. He also discussed the different processing techniques used around the world, the importance of drying the beans and different methods being used to measure the moisture content of coffee beans at every step of the process.
The UC Davis Coffee Center is the world’s first multidisciplinary university research center focused on the study of coffee. It brings together experts in engineering, agriculture, food science, chemistry, genetics and economics to train the next generation of coffee professionals and generate valuable research that will help the industry produce better and more sustainable coffee.
Environmentality is a podcast for environmental news, lectures and interviews with experts, hosted by Dr. Brendon Anthony, an environmental science professor and plant scientist.