{"id":221365,"date":"2025-09-04T11:43:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T21:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=221365"},"modified":"2025-09-09T13:28:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:28:29","slug":"coffee-bean-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/09\/04\/coffee-bean-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Student brews up solution for coffee bean waste"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>
\"student
Kim earned second place at an international conference for his presentation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at Mānoa student is looking for healthy ways to use the waste material from coffee, one of Hawaiʻi\u2019s<\/span> signature crops.<\/p>\n

Samuel Kim, a first-year master\u2019s student in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience<\/a> (CTAHR<\/abbr>) food science program, is exploring how to rescue dry husks, the leftovers from processing coffee beans. Dry husks are full of healthy compounds that can become antioxidants that fight inflammation and cell damage in the human body.<\/p>\n

Coffee talk<\/h2>\n

\"cup<\/p>\n

This approach could potentially create healthy food products and reduce the amount of coffee byproducts going into landfills. Kim\u2019s research looks at extracting valuable antioxidants from dry husks with solvents.<\/p>\n

“When coffee is processed, the bean itself (about 55% of the coffee cherry) is kept,” he said. “But the rest of the cherry—the husks, skins, and pulp—is usually thrown away. This is a shame. These discarded parts are full of healthy compounds called phenolics that form antioxidants.”<\/p>\n

His project earned second place in the oral presentation competition at the 2025 A5+N Artificial Intelligence and Agricultural Remote Sensing International Summer School in Beijing, China, for his “coffee talk.”<\/p>\n

Making science engaging<\/h2>\n

For Kim, the award validates the new communications skills he is learning at CTAHR<\/abbr>. His mentor, Associate Professor Kacie Ho, has helped him learn to better communicate science to the public.<\/p>\n

He credits the lessons on designing presentation slides and his mentor\u2019s support for preparing him for the competition. “There was a lot of emphasis on making a presentation easy to read and how to make a topic engaging,” said Kim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CTAHR<\/abbr>\u2019s Samuel Kim is exploring how to rescue dry husks, the leftovers from processing coffee beans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":221371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[212,1466,1363,1314,660,73,9],"class_list":["post-221365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-manoa-research","tag-manoa-sustainability","tag-student-recognition","tag-sustainability","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t