alt Hacker News"room temperature espresso" was the first thing I thought of - espresso is meant to be drunk hot, right away. If you let a good shot cool off and compare it to a bad shot you're not going to notice the difference as much because you made them both worse by letting them sit and cool.
For industrial processes it probably doesn't matter - look at how nescafe is manufactured.
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It is a myth that an espresso shot 'dies' if you let it sit. A good espresso shot won't become worse.
I wonder if this process would work if the water were replaced with milk. Milk would degrade at high temperature, but this (at least in bulk) is at room temperature.
Would be awesome for industrial processes if it can be scaled, is comparable in price to heating water, and preserves what makes a good espresso a good espresso.
Was talking with a roaster who was providing espresso to a distillery recently. The distiller had tried a range of other products but only espresso shots were giving the flavour they were chasing. Needless to say, it ended up being a pretty limited run because the guys grew tired of pulling litres of shots for a batch!
If your goal is to understand the quality of the espresso shot, rather than experience a high quality espresso shot, letting it cool off provides a useful data point.
This is only true for poor quality coffee. The hot temperature masks defects (bitterness). Good coffee tastes better as it cools. https://www.baristamagazine.com/the-temperature-paradox-why-...