In the year since his ground-breaking manual Water for Coffee was published, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood has really noticed radical shifts in the coffee industry and how it is talking about the chemistry behind water.

“People in coffee have recognised that water’s an important element for a long time,” he says. “But the problem with water is it all looks the same. It’s all empty clear liquid. It unnerves a lot of people in the industry. If it has such a big impact on how the coffee tastes, then what is the real character of any coffee? How should any coffee really taste?”