A good cup of coffee isn't hard to come by, which makes the fact they always taste slightly grotty on aeroplanes - when, arguably, you need it most - even more insulting.
But according to Travel and Leisure, this isn't something that can be helped. Rather, it's down to travelling thousands of feet above the ground, the facilities that aeroplanes do and don't have, and the sheer amount of coffee cabin crews have to make at any given time.
They spoke to Andrew Hetzel, a coffee quality and trade consultant, who put the gritty taste of a cuppa on planes down to the brewing process, and the temperate of the water before it's added to the coffee grounds.
He explained that at 35,000 feet, water boils at a much lower temperature than at ground level, which impacts the extraction process (the dissolving of the coffee grounds) and means that not all the solids are broken down - which leaves some as 'grit' in the cup.
Also, if cabin crew turn on the warming pad beneath the thermal flask too soon, the first few drops of brew can burn and give the whole batch of coffee a bitter taste. Ain't nobody got time for that, really.
Still, some caffeine has got to be better than no caffeine, right?
[H/T Hello Giggles]
Dusty Baxter-Wright is an award-winning journalist and the Entertainment and Lifestyle Director at Cosmopolitan, having previously worked at Sugarscape. She was named one of PPA’s 30 Under 30 for her work covering pop culture, careers, interiors and travel, and oversees the site’s Entertainment and Lifestyle strategy across print, digital and video. As a journalist for the best part of a decade, she has interviewed everyone from Louis Theroux and Channing Tatum to Margot Robbie and Ncuti Gatwa, while she has also spoken on Times Radio and BBC Radio. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram here.
