Magic Potion's mission and history

The Mission

The goal of Magic Potion is two-fold:

To make special water for brewing more accessible and fun for everyone in Thailand (and later globally)
To grow the collective education around water's effect on coffee

The end result should hopefully be more people drinking better coffee!

How did Magic Potion start?

Back in 2022 I was enjoying coffee at home, as one does, and was testing some of the commercially available "barista water" products - I being "Zeno", the founder and one writing these docs.

After switching over to an RO water filter I noticed that they actually made a big difference to taste, some in a positive way, others negative.

At the time I was messing around with various minerals/chemicals to make my own sports drinks. A light-bulb went off...

Hey, why don't I just make my own coffee water mixes too?

Thus started a wave of hundreds of experiments and diving into the scientific literature around water's effect on coffee extraction, roasting, brewing, even the effects observed in the beer and wine industry.

Surprisingly, it's not that well-understood.

As an entrepreneur working on several projects, I decided I would take a crack at making a product out of these coffee side-adventures.

Exploring the landscape

After digging into the literature and available information online, it became clear that:

There are existing products for this, albeit not much variety
In professional barista circles, especially in the US/UK, the importance of water composition is well-understood
In barista championships, almost everyone was using their own custom "water blend", which they may or may not reveal

Being a chemist, I dove into the published papers related to this and tried to get a feel for the measured, objective science as well as the subjective wisdom of the coffee culture.

I later visited the Aeropress championships in Thailand and probed people about the water they used.

Surprisingly...

Almost everyone knew that water mattered, particularly magnesium content, but was not confident on why
Most people used RO water because it was consistent (tho it's terrible for coffee), or did mixes of RO + some bottled mineral water
Many had tried existing powder solutions, but either didn't like them, or struggled with consistency
"Consitency" came up again and again, and this lead me to explore making a liquid-based dosing system

After this event I was confident most roasteries would be interested in testing products like this, and I dreamed up some ideas for a liquid-based system.

At home my experiments were all liquid-based anyway – no way I can weigh out 0.0274 g of a powder to put in 1 L, so of course I had stock solutions.

Evolution of the Potion Lab

Being a Kiwi as well, DIY is a strong point, so I started hacking away at ideas and prototypes for a liquid-dosing system that could be made affordable and accessible.

I went through many revisions...

Eventually, I passed one of these on to a friend at a roastery who was keen to experiment as well.

That naturally lead to several orders, just from others seeing this contraption being used.

I refined the product further, moved to using high quality wood, 3D-printed heads for tubes, and ultimately trying to make a product that looks less out of place in a premium cafe.

The current revision looks like this:

Potion Lab Prototype

I then developed a Potion Lab Calculator to help people compute their mineral mixes easily, instead of having to throw numbers into a spreadsheet.

What now?

Now, I am getting around to properly launching Magic Potion.

I am still fixing some challenges with making potion powders drier and more stable, so they are easier to dissolve.

I'd like to connect with more baristas and have them test our products + the Potion Lab.

I'd like to get more people testing the powders to provide feedback.

And, I'd like to get involved with education/workshops that can help professionals level up their coffee that little bit extra, by having a firm grasp on water chemistry.

Imagine a world where, as a roastery, you had an optimised water mix for each of your beans/roasts and with a simple water change, could add intensity to your latte that you could never bring out before.