Hey #coffee nerds, there's an interesting post over at https://npcoffeescience.webnode.com/l/to-bloom-or-not-to-bloom/ (via https://www.instagram.com/p/B9NBD2gFinf/ ) about measuring the impact on total dissolved carbon (a proxy for extraction strength, claimed by the author to be a better/more useful quality metric than TDS) of blooming inverted Aeropress brews (15g in @ 85°C, 200g water; 2m30s total brew time, 10× stir @ 60s, 30s plunge) with a variety of water types. It's worth a critical read!
tl;dr: bloom seems to have no effect on this metric.
This conclusion agrees with my personal experience that I've never been able to taste a difference between an Aeropress brew with vs. without a blooming step.
I *can* taste a difference with V60 / pourover brews. I expect that's because bloom has a greater effect on physical flow rate with that method, changing extraction to a greater degree than the flow restricted Aeropress method. But I've never tried an A/B/X test so maybe I'm fooling myself!
