Why when you evaporate coffee and store the steam until it becomes liquid again, the liquid no longer has the color of coffee?

Question

I did this experiment one day because I was curious, sorry if it’s a stupid question

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

Think of coffee like a powder dissolved in water (I mean, instant coffee is literally this, but it works for bean-brewed coffee in basically the same way). When water boils, it turns into steam, but the little coffee particles are still around in the liquid below, so the two substances separate. Only the water evaporates.

If you actually boil away *all* of the coffee’s water, you will actually be left with all of the brown-colored coffee residue stuck to the bottom of your container (I don’t recommend doing this at home though since once all the water is gone, the heat will quickly transition into burning whatever’s left and that will just be a nightmare to clean up). But you can add water back to it and get something resembling your original coffee again; which is how you get instant coffee mix.