Coffee: Lit from Below and Above

This morning I took some ground decaf coffee (from the previous day), and put it under the microscope. Lit from below (the default for brightfieqld microscopes), it looked pretty boring, just a silhouette.

Coffee grounds silhoetted by the microscope light

But when I turned down and later off the microscope light and used a simple (but fairly bright at 385 lumens) hand-held flashlight to light the coffee, color and texture popped out.

Coffee grounds lit a little from below with the microscope light & above with a flashlight

Coffee grounds lit with just a flashlight