Using Electronic Noses to Characterize Food Samples

Image Credit: pixelliebe/Shutterstock.com

Coffee is a brewed drink produced from roasted coffee beans, which are the seeds of berries from the Coffea plant. The two most commonly grown are the greatly regarded arabica, and the less sophisticated but more hardy and stronger robusta. Coffee berries are picked, processed and dried after they are ripe.

Coffee is considered to be one of the world’s most vital crops, given the number of people making a livelihood indirectly or directly from it. It is estimated that there are over 6000 million kilos of coffee each year and 120 million people depend on it. It should be noted that this crop is the key source of income for a number of developing countries.

Brazil produces 25% of the world’s coffee supply as it is considered to be world's largest producer of coffee. 80% of the coffee that is produced in Brazil is Arabica.

Adulterations of Coffee

Extensive adulterations of coffee have been practiced, but with stringent laws, state and national, have been enacted, this evil is majorly decreasing.

One of the crude forms of adulteration which were found on the market a number of years ago was the fabrication of artificial beans, molded in the shape of coffee beans and then colored such that they represent either the roasted bean or the green bean as the case might be.

There was no difficult in detecting these artificial beans when the mass was carefully observed, as there were always differences which would be discriminatory. However, a person not expecting anything of the kind, might simply buy without detection or without suspicion, coffee beans comprising of as high as 25% of these artificial bodies.

The use of chicory is one of the other forms of adulteration. Of all the roasted vegetable substances which have been used as substitutes for coffee, or in coffee, there is none that has garnered as much vogue as chicory.

When roasted, the roots are widely used for mixture with coffee. Chicory is commonly used in the household and in restaurants or cafes in order to give these characteristics to the coffee. Its addition to coffee, on the contrary, for sale to the innocent or unwary purchaser is absolutely a commercial fraud.

To know more about detecting adulterants in not just coffee but also in any kind of beverage or food, customers can visit online solutions related to the beverage and food industry.

Measuring Volatile Organics in Coffee Aroma

A new electronic nose, which is based on rapid gas chromatography known as zNose^®, offers a quality control methodology for rapidly measuring volatile organics in coffee aroma.

Recently, there has been an increased interest in the analysis of coffee aroma in order to control quality and increase customer acceptance.

The instrument can also be used with sensory panel measurements since it is fast and portable.

Comparing sensory panel findings with real-time VOC measurements could help link specific compounds with coffee aroma. It is also possible to use real-time analytical measurements of coffee aroma for monitoring production processes.

This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Electronic Sensor Technology.

For more information on this source, please visit Electronic Sensor Technology.