Coffee 33
Coffee 33
Coffee 33
The beans are stored in fermentation tanks for 2-3 days depending
up on the weather condition during which time, the slimy layer of
the berry is separate from its parchment like covering, by natural
enzymes.
Completion of fermentation is determined by washing a bit of the
parchment with clean water and then feeling the coffee with the
hand. A gritty feel is an indication of the completion of fermentation.
Different chemical products like lime, alkaline carbonates can also
be used for removal of the mucilage which precipitates the pectines
in the form of soluble pectates, which are then easily removed by
washing (Mutua, 2000).
Soaking(optional) and washing
•After the completion of fermentation which can be found out by gritty feeling,
not slippery, the coffee beans are then washed without delay to remove the
fermentation break-down products.
•Delay or insufficient washing at this stage can produce undesirable flavours
in final product.
•Fully wet parchment coffee has a moisture content of 50-54%. Soaking of
parchment under water after complete fermentation for about 12 hours helps in
improving the quality of coffee both in colour and taste. The fermented
parchment is subjected to wash thoroughly in order to remove the degraded
mucilage and acid before soaking (Wickramasinghe et al., 2001).
•After fermentation and soaking, the parchment coffee is again washed with
clean water to remove any dirt or remains of mucilage or sugars. Final washing
is done in concrete channels by pushing the parchment with wooden paddles
against a stream of water. About 100 liter of water is used in order to wash 10
Kg of parchment.
Drying
The main purpose of drying is to maintain the moisture content of the parchment optimum for storage.
Freshly pulped coffee has a moisture content of about 65% and that has to be reduced by drying to 11%.
This is the ideal level of moisture content required for proper storage, hulling and roasting. In most of the
developing countries, sun drying is predominantly used and mainly by the producers’
organizations/cooperatives, and the coffee is spread on the wire mesh tables for normally about two
weeks in sunny days, until fully dry.
If drying is carried out too rapidly, ‘case hardening’ may occur which is common in the drying of many
grains. The surface is over dried and shrinks irreversibly to prevent easy movement of moisture from
within the bean in an outward direction. Worse than this, the bean may become pale and bleached in
appearance signifying flavour deterioration.
Field evidences have shown that when drying is done too rapidly under excessively warm temperatures,
the valuable cup flavour is largely lost from coffees that otherwise would have been considered excellent.
Hulling
•This is the process of removing husk either from the dry parchment coffee or dry cherry
in order to give the commercial green coffee. When the coffee gets to this stage, all
intrinsic quality (moisture content, colour) has already been obtained. The different
sorting techniques to which it is subjected can only reduce its percentage of defects in
coffee beans.
•Hulling is achieved by creating friction among the beans lying along the screw of
machine. It is crucial not to heat the beans during hulling otherwise it will affect the
final colour and taste of coffee. There is another final layer closest to bean, called as
silver skin, which may or may not be removed during hulling process. For removal of
silver skin, separate equipment following hulling called polishers is needed. The green
bean received is then subjected for sorting according to density, size and color.
Bean size sorting
•Sorting of green beans is an important operation during
coffee processing which also facilitates to carry out roasting.
Roasting is carried out with beans of similar size, if not done,
the beans with smaller size get burned earlier while the larger
ones get insufficiently roasted.
•Larger beans also fetch premium price in the market and
ultimately beans with higher percentage of defects get
concentrated in low grade coffee (Mutua, 2000).
•The green beans are sorted according to size, density and
colour. Machine sorting is also used by some trading
companies. Machines for size sorting use the sieving principle
which is either one using screens mounted in the drums or the
vibrating flat bed of rectangular shape. Electronic colour sorting
is used to separate beans with an undesirable colour, such as
black, white or brown beans.
Roasting
This is the most critical stage during postharvest handling of
coffee. The main purpose behind roasting is to release the
aroma, an operation which many coffee lovers insist on
performing themselves. A good roaster must be a part artist,
and part scientist, to maintain quality and consistency.
In the development of flavours, roasting is probably the most
important of the steps considered so far. Well roasted coffee
should be brown, of varying degrees of darkness, but never
black. Both traditional and modern roasters are used, but in
order to get better uniform quality of roasted beans, modern
(electric) roasters are preferred. The roasting process causes
the coffee beans to swell and increase their size by over 50%,
while at the same time greatly reducing their weight.
Temperature and time are two critical things that have to keep in mind during
roasting to obtain better quality coffee. During roasting, the coffee beans are
heated at 200-240 0 C about 10-15 minutes depending on the degree of
roasting required, which is mainly evaluated by colour.
The amount of oil drawn to the surface of the bean due to caramelization of
sugar and carbohydrates inside the bean increases proportionately to the
length of roasting time.
After roasting, coffee does not keep its aroma for long; it is, therefore, better
not to roast or not to buy coffee exceeding current needs. It is advisable to
keep it in airtight package-aging to prevent light, heat and moisture ingress.
Grinding
•This is the last operation through which coffee bean has to go before
being actually made cup for brewing.
•In order to avoid the loss of aroma, coffee should be ground
immediately before being made for brewing purpose as aroma is
quickly lost from ground coffee (Hicks, 2002).
•traditional grinding using wooden or marble mortars with a pestle are
common.
•Electric grinders are also used by some coffee exporting companies.
Quality attributes in coffee
Coffee is drunk for pleasure; its flavour is, therefore, the most important quality criterion.
It is the sum of different parameters all coming into play during primary production of
green coffee bean.
•Criteria used to measure quality of green beans are bean size, shape of bean,
density, color and the bean chemistry of the raw bean. These criteria are influenced by
a wide range of factors like plant genetics, orchard practices and postharvest treatment.
All the downstream operations (storage, roasting, brewing) can only preserve cup
quality. Besides its flavour characteristics, other factors such as environmental impact,
purity and safety are becoming important for the global evaluation of coffee quality
(Viani, 2001).
•The most important quality parameters are ripeness of cherry and time to processing.
• The coffee may give an astringent or impure cup, if harvested immature or kept
too long before processing. Careful picking, collecting, and storing of cherries
should be précised to produce high quality coffee. Coffee cherries should be
stored in the shadow because in the full sun cherries will start to ferment earlier
(Njoroge, 2004).
• Analytical (moisture content and defective bean count) and organoleptic
(taste testing) criteria are generally used by the coffee roaster to determine
the choice of the green coffee beans.
• Moreover, quality evaluation for the roaster requires reliability of supply,
uniform low moisture and agreed defect count, regular roasting characteristics
and of course the cupping quality.
Coffee quality assessment
Moisture content determination
This is the analytical measurement with regards to quality assessment in coffee associated with
water content inside coffee seeds.
•According to International Coffee Council (ICC) Resolution number 420, for both Arabica and
Robusta coffees, a moisture content range of 9-12% has been recommended in order to adopt the
quality standards for exported coffees (ICO, 2004). If a moisture percentage below 12% has
currently been received, coffee exporting members can work with set purpose in order to ensure
that this level is maintained or decreased.
•Exceptions to the 12% maximum limit can be permitted for specialty coffees which traditionally
have high moisture percentages e.g. Indian coffees harvested during monsoon season. Such kind of
coffees can be clearly noticed by specific grade nomenclature (origin, growing condition)
Defective bean counts and cup tasting
•In general quality determination of green coffee bean can be done in three main categories:
coffee grading, sensory evaluation and analytical measurements.
•In grading the main objective is to determine the size distribution of the coffee along with
the assessment of the defective beans and their colour. Sensory evaluation focuses on
determining the flavour profile while analytical measurements can determine moisture
percentage, chemical composition and possible pesticide residues (Wintgens, 2004).
•Bean size play an important role for roasted whole coffee beans because many consumers
associate bean size with quality, however, larger beans do not necessarily taste better than
smaller one. It has to be pointed out that for roasting, the more uniform the bean size, the
better the heat transfer and consequently the roast.
• The amount of defective beans is also associated with quality. Larger amount
of imperfections will increase the probability of finding off-flavours and lesser
homogeneity in the cup, but low amounts of visible defects do not necessarily
correlate higher cup quality.
• The assessment of defective beans count is done by hand picking all defects
from a specified amount of coffee, then grouping similar defects, counting and
weighting them (Piechaczek, 2009).
• According to New York Exchange Board (NYBOT), to qualify as exchange
grade coffee, 9 to 23 full defects per 300 g sample of green beans are permitted
and 50% of the coffee by weight must be above screen size 15 (6 mm =
medium) and only less than 5% below screen size 14 (5.5 mm = small).
Cup tasting is also the way to evaluate the coffee in an objective and
reproducible way. Its main objective is to describe the flavour profile by
attributes and values related to the intensity of each attribute, seek
objectivity.
Only trained coffee experts can judge coffee by this method. This kind of
assessment, in some way, is inevitably subjective, since it is based above
all on personal experience and memory. The basic attributes evaluated in
cup tasting are: aroma, flavour, body and acidity.
•Wintgens (2004) in his literature defined the terms that are frequently
used to assess the cup characteristics of coffee include:
•Aroma: the fragrance or odour perceived by nose of freshly ground
coffee and in cup aroma after 4 minute contact with hot water.
•Taste: perceived by the tongue
•Flavour: combination of aroma and taste. The flavour is described in
terms of winey, spicy and fragrant. Off flavours, such as grassy, onion,
musty or earthy reduce coffee quality.
• Acidity: sharp and pleasing taste. It can range from sweet to fruity and is considered as a favorable
attribute. Also roasting has an effect on acidity, the more intense the roasting, the more acidity is
affected.
Quality management systems
• Good quality produce is very important to consumers and retailers, and it is a key factor consumer’s
use in evaluating a supermarket. High quality produce is second only to a clean, neat store as top
factors in selecting a supermarket. High quality fruits and vegetables are rated very important by all
income and geographic groups, but they are especially valued among the highest income households
(Bruhn, 2002).
• It is important to realize that the physicochemical properties of products for consumption are the result
of a complex food production chain where various technological conditions and many quality
decisions contribute to final food quality. It is necessary to look at this from a chain perspective
because it gives some insight into where and how to take design, control, improvement and or assurance
measures to realize physicochemical properties and related attributes that comply with consumer demands.
• With respect to food safety control and assurance, processing can often eliminate many
pathogens and spoilage micro-organisms but heat stable toxins, many environmental
contaminants and various residues cannot be removed by processing. Their occurrence should
be kept below certain limits by preventive measures as early in the food production chain as
possible.
• It becomes apparent that it is not always clear what belongs to quality management system and
what not. The boundaries between quality management systems and other management systems
(market) of the firm (enterprise, company) are blurring. Information structures that are created
for the transfer of information about quality compliance are increasingly used for the transfer of
all kinds of products and process related information. One should note that the term ‘best
practice’ quality management system depends on the market a firm is operating in (Plaggenhoef
et al., 2009). At the bottom of the market in particular quality regulations are regarded as
something firms have to comply with and the perception exists that it should do as little as
possible for the assurance of quality.
Quality management in coffee processing
•Coffee beans and ground coffee are more likely to be attacked by toxicogenic fungi as
compared to cherries and parchment if not stored properly. Although the issue of time of
invasion of coffee by toxicogenic fungi has not been properly carried out, this is of great
importance in understanding the problem of Ochratoxin A (toxin produced by the fungus
Aspergilus) in coffee and developing control strategies. Experiences have shown that if invasion
occurs during preharvest operation, control will be much more difficult than if it occurs
postharvest, i.e. during drying and storage of dry cherry, parchment, green beans and ground
coffee. Postharvest problems seem to be appeared due to unfavourable climates for drying, poor
drying practice, quality control or inadequate storage conditions (Taniwaki et al., 2003).
•Moisture content (MC) and water activity (aw) are the most important factors that influence
fungal growth in coffee bean.
• To avoid the development of toxicogenic fungi in coffee, the water
activity should be kept under control from postharvest to final
processing. Drying coffee beans to 11-12% moisture content, which
corresponds to water activity (aw) of 0.60, avoids subsequent fungal
growth and consequently Ochratoxin A production.
• Coffee roasting can remove level of Ochratoxin A to a significant
percentage i.e. 20-60% reductions. However, depending on the
roasting process, the residual Ochratoxin A percentage in coffee may
differ from 0-100% (FAO, 2008).
• Coffee processing and trading company has to put in place a system to
assure quality standards for coffee all the way from its pulping centres,
through the milling process, to the market. It should check for the size
and maturity of the coffee cherries and moisture levels of parchment
and also grade the coffee using special grading machine and a trained
specialist in the processing factory who are responsible to check that
the green beans are unbroken and free of foreign particles to ensure
good quality control system (KIT and IIRR, 2008).
Decaffeination of Coffee
• Caffeine is a physiologically active component in coffee, which
has been studied intensively.
• Coffee beans contain between 0.8 and 2.8% caffeine, depending
on species and origin, and it contributes to 10 to 30% of the
often desired bitterness of the coffee beverage. There are only
negligible losses of caffeine in the roasting process.
• Caffeine is mainly used in soft drinks, but also together with
other active agents in remedies for headaches, cardiac
insufficiency, migraine or disorder of the respiratory centre.
• In order to minimize the `negative' physiological effects and
still keep the desirable attributes of a coffee beverage, quite a
number of decaffeination processes have been developed.