Kenya’s Arabica industry has been affected by fraud. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Italian scientists have discovered a way
to quickly uncover coffee fraud — an issue which has affected Kenya’s
Arabica industry and other producers over recent years.
The
scientists at the University of Florence say their new sampling
machine, known as PTR-ToF-MS, can discover when the more expensive
Arabica bean has been mixed with the cheaper Robusta.
The
issue has been a concern for some time because mixing the beans allows
sellers to get a higher profit margin than just selling pure Arabica.
The
new machine, which is both quick and portable, deployed a technique
called proton transfer reaction which has already been used to
investigate other types of food fraud and was found to significantly
discriminate between the two species.
The results,
according to a report in the journal Food Chemistry, showed that the
PTR-ToF-MS technique “was able to correctly recognise Arabica and
Robusta samples. Therefore, the analyses… represent a valuable tool to
distinguish between Arabica and Robusta.”
In the study
coffee samples of seven Arabica and six Robusta commercial stocks were
recorded and submitted to statistical analysis.
Results
clearly showed that, in each stage of the coffee processing, the
volatile composition of coffee is highly influenced by the different
species enabling scientists to discover which beans were pure and which
were not.
While coffee experts are already able to show
where coffee has been tampered with, the current method of analysis is
slow and expensive and not very reliable.
The
scientists say the new research showed that in future their technique
will be able to provide an “innovative, fast and valuable tool for
coffee authentication.”
No comments :
Post a Comment