If you’ve been paying attention to coffee competitions over the past few years, then you know that volatile aromatic compounds are important to the overall experience of a coffee. But they are elusive. It’s why so many competitors pull their shots over frozen spheres or keep lids over their espressos before the judges taste them; they’re trapping in all those volatile aromatics.
But these compounds are for more than just filling out score sheets. New research finds that the origin of a roasted coffee can be determined based upon the volatile compounds it possesses.
This latest study appears in the journal Food Chemistry, where researchers from Jiangnan University in China and the National University of Singapore attempted to find connections between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in roasted coffee and their country of origin. For the study, researchers examined coffees from eight different countries and assayed their VOCs using a variety of methods, including gas chromatography-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOFMS), gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS), and gas chromatography-electronic nose (GC-E-Nose). They were able to identify hundreds of VOCs, with a “variable importance projection” finding 12 key volatile markers that could be used in differentiating a coffee’s origin.
This data was then use to build predictive models that, when were tasked with analyzing a roasted coffee’s VOCs, were able to accurately determine which of the eight countries the coffee was from. Researchers hope that these findings will “provide a foundation for the rapid identification of the origin of roasted coffee beans.”
Though one can’t help but be more concerned with the sort of conditions required to make this technology useful for its stated purpose. Specifically, coffee roasters or importers would have to be incorrectly labeling where their coffee was from coming. Which is not unheard of in the industry, but not quite to the level of everyone having an E-Nose next to their Acaia Ion Beam and their Nucleus NCD Pulse. Still, the results could have applications down the road that don’t require large-scale false advertising. Maybe we’ll see one on the Barista Championship stage sooner or later? Stranger things have happened.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
