Instant coffee with steamed PVA beans: Physical-chemical and sensory aspects

Abstract

Around 20% of Brazilian coffee production corresponds to defective beans (PVA), which decreases the quality of the coffee brews. Steam treatment has been reported as an alternative to improve the cup quality of coffee products. This research aimed to study the feasibility of using steamed Robusta PVA beans in instant coffee products. After the steam treatment (2 bar for 3 min), the Robusta PVA was dried, roasted, subjected to extraction in a pilot plant, and freeze-dried. The steamed and untreated Robusta PVA materials (raw, roasted, and instant coffees) and blends of instant Arabica coffee with PVA were characterized. The steamed Robusta PVA instant coffee presented 7.01 g caffeine and 8.74 g total chlorogenic acids in 100 g product. Instant coffee blends with 30% and 50% of steamed Robusta PVA in Arabica coffee were studied. A sensory difference between blends with steamed and untreated Robusta PVA was only perceived by the addition of 50% PVA. The blend with 50% of steamed coffee was preferred and well accepted (average grade of 7.9 on a 10-scale). The use of steamed Robusta PVA coffee (under mild steam treatment conditions, 2 bar/3 min) in instant coffee was viable, and it was obtained an instant coffee to be used in a blend with 50% of Arabica coffee with a good profile of bioactive compounds and sensory acceptance.

Sensory description of beverages of intervarietal hybrids of Conilon and Robusta: Natural and fermented coffees

“…Coffee flavor dominance values for hybrid coffee beverages were similar to that described for Arabica brews (Barbosa et al, 2019; Reis et al, 2020); the time to reach this dominance ( T max from 26.3 to 37.5 s, Table 2) was also similar to that reported by Portela et al (2022) for Arabica and Robusta brews.…”

“…Among the attributes studied, only the sweet taste was not perceived as dominant in any of the beverages, despite being up to the chance level for three of them (Table 2). This behavior was already reported for Robusta coffee beverages (Portela et al, 2022) and also for Arabica coffee brews (Barbosa et al, 2019; Galmarini et al, 2021; Portela et al, 2022; Reis et al, 2020).…”

“…Among the attributes studied, only the sweet taste was not perceived as dominant in any of the beverages, despite being up to the chance level for three of them (Table 2). This behavior was already reported for Robusta coffee beverages (Portela et al, 2022) and also for Arabica coffee brews (Barbosa et al, 2019;Galmarini et al, 2021;Portela et al, 2022;Reis et al, 2020). On the other hand, coffee flavor and bitter taste attributes were either perceived as dominant (V max > 0.222) or above the chance level (V max > 0.125) for all beverages, with the maximum dominance rate value ranging from 0.146 to 0.333 and from 0.190 to 0.276 for coffee flavor and bitter taste, respectively (Table 2).…”

“…C. canephora beverages are described as having greater bitterness dominance compared to Arabica coffee (Portela et al, 2022; Reis et al, 2020), but a shorter duration of bitterness dominance perception was observed for the natural coffees, notably BRS 2314 ( D max 1.7 s, Table 2), compared to the fermented ones ( D max 24.2 and 28.2 s, Table 2). Ribeiro et al (2017) reported dominance of bitter taste for an extended period (5–30 s) in Arabica coffee fermented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast.…”

“…The sensory techniques of Flash Profile (FP) and Temporal Dominance of Sensations (TDS) have been used in the quick sensory description of static and temporal respectively of C. canephora beverages (Kalschne, Viegas, et al, 2019; Kobayashi & Benassi, 2012; Portela et al, 2022; Reis et al, 2020). Since there is no sensory characterization by untrained assessors or comparison between natural and fermented C. canephora hybrid coffees, the joint use of these techniques may provide a closer representation of the consumer's perception of these products.…”