Determination of trace elements in coffee beans and instant coffee of various origins by INAA

Determination of the Elemental Composition of Coffee Using Instrumental Methods

“…Roasted coffees (beans or ground beans) are usually purchased in local markets (Rajwanshi et al 1997;Haswell and Walmsley 1998;Jaganyi et al 1999;Magalhaes et al 1999;Martin et al 1999;Jaganyi and Madlala 2000;Anderson and Smith 2002;Vega-Carrillo et al 2002;Krejcova and Cernohorsky 2003;Santos et al 2004;Anthemidis and Pliatsika 2005;Fernandes et al 2005;Zaidi et al 2006;Filho et al 2007;Grembecka et al 2007;Santos et al 2008;Castro et al 2009;Frankova et al 2009;Ashu and Chandravanshi 2011). Powdered or ground solid coffee samples are usually subjected to further stages of the elemental analysis without any special treatment (Frankova et al 2009).…”

“…Coffee beans could also initially be washed with distilled and de-ionized waters to remove surface contaminants. Latter on, they are oven-or freezedried and ground to powders of required particle sizes, i.e., <0.5 mm (Tagliaferro et al 2006(Tagliaferro et al , 2007Zaidi et al 2006).…”

“…Soluble powdered instant coffees (pure or chicoryblended) have also been analyzed (dos Santos and de Oliveira 2001;Suseela et al 2001;Vega-Carrillo et al 2002;Krejcova and Cernohorsky 2003;Ribeiro et al 2003;Fernandes et al 2005;Zaidi et al 2006;Grembecka et al 2007;Oliveira et al 2012). …”

“…A plant named coffee is a shrub that belongs to the Rubiaceae family, i.e., Coffea arabica (∼75 % of the world's production), Coffea canephora, named also robusta (∼25 %) and Coffea liberica (<1 %) (Martin et al 1998a;VegaCarrillo et al 2002;Zaidi et al 2006;Filho et al 2007;Grembecka et al 2007;Bertrand et al 2008). Parts of coffee plants used in the food industry for the production of coffee are fruits (berries) (Ashu and Chandravanshi 2011).…”

“…The coffee beverage can be consumed for many reasons, including its stimulatory effects resulted from the presence of caffeine, rich phytochemistry, health benefits, and primarily excellent taste and aroma (Grembecka et al 2007;Butt and Sultan 2011;Oliveira et al 2012). Due to a habitual consumption of coffee, its chemical composition, namely the presence of essential, non-essential and toxic elements, has to be known and kept under control in terms of its safety, and to assists its quality, nutritional value, and certain sensorial properties (Krivan et al 1993;De Nadai Fernandes et al 2002;Zaidi et al 2006;Filho et al 2007;Oleszczuk et al 2007;Oliveira et al 2012). The authenticity of coffee related to its certain geographical origin and botanical variety based on the elemental analysis and statistical pattern recognition methods seems to be quite important to producers and consumers (Krivan et al 1993; dos Santos and de Oliveira 2001;De Nadai Fernandes et al 2002;Fernandes et al 2005;Filho et al 2007;Grembecka et al 2007;Oleszczuk et al 2007;Bertrand et al 2008).…”