Variability of caffeine content in green and roasted Coffea arabica regarding the origin, post-harvest processing, and altitude, and overview of recommended daily allowance

Abstract

Caffeine content is a crucial attribute of coffee. Its concentration and thus maximum cups of Coffea arabica from Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America from different altitudes of growing areas, altitude, and process using different post-harvest processing (dry, wet, and pulped natural). Our results suggest that geographical origin might affect the alkaloid concentration in C. arabica. The caffeine concentration pattern in green samples was as follows: Central America > South America > Asia > Africa. Altitude affected the concentrations, lowlands > midlands > highlands, however, not significantly. Given caffeine is thermostable, the medium roasting process did not affect the concentration of caffeine directly, but a small increase was observed. Scientific opinion on the safety of habitual caffeine consumption of up to 400 mg per day does not raise safety concerns for non-pregnant adults. A cup (7 g coffee in 120 mL of water) was used for recalculation. Results suggest that mostly highlands and midlands coffee from Africa reached levels of caffeine that might be consumed in more than 5.5 cups a day.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Caffeine
• green coffee
• HPLC-DAD
• medium roasting level
• moisture content
• recommended daily allowance

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, grant [VEGA 1/0734/20] and by the Operational program Integrated Infrastructure within the project: Demand-driven research for the sustainable and innovative food, Drive4SIFood 313011V336, co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.