Current strategies to guarantee the authenticity of coffee

Abstract

As they become more health conscious, consumers are paying increasing attention to food quality and safety. In coffee production, fraudulent strategies to reduce costs and maximize profits include mixing beans from two species of different economic value, the addition of other substances and/or foods, and mislabeling. Therefore, testing for coffee authenticity and detecting adulterants is required for value assessment and consumer protection. Here we provide an overview of the chromatography, spectroscopy, and single-nucleotide polymorphism-based methods used to distinguish between the major coffee species Arabica and Robusta. This review also describes the techniques applied to trace the geographical origin of coffee, based mainly on the chemical composition of the beans, an approach that can discriminate between coffee-growing regions on a continental or more local level. Finally, the analytical techniques used to detect coffee adulteration with other foods and/or coffee by-products are discussed, with a look at the practice of adding pharmacologically active compounds to coffee, and their harmful effects on health.

Keywords:

• Arabica and Robusta varieties
• geographical origin
• adulterants
• chromatographic techniques
• spectroscopic techniques

Acknowledgements

M.-P. thanks the Ministry of Science Innovation (MICIU/FEDER) for the project (RTI2018-093974-B-I00). I.D.-L. is supported by the [FI_B 00256] from the FI-AGAUR Research Fellowship Program, Generalitat de Catalunya. A.L.‐Y. wishes to thank the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) of Mexico for the doctoral scholarship. A.V.‐Q. thanks the Ministry of Science Innovation and Universities for the Ramon y Cajal contract (RYC‐2016‐19355).

Author contributions

All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.