In combination with efforts in consumer countries to refine the OSI906 roasting, grinding and brewing processes, objective evaluation of the raw material has already lead to improvements in cup quality at the consumer end of the value chain, and further improvements are expected in the future. In order to produce and source high quality green coffee, more knowledge of how to objectively assess the quality of coffee prior to roasting is required. In coffee trading, certain parameters, such as bean size, shape, colour, origin and crop-year, are often used as quality criteria. It is also

well known that defects in green coffee beans have a negative impact on cup quality, and the identification and classification of such defects is an integral part of quality grading. Countries, where coffee originates, have each developed their own defect classification schemes that are based on visual parameters. Final assessment of the quality of

a coffee is usually trans-isomer supplier performed by roasting, grinding, brewing and tasting a sample, a process called “cupping”. It should be noted that such green coffee quality evaluation processes are highly subjective. Furthermore, many high quality, specialty coffees have become increasingly free of defects, meaning quality evaluation schemes that are based on counting specific defects are of little use for this segment of the market. A very critical quality indicator is the degree of ripeness of the harvested and processed coffee fruits. Many large scale production farms do not sort their crops, meaning coffee beans of widely varying degrees of ripeness are picked simultaneously resulting in a lower cup quality. There are, however, an increasing number of farms that specialise in high quality coffee. These farms have established harvesting and post-harvesting processes, including the manual harvesting of coffee cherries, to ensure only fully ripe fruits are picked.

BCKDHA In combination with a thorough sorting of the green beans, this allows the producer to deliver a premium quality coffee. To support the trend towards premium quality coffee, it is important to develop evaluation schemes that are more appropriate for this “defect-free” segment, and that can differentiate between coffees harvested at different degrees of ripeness. So far, little is known about the changes in chemical composition of green beans during the ripening of the fruits and how green bean composition can be analytically related to the quality of the cup of coffee. Most of the studies to date have focused on markers for defective beans (immature, overripe).