Researchers have discovered a quick test that will discover whether coffee has had impurities added to it.
Coffee drinkers beware: Surprise ingredients that are neither sweet nor flavorful may be hiding in your coffee, and growing coffee shortages may increase the chance of having these fillers in your cup of joe in the future. The good news is that a highly accurate test is in the works to quickly find coffee containing unwanted fillers before the beverage reaches stores and restaurants.
Now, however, Nixdorf and her team at State University of Londrina in Brazil have developed a way to nip coffee counterfeiting in the bud.
"With our test, it is now possible to know with 95 percent accuracy if coffee is pure or has been tampered with, either with corn, barley, wheat, soybeans, rice, beans, acai seed, brown sugar or starch syrup," she says. The problem, she explains, is that "after roasting and grinding the raw material, it becomes impossible to see any difference between grains of lower cost incorporated into the coffee, especially because of the dark color and oily texture of coffee."
In new research, the team is now analyzing several fillers that are considered impurities rather than adulterants. These impurities can even be parts of the coffee plants, introduced at harvest, that are not really supposed to be in the final product. Wood, twigs, sticks, parchment, husks, whole coffee berries or even clumps of earth that are almost the same color as coffee have been found. Identifying them is essential because if there is a large amount of impurities, they were probably added purposefully - not by accident, as some producers claim, says Nixdorf.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SuperCharlie on Tuesday August 12 2014, @11:36PM
I have been buying roasted beans and grinding them myself for almost 10 years. I think I could tell if it was a coffee bean or not.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by J053 on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:00AM
(Score: 2, Funny) by pert.boioioing on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:14AM
Well then, I guess I won't offer you a cup of coffee-flavored beverine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:31AM
But can you tell if the cat poop [qz.com] is authentic or not?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:51AM
Those aren't beans, they're dead dung beetles.
But whatever gets you high, man.
(Score: 3, Informative) by N3Roaster on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:08AM
Done in one. Coffee adulteration has been an issue for as long as it has been sold and buying it whole bean is advice that has stood the test of time. It also stays fresher that way since grinding flashes off a lot of the volatiles immediately and exposes more surface area for staling.
Typica - Free software for coffee roasting professionals. [typica.us]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday August 13 2014, @01:51AM
Actually, grinding itself doesn't flash off much, its the sitting around with all those surfaces exposed that does it in.
Few years back Starbucks was selling high(er) end, but still home/consumer coffee machines that grind, measure, extract, steam etc. all pretty much automatically.
Every once in a while they would put them on sale, and I knew a managerial type in the Starbucks Seattle home office. He could get these dirt cheap.
There are now a dozen brands of fairly high end (do it all) machines on the market, whereas there used to be only two or three.
Starbucks carried these and put them on sale like this for three years in a row, and finally figure out they were killing their own sales. I rarely visit Starbucks any more since I got mine (and, yes, I do like how they roast their beans, thank you for your opinion).
I also found a small roasting company that is half retail the price for a pound of beans and will even make up your own blend for you. In fact, you can buy beans green from them and roast them yourself if you want. (Cast iron frying pan, and gas grill, plus constant attention).
I haven't bought ground coffee in years.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:13AM
To me steaming kills the flavor. Of course that really doesn't matter if one is starting with over-roasted, burned beans. Coffee should be a nice medium roast (just before the oils start to burn out), freshly ground, placed in a filter device and water 82~83 C poured over it.
It is even better if you roast the beans yourself. If you shop around you can find unroasted beans. Grind and drip brew while still warm...best coffee you will ever have.
I like mine black, no suger, milk or other flavors.
Side note...back in WWI and WWII folks in the south put chicory in coffee because coffee was in short supply.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Wednesday August 13 2014, @04:04PM
> Side note...back in WWI and WWII folks in the south put chicory in coffee
They still do, at least in New Orleans.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday August 13 2014, @06:07PM
I'm partial to this:
http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=french+market+coffee&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=french+market+coffee+%26+chicory+med+roast&rls=en&tbm=shop [google.com]
The canned type. Stovetop percolated.
I've experimented with coffee a long time -- got my first espresso machine in 1988 and still have one today. In the end, coffee is a preference thing -- over the last quarter century I've arrived at two favored drinks, equally liked: 1) double tall hazelnut latte, 2) stove top percolated coffee and chicory. I hate drip coffee. Absolutely despise it, though in all fairness, I'm sure many people despise perc coffee (and to be fair, if done badly, it is an effective herbicide).
(Score: 1) by N3Roaster on Wednesday August 13 2014, @02:19AM
Actually, it does. Not going to dig up a citation for numbers (this has been measured and it's a pretty high percentage) but think about what's happening to the bean structure in the grinding process and what you're smelling when you grind a fresh coffee.
Typica - Free software for coffee roasting professionals. [typica.us]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Wednesday August 13 2014, @05:23AM
Tim Horton's in Canada seems to be using the 'just add wood chips' method of dealing with rising coffee bean prices, at least for their take-home tin's of ground coffee.
(Score: 2, Informative) by aclarke on Wednesday August 13 2014, @11:38AM
I can't tell if you're joking or serious. Can you provide a citation to back up this claim? Maybe that's the famed "secret ingredient" people claim is in Tim's coffee that makes it more addictive.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:54PM
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday August 13 2014, @10:52PM
There was an NPR article about a dung beatle biologist who always drank "from the bean" coffee, even when collecting samples in the Amazon rainforest.
Ahh here it is: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103775784 [npr.org]
When asked why he replied (my dodgy memory this is the gist, but you can listen), "It turns out although I am a researcher in dung beatle/cockroach biology, I am actually very allergic to their droppings. The FDA actually has a threshold for how many cockroach droppings can be incorporated in ground coffee, as an inevitable consequence of being stored in massive warehouses".
Food for thought...!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Wednesday August 13 2014, @12:47AM
Now a test that finds Glyphosate, Bisphenol-A, PFOA, PFOS, methyl mercury, aflatoxin, GMO etc. That would have some serious use..!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:00PM
Now a test that finds Glyphosate, Bisphenol-A, PFOA, PFOS, methyl mercury, aflatoxin, GMO etc. That would have some serious use..!
Tests exist for all of those except possibly GMO (you would need to know what genes to look for to test for that I would guess).
Am I missing something here (possibly a Woosh)?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 14 2014, @12:44AM
Mostly price is an issue for this. And secondly the time it takes get the results. In some cases the incentive to manipulate results is also very tempting for some organizations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 13 2014, @07:21AM
coffee++