In patent process, method increases the value of the bag in addition to improving the nutritional benefits and healthiness of the drink.
Led by professor Flávio Meira Borém, from the Department of Agricultural Engineering at the School of Engineering at the Federal University of Lavras (EENG/UFLA), research has used unripe fruits – previously seen as defective and which devalued the product, reducing sales potential – to the production of coffee with better quality.
Seeking to take advantage of all the benefits of the second most consumed beverage in the world, second only to water, the study carried out by the Center for Research in Agricultural Product Processing (UFLA) sought alternatives that improve the sensory profile of the grains and increase the quality of the lot of coffees in the post-harvest, even in the presence of a large amount of immature beans, making it more profitable for the producer, being able to enrich the coffee bag, increasing the value. “Those who work with coffee know that the more unripe fruit, the worse the quality of the coffee. However, we managed to develop a method that uses these unripe fruits and even increases the score of a coffee from 77 to 83, and that is a huge leap, a paradigm shift in the coffee sector”, comments the specialist. Specialty coffees receive a specific score from the Specialty Coffee Association, as part of a thorough quality assessment.
In Brazil, uneven maturation of grains has been a major challenge, among other factors, due to climate change, such as dry periods, frosts and excessive rainfall. For the production of specialty coffees, the situation is even more complex, since the fruits called cherries (ripe fruits) need an ideal ripening point, which gives them all their characteristics, such as flavor, color and aroma.
Professor Borém’s research is supported by the private sector and is in the process of applying for a patent. “We can say that this is the first coffee in the world classified as special produced from 50% green fruits, this is really a great innovation”, explains the professor. It took years of study for the researchers to arrive at an ideal post-harvest method that incorporated the unripe fruits into the drink and, in addition to not causing harm, brought an important increase in sensory quality and gains in compounds beneficial to health. Estimates indicate that 13% of coffee beans fall before the ideal harvest period, which would be one more reason to bring the harvest forward, which would cause less loss of beans and greater economic advantage to the producer.
Rich in bioactive compounds that bring positive effects to our body, such as chlorogenic acid, coffee is a drink with high antioxidant power, which fights free radicals and causes a protective action in the body, preventing premature aging and various diseases.
The coffee produced in this way is considered nutraceutical since it brings nutritional and health benefits when consumed without excesses. Unripe fruits contain phenolic compounds, which are antioxidants and anti-inflammatory. “Normal coffee already has these properties. He is antioxidant and has several properties beneficial to health. With this work, we were able to significantly increase the antioxidant activity in the raw grain, and this results in even greater benefits, however the novelty is that we were able to do this from 50% of unripe fruits. There is no previous history in which a result as relevant as this one has been obtained”, comments Professor Borém.
For producers, the research will provide a new perspective in relation to green fruits, reducing the amount of coffee in the soil and increasing the production of the plant in subsequent years.
source: https://ciencia.ufla.br/todas-reportagens/872-cafe-especial-pesquisa-inovadora-desenvolve-tecnica-que-utiliza-graos-verdes-na-producao-de-cafes-especiais
