Abstract
The complex composition of coffee aroma depends on the several factors regarding green coffee such as species and variety of the beans, origin , seeds size, colour (Toci and Farah, 2014). The most important coffee varieties are known to be Coffea arabica with good organoleptic characteristics, and Coffea canephora , known as Robusta of inferior quality. Development of aroma compounds also is greatly dependent upon the degree of roasting (Lopez-Galilea et al., 2006). In the roasting process almost 840 volatile organic compounds (VOC) are evaluated (Saw et al., 2015). The aim of this work is to investigate of the aromatic profile of six Arabica cultivar from Africa, Central and South America at different roasting degrees (light, medium and dark) and to establish odordescriptor categories as indicators for the assessment of flavour differences. The three roasting degrees were obtained in laboratory considering as target the industrial products and coffee roasting intensity was evaluated by a polychromatic colorimeter. The aromatic compounds of espresso coffee were evaluated by static headspace gas mass chromatography. The 67 key odors identified were classified in ten smell groups: floral, ethereal, fruit, chocolate, sweet and sugary, nut, grain and cereals, roast, spice, vegetal and earthy as suggested by Flament (2001). Results showed a consistent difference between different origins, depending on roasting intensity and maturation time, reflecting the possibility to optimize espresso coffee mixtures in an analytic way.
