Technology innovation for production of specialty coffee

Abstract

Coffee is one of the most important agricultural commodities in the world. Data from International Coffee Organization (ICO) indicate that total world production increased from 8.945 million metric tons in 2014 to 9.126 million metric tons in 2015, 9.462 million metric tons in 2016, and 9.580 million metric tons in 2017. Data from ICO also show that coffee is commercially cultivated in 56 countries and Indonesia with total production of about 720 thousand tons in 2017 was the fourth largest producer after Brazil (3.06 million tons), Vietnam (1.77 million tons), and Colombia (840 thousand tons). To increase the economic value of this commodity, the quality of coffee bean must be improved through both agronomic and postharvest aspects. This study was designed to develop a new ohmic-based fermentation technology for coffee cherry to improve flavor quality of coffee beans. Results of this study indicate that this technology can produce coffee with cup-test scores ranging from 84.38 to 86.88 with an average score of 85.713. This score is higher than the cup test score of Indonesia civet coffee (luwak coffee) reported by several researchers. Therefore, application of ohmic heating based technology for coffee fermentation can significantly improve flavor quality of coffee beans.