by Roberto Samora
SAO PAULO (Reuters) – With climate change, achieving uniform coffee maturation has been increasingly difficult, which complicates the lives of coffee growers in Brazil who want to produce premium lots with red beans, so-called cherries.
But a research started by the Federal University of Lavras-MG (Ufla) found a way to produce quality coffees with harvest of up to 50% of green fruits, something unimaginable, considering the traditional practices.
The technique allows coffee growers not to have to wait for a more general ripening in the crops – an expectation that results in more red beans, but also in losses as a side effect, with beans falling on the ground or dry on the feet, due to uneven ripening.
Based on the work of Ufla in partnership with Nucoffee, a platform of solutions for Syngenta’s producers, a post-harvest process for green beans was developed that promises to give farmers an alternative to producing good coffee, even if made from unripe raw material, for the most part.
“We decided to innovate, I would have to think outside of what has been done in 170 years of coffee studies. It is a breakthrough innovation, as it breaks concepts established many years ago,” said Ufla professor Flávio Meira Borém, noting that the dominant idea is to produce good coffee with mature beans.
The drink, presented to the public at the international coffee seminar in Guarujá (SP), still brings greater health benefits, since green beans contain more phenolic compounds, which are antioxidants, anti-inflammatory and minimize the risk of obesity, said Ufla and Nucoffee.
“It solves the producer and consumer side,” said Borém, at the event on the coast of São Paulo, where the country exports most of its coffee.
He didn’t reveal the process for making green coffee less astringent, that “mouth-tight” feeling. A tasting during the event showed that the drink is pleasant even for conilon coffee, which tends to be more bitter than arabica.
According to the professor, Nutraceutical coffee (due to the use of nutrition and pharmaceutical concepts) has a patent licensed to Nucoffee, which prevents him from revealing details. But he said that there is already a pilot production at scale, and studies and tests prove the intended results.
“For producers, the initiative allows for the anticipation of the harvest, harvesting coffee with up to 50% of green beans, and then standardizing the maturation, reducing the amount of coffee on the ground, and the following year there is a much more productive crop, because we are going to release the production of the plant…”, he said.
Borém cited estimates that indicate that 13% of coffee beans fall before harvest, while producers wait for greater maturation – a problem that would be minimized by harvesting the beans before further ripening.
Juan Gimenes, Nucoffee’s Innovation Manager, told Reuters that the company has already identified interest from producers in adopting the post-harvest process of green beans for the manufacture of Nutraceutical coffee.
CONSUMER
From the consumer’s point of view, said the researcher from Ufla, the innovation brings “a consistent supply of a coffee that is totally differentiated not only by its sensorial aspects”.
“In a blind tasting, most tasters will say 83 points, but the coffee has a differentiated sweetness with 50% of green fruits and with a high health benefit”, he said, noting that such a score is usually not obtained with an unripe harvest.
The process with the use of more green beans also allows the production of a tasty infusion with the dehydrated pulp of the fruit, a coffee by-product that is normally thrown away. The drink is served as an iced tea, to be enjoyed also without sugar.
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