Detection and quantification of added flavours in flavoured roasted and ground coffee.

Among the speciality coffees,
flavoured coffees are becoming popular
throughout the world. Of the
several compatible flavours, spice
flavours offer a good potential for
exploitation. Although flavours are
added to coffee according to Good
Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and
keeping the consumer acceptance in
view, it is equally important to
quantify the added flavour in the
product. This paper presents a simple,
reproducible method for the determination
of added flavours in roasted
and ground coffee. The method consists
of isolation of the flavour by
steam distillation, solvent extraction
and GC examination of the flavour
concentrate. Quantification is achieved
by comparing the peak areas of the
marker peaks (cineole for cardamom
and eugenol for clove) with those of
the standard (pure oils). The encapsulated
flavours containing 4.5% cardamom
oil and 5.4% clove oil were
incorporated into R & G coffee at
0.5% to 4% levels. There was a good
agreement between the value of added
flavour (as volatile oil content) and
that determined by the method. The
method can be extended to determine
the flavour content in other flavoured
coffees.