Reducing the acidity of Arabica coffee beans by ohmic fermentation technology

Abstract

Coffee is widely consumed not only because of its typical taste, but coffee has antioxidant properties because of its polygons, and it stimulates brain performance. The main problem with the consumption of coffee is its content of caffeine. Caffeine when consumed in excess, can increase muscle tension, stimulate the heart, and increase the secretion of gastric acid. In this research, we applied ohmic fermentation technology, which is specially designed to mimic the stomach. Arabica coffee has high acidity that needs to be reduced than Luwak coffee, although it is cheaper. Hence, the ohmic technology with a time and temperature variation were applied to measure the total acidity of the coffee to determine optimum fermentation conditions. Results revealed that the total acidity of the coffee varied with fermentation conditions (0.18% – 0.73%). Generally, the longer the fermentation and the higher the temperature, the lower the total acidity. The acidity of the Luwak coffee through natural fermentation was 2.34%, which is substantially higher than the total acidity from the ohmic samples. Ohmic-based fermentation technology, therefore, offers improvements in coffee quality.

Keywords

• Ohmic technology
• Fermentation
• Coffee quality
• Arabica coffee