What Is Coffee Aroma?
Wake up and smell the coffee, the saying goes. The aroma of coffee entices us to drink our java but just what is coffee aroma? The tongue tastes sweet, bitter, salty and sour. The rest of what we call taste comes from aroma and coffee has lots of it. Coffeeresearch.org tells us all about coffee chemistry and coffee aroma.
Coffee aroma is responsible for all coffee flavor attributes other than the mouthfeel and sweet, salt, bitter, and sour taste attributes that are perceived by the tongue. Therefore, it might be said that coffee aroma is the most important attribute to specialty coffee. Even instant coffee has the components responsible for stimulation of our taste buds. The difference, however, is that instant coffee lacks most of the aromatic volatile compounds causing a dramatic decrease in the overall coffee flavor.
It seems like every year more and more aromatic chemical compounds are discovered in coffee. The count today is more than 800 of these. However we don’t experience most of these. The coffee aroma we experience is based on the following:
How strong is the aroma of the compound?
How much of the compound is in your coffee?
How receptive are you to that particular aroma? This is known as the odor threshold.
What compounds provide the most aromas and what aroma do we experience from them? These are the big four in descending order.
Furans: These compounds come from the breakdown of sugars in the coffee bean during roasting and result in a caramel-like aroma.
Pyrazines: These compounds are responsible for cereal, roasted, cracker, toast-like walnut aromas in coffee.
Pyrroles: The sweet, caramel-like and mushroom-like aromas in coffee can come from these compounds.
Thiophens: If your coffee has a meaty aroma it probably comes from the breakdown of amino acids and sulfur in these compounds.
These are complex chemical compounds. For example, guaiacol which gives coffee a phenolic and spicy aroma has this chemical structure and chemical names.
C7H8O2, 2-Methoxyphenol
Synonyms: o-Hydroxyanisole; Guaiacol; guaicol; o-methylcatechol; pyroguaiac acid; pyrocatechol monomethyl ether; Catechol monomethyl ether; Hydroxy-2-methoxybenzene; 1-hydroxy-2-methoxybenzene; Methyl catechol
Aroma and Much More
The aromatic compounds in coffee provide the smell of the coffee and the taste but many of these compounds are also the antioxidants that make coffee so healthy.
Recent research shows that organic coffee antioxidants include chlorogenic acid lactones and lipophilic antioxidants. Chlorogenic acid lactones and lipophilic antioxidants are capable of protecting nerve cells when challenged with hydrogen peroxide.
Scientific American has a cute video entitled The Universe in a Cup of Coffee in which it mentions several compounds that provide the aroma in coffee.
That rich coffee aroma rises from the steam because roasting coffee beans converts bitter chlorogenic acid into a diverse set of compounds. Some smells you’d expect-fruity, spicy, earthy, vanilla-but there are a few surprises (cabbage??). And adding a splash of milk or sprinkle of sugar sets off a chain of physical reactions. Convection makes the cold milk sink while the interactions between milk and coffee molecules create the milky swirls. Brownian motion also will spontaneously mix the coffee over time, no need for a stirrer.
Pyrazine gives coffee an earthy smell. Methylpropanol is responsible for fruity and spicy aromas. Vanillin gives us the vanilla aroma in coffee. Methional is responsible for any baked potato aroma in your coffee. If your coffee has a bit of a cabbage odor you can blame methanethiol. It is in the roasting that most of these compounds are created
Is Organic Coffee Gluten Free?
One of our readers asked recently about if she can safely drink organic coffee when she cannot eat foods that contain gluten. The quick answer is that healthy organic coffee is gluten free. This might not be the case with all coffees however. Organic coffee certification assures you that there is nothing in your coffee but toxin free, contaminant free high quality coffee.
Organic coffee differs from regular coffee in several aspects. The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. This guarantees that drift of substances sprayed or otherwise applied on adjacent land will not contaminate the organic plot of land. Organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport. Along the way procedures must be in place at every step to insure that there is no contamination of the healthy organic coffee produced in pristine soil with regular coffee produced on soil exposed to herbicides, pesticides, and organic fertilizers.
This also insures that coffee is not transported in or stored in containers that previously included other foodstuffs including those containing gluten.
Gluten
If you cannot digest it properly gluten can cause gas, bloating, diarrhea or even constipation. It can cause a rash on your arms and make you feel tired after eating. The primary offender is wheat in bread, crackers, bran and wheat in all its forms. In addition barley and rye contain gluten as well and although oats are gluten free they may have been stored or processed where gluten containing grains are stored and thus are contaminated.
Gluten sensitive people learn what foods to avoid which foods to eat. A problem is that gluten also shows up in salad dressings, veggie burgers, soy sauce and even packaged seasonings and spice mixes. The issue of gluten hiding in with other foods is where coffee can bother gluten sensitive people.
What’s in Your Coffee?
A couple of years ago we wrote an article entitled Coffee Please, No Dirt.
We have found yet another reason to only buy whole bean healthy organic coffee from reputable suppliers. A recent article in the Washington Post noted that as coffee supplies diminish and prices go up some suppliers of ground coffee are adding things to their coffee. The title of the article is Dirt, corn twigs, soybeans and other fillers are appearing in coffee.
Cream and sugar may not be the only additives in your morning cup of coffee. Tough growing conditions and rising demand are leading some coffee producers to mix in wheat, soybean, brown sugar, rye, barley, acai seeds, corn, twigs and even dirt.
As we noted in our recent article Brazil Drought Drives Arabica Prices Higher there is a historic drought in Brazil, the country that produces more coffee than anyone else. The ten million or so bag deficit in production this year will amount to about a forty billion cup of coffee deficit! Looks like some folks are looking to make up for ten million missing bags of coffee by adding corn, soybeans, etc. and grinding it all up to sell. This is actually an age old trick to reduce the cost of doing business while not reducing what they sell the coffee for.
The point of all this is to drink only certified organic coffee if you are a gluten sufferer because healthy organic coffee is gluten free.
Is Organic Coffee Toxin Free?
We live in a world where they keep adding more and more things to our food and drink. Are things like high fructose corn syrup or monosodium glutamate good for you? How about the residues of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, or antibiotics? What toxins are the lurking about that you don’t know about? How do you avoid eating and drinking things that are not especially good for you? Is organic coffee toxin free? That brings us to healthy organic coffee.
Start the day with a hot cup of healthy organic coffee and you can receive a number of health benefits. Healthy organic coffee contains calcium. It contains antioxidants such as polyphenols which are also called condensed tannins and help prevent tooth decay in addition to their antioxidant activity. The antioxidant properties of a healthy cup of organic coffee include the ability to lessen age associated cellular damage, prevent new blood vessel formation in cancerous tissue, and inhibit the long term inflammation seen in atherosclerosis. Ongoing research points to uses of polyphenols as treatments for specific age related conditions. And all of this from a cup of healthy organic coffee!
And you get all of this in a cup of organic coffee without the toxins and other contaminants too often found in our food and even in regular coffee.
A study by the Australian Food Standards Authority revealed that as many as 133 contaminants may be in a cup of commercially available coffee. These contaminants include metals such as aluminum and zinc, pesticide residues, ochratoxin A, acrylamide, furan, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are found to cause cancer. Furans have been associated with skin disorders, liver problems, certain kinds of cancers, impairment to the reproductive, endocrine, and immune system, as well as effects on embryonic development.
How do we know that a cup organic coffee is toxin and contaminate free?
Organic Coffee Certification
Since you probably don’t live in a place like the Colombian Eje Cafetero where coffee grows in everywhere including back yards you can’t know personally if you coffee is toxin free. But you can rely on organic coffee certification.
Organic coffee differs from regular coffee in several aspects. The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. This guarantees that drift of substances sprayed or otherwise applied on adjacent land will not contaminate the organic plot of land. Organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport. Along the way procedures must be in place at every step to insure that there is no contamination of the healthy organic coffee produced in pristine soil with regular coffee produced on soil exposed to herbicides, pesticides, and organic fertilizers.
The gold standard for certification in North America is the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). The USDA directly certifies coffee grown on US soil, namely in Hawaii. In Central and South America the USDA uses the services of agencies such as Bio Latina to walk the mountains from Mexico to Peru and Colombia to Brazil testing soil, coffee and farming practices to guarantee that your certified organic coffee is toxin and contaminant free. Besides USDA certification, look for UTZ and Rainforest Alliance.
How Did Coffee Evolve?
Humans started drinking coffee in the Middle East, India, Persia, Turkey and Northern Africa by the 16th century. However it was probably discovered and first prepared in the 10th century, with its use centered in monasteries in countries like Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. As the consumption of coffee spread so did its cultivation. A plant that grew wild in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula is now grown worldwide. But how did coffee evolve to contain caffeine and those antioxidants that are so important to health?
The Coffee Genome
Scientists have analyzed the DNA of coffee. It turns out that the caffeine in coffee evolved separately from the caffeine in tea or chocolate. But once the plant contained caffeine pests quit bothering it but pollinators like beans came back again and again. The University of Buffalo studied the coffee genome.
The newly sequenced genome of the coffee plant reveals secrets about the evolution of man’s best chemical friend: caffeine.
The scientists who completed the project say the sequences and positions of genes in the coffee plant show that they evolved independently from genes with similar functions in tea and chocolate, which also make caffeine.
In other words, coffee did not inherit caffeine-linked genes from a common ancestor, but instead developed the genes on its own.
Once the plant started making caffeine natural selection took over because when pests are turned away by the caffeine more of the plants survive and reproduce. When pollinators like the plant they help with reproduction. The variety of coffee studied was robusta or Coffea Canephora.
Compared to several other plant species, including the grape and tomato, coffee harbors larger families of genes that relate to the production of alkaloid and flavonoid compounds, which contribute to qualities such as coffee aroma and the bitterness of beans.
Coffee also has an expanded collection of N-methyltransferases, enzymes that are involved in making caffeine.
Why caffeine is so important in nature is another question. Scientists theorize that the chemical may help plants repel insects or stunt competitors’ growth. One recent paper showed that pollinators – like humans – may develop caffeine habits. Insects that visited caffeine-producing plants often returned to get another taste.
New genes arrive by chance pairings or replication mistakes. The failures lead to plant death or at least a less competitive plant in its environment. In the case of coffee the antioxidants and caffeine that make coffee pleasurable and healthy for humans also help protect the plant and help it replicate. The scientists note that coffee did not diversify as much as one might see in other species. This is probably because it was so well adapted to its environment and so successful that the basic species always out-competed any diverging rivals. In this case we can think of alligators, crocodiles or even cockroaches which have survived as the same model for millions of years. The all-time winner is probably the horseshoe crab which has used the same shape and form for 445 million years. We can only hope that humans and coffee enjoy the same longevity!
Organic Hazelnut Coffee K Cups
Coffee is good for you and organic coffee is better. Organic coffee from Colombia has specific flavors depending on what part of the Eje Cafetero it comes from. But, what if you like other unique flavors? And what if you like the efficiency of single serve coffee? Can you get the right combination such as organic hazelnut coffee K cups?
The Internet Comes to the Rescue
If your local grocery store does not have the combination you like, such as organic hazelnut coffee K cups, search on the internet. Here is what we found.
Our search resulted in two ads from Amazon for EKOCUPS artisan organic hazelnut flavored coffee, followed by White coffee organic single serve coffee, hazelnut. Then there are Dean’s Beans organic coffee, Island hazelnut organic Kona blend coffee pods hazelnut flavor, Organic Coffee Company, Organic, flavored, decaf coffees from Green Mountain and Green Mountain coffee hazelnut light roast K-Cups coffee. And that is just the first page of a Google search. Each entry has various coffees, including organic hazelnut coffee K cups.
Hazelnuts
People have been growing hazelnuts for food for about 9,000 starting in Stone Age Scotland. In those days nuts were a replacement when meat was scarce. Today hazelnuts are grown all over the world. You can buy hazelnut syrup to put in your coffee or you can buy unsalted and shelled hazelnuts. If you want to do it right you can add two parts coffee beans and one part shelled hazelnuts to your coffee grinder and create ground hazelnut coffee. The best route next is to use a French press.
Aside from the flavor are hazelnuts good for you? Hazelnuts contain manganese, copper, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, potassium, zinc, folate, thiamin, niacin, calcium and vitamins C, E, B-6 and K. They are rich in protein and monounsaturated fatty acids. The ingredients in Hazelnuts help your heart, your blood pressure and are useful in preventing diabetes. Like coffee, hazelnuts contain antioxidants. The antioxidants in hazelnuts, like in coffee, help prevent cancer.
K Cups
As single serve coffee becomes more popular there are more and more variations on the theme. Recently we have written about the following:
Folks love K cups but remember that if you are drinking organic coffee you don’t want to negate that good act by adding plastic to the world’s landfills. Does organic coffee in a k cup make sense?
Waste 360 reports that it is possible to recycle K cups into cement.
A B.C. program that recycles Keurig coffee K-Cups into cement has been so successful that it may expand into Alberta.
The Lafarge cement plant in Kamloops, B.C. turned about 1.4 million K-Cups into cement last year, after teaming up with Van Houtte Coffee Services, which collects the used pods for recycling.
Now Keurig just needs to give every customer a pre-paid envelope with each set of cups so that customers can mail their used K Cups to Alberta!
Good luck in finding organic hazelnut coffee k cups and good luck finding biodegradable k cups!
Mexican Organic Coffee K Cups
Mexico is the 8th ranking coffee producer by volume. Mexican coffee is grown in the southern part of the country and is primarily Arabica. Coffee growing began in Mexico in the late 18th century. Coffee Review discusses coffee from Mexico.
Most Mexico coffee comes from the southern part of the country, where the continent narrows and takes a turn to the east. Veracruz State, on the gulf side of the central mountain range, produces mostly lowland coffees, but coffees called Altura (High) Coatepec, from a mountainous region near the city of that name, have an excellent reputation. Other Veracruz coffees of note are Altura Orizaba and Altura Huatusco. Coffees from the opposite, southern slopes of the central mountain range, in Oaxaca State, are also highly regarded, and marketed under the names Oaxaca or Oaxaca Pluma.
Mexico is also the origin of many of the certified organically grown coffees now appearing on North American specialty menus. These are often excellent coffees certified by various independent monitoring agencies to be grown without the use of pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or other harmful chemicals.
And if you are an organic coffee lover and like single serve coffee you can get Mexican organic coffee K cups.
K Cups of Mexican Organic Coffee
Keurig suggests Van Houtte Mexico Fair Trade Organic Dark Roast coffee.
Van Houtte’s bold Mexico Fair Trade Organic coffee proudly bears its origin’s attributes as it blends together festive fruity flavours and pungent notes. Its finale – slightly piquant – is typically Mexican.
You can order this coffee online. The roaster has been in business since 1919 in Montreal.
Estate Mexican Organic Coffee
If you like single origin coffee or even better coffee from a single farm you can find that in Mexico as well. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf offers unique Mexican organic coffee.
Café Cumbre Estate is comprised of 1,500 acres located on the western slopes of the Sierra Madre range adjacent to Puerto Vallarta Mexico. The farm sits at 4,000 feet above sea level with rich red clay soil and optimal microclimate. It is a majestic example of organic farming. An abundant shade canopy throughout the farm provides the perfect habitat for birds and insects.
Arabica Burbon is the botanical cultivar variety grown on the estate. Burbon is known for producing a delicate, yet refined flavor. The fully washed, fermented, and sundried coffee is carefully processed with the latest ecological and processing technology available prior to export. Certified Organic by OCIA and USDA.
Café Bourbon is a variety of coffee developed in the 18th century.
In the very early 18th century French planters grew coffee on what is today Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean. Under French rule the island was called Bourbon. The coffee came from Dutch traders. Mutations that occurred on that island in that climate became a favorite were exported to Latin America. Bourbon plants have as much as thirty percent more coffee beans than the Typica variety.
Mexico has lots of great coffees and you can even get Mexican organic coffee in K cups!
$50,000 for a Cup of Coffee
The price of a cup of coffee just went up. But it has to do with whom you are sharing the table at the coffee shop. Huffington Post reports that Ivanka Trump is auctioning a $50,000 private coffee chat.
Ivanka Trump is auctioning a private meeting over coffee for two people willing to pony up a huge contribution to her brother’s foundation.
The “meet and greet” on a mutually agreeable date next year at either Trump Tower in Manhattan or the Trump International Hotel in Washington will last up to 45 minutes, according to a description on Charitybuzz, which values the auction at $50,000.
Of course if you win the auction and pony up $50,000 or there-about you still need to pass a criminal background check and get approval from the Secret Service. But it will all be for a good cause because the money will go to the Eric Trump Foundation which in turn supports St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The bidding passed $23,000 as of December 12 and closes December 20. And if you miss out on the bidding where else can you get an expensive cup of coffee?
Most Expensive Coffees
The most expensive coffee by auction price, when you are not bidding to sip java with a celebrity, is Hacienda La Esmeralda Panama at $350.25 a pound. According to Finances on Line this is higher of the top ten most expensive coffees in the world. In our article about Panama Mountain Grown Organic Coffee we mentioned this grower among others.
A prime example of Panama mountain grown organic coffee is Duncan Estate organic coffee produced by Kotowa Coffee in the Chiriquí Highlands of Panama. This Arabica coffee grown by sustainable practices received honors as the best organic coffee in Panama in 2005 and the best organic coffee in the world in 2006. Duncan Estate organic coffee by Kotowa is certified by Bio Latina. Other Panama mountain grown organic coffee certified producers receiving Bio Latina organic coffee certification include the following:
- Los Lajones Estate Coffee S.A.
- Leap Of Faith Farms, Inc
- Hacienda La Esperanza
- Hacienda Barbara Jaramillo
- Finca Señor Ramón Arauz
- Finca San Miguel de La Montaña
- Finca Ramon Arauz
- Finca El Remedio – Ama de Casa
- Finca Dos Jefes
- Asociación de Caficultores Orgánicos Ngöbe Ascon
Coffee growing in Panama centers on the towns of Boquete and Volcan. This area is the Northeastern end of the arco seco, Spanish for dry arch, which is the agricultural breadbasket of Panama. The town of Boquete lies at 3,000 altitude and the highlands above the town range above and below 4,000 feet. The weather is often cloudy and the elevation gives relief from the heat of the coast. The soil is volcanic due to the eruption long of ago of the 11,000 foot volcano, Volcan Baru.
So, if your goal is great coffee instead of a few minutes with a celebrity consider coffee from Panama or even better one of the Colombian organic coffee brands.
Organic White Coffee K Cups
White Coffee was established in 1939 by David White who sold food service coffees. Over the years the company expanded, moved into gourmet coffee and then it organic coffee and now you can order their products on the internet. These products include organic White Coffee in k cups. Their move to single serve coffee helps reduce waste as single serve decreases coffee consumption.
We recently addressed the issue of who drinks the most coffee and it is the USA. Now it would appear that the USA is steadily consuming less coffee, not because anyone is cutting back but because of the single serve revolution. Bloomberg Business reports on how single-serving pods have decreased coffee consumption.
Single-serve brewing machines popularized by Keurig Green Mountain Inc. are now used by more than one in four Americans and are altering the way coffee is consumed. Almost every brand, from Folgers to Dunkin’ Donuts, is sold in disposable 2-inch-by-2-inch plastic pods that yield just one serving. They’re more efficient than drip-brewing pots capable of making 10 cups, some of which isn’t consumed and gets dumped.
While Americans still drink more coffee than any beverage except water, expanded use of single-serve machines has slowed demand growth for a $52 billion market in the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer. That’s hurt sales at a time when ample inventories of the commodity have sent prices tumbling.
One observer says that coffee farmers have lost their most lucrative consumer, the kitchen sink where unused coffee poured.
The one drawback to single serve coffee is the need to landfill millions upon millions of plastic cups. White has solved this dilemma with their BioCup which is both compostable and biodegradable.
White Coffee Products
This company has more than just organic coffee in k cups. One of their fun products comes from collaboration with Marvel Entertainment to make Marvel Comics Coffee! In addition these folks make Kahlua, the liqueur made from rum, vanilla and caramel wrapped in roasted coffee flavor from Arabica coffee beans. Their Kahlua comes in the original as well as French Vanilla, Hazelnut and Mocha. White has hot chocolate labels for Disney’s Frozen and Marvel’s Avengers. Their various coffee and other products are also available for private labeling. And the company is still true to its roots as a food service supplier.
Organic White Coffee K Cups
Here are the single serve items from White’s repertoire of k cups in BioCups.
Chocolate Morsel
French Vanilla
Hazelnut
Sea Salt Caramel
Breakfast Blend
Colombian
French Roast
Full City Roast
Mexican High Grown
Peruvian
Rainforest Blend
Sourcing Great Coffee
There are many great suppliers of coffee, organic and otherwise. If you shop around you may find one that suits you. If you have not been happy with your coffee and especially if you are interested in high quality Colombian organic coffee, single source or a blend feel free to contact us at Buy Organic Coffee.org. We will be please to work with you to provide any quantity that you need.