Application of infrared spectral techniques on quality and compositional attributes of coffee: An overview

During the last two decades, near and mid-infrared spectral analyses have emerged as a reliable and promising analytical tool for objective assessment of coffee quality attributes. The literature presented in this review clearly reveals that near and mid-infrared approaches have a huge potential for gaining rapid information about the chemical composition and related properties of coffee. In addition to its ability for effectively quantifying and characterising quality attributes of some important features of coffee such as moisture, lipids and caffeine content, classification into quality grades and determination of sensory attributes, it is able to measure multiple chemical constituents simultaneously avoiding extensive sample preparation. Developing a quality evaluation system based on infrared spectral information to assess the coffee quality parameters and to ensure its authentication would bring economical benefits to the coffee industry by increasing consumer confidence in the quality of products. This paper provides an overview of the recently developed approaches and latest research carried out in near and mid-infrared spectral technology for evaluating the quality and composition of coffee and the possibility of its widespread deployment. •A comprehensive review of applications of NIR spectroscopy for coffee is presented.•NIR spectroscopy has the potential for rapid and accurate assessment of coffee quality.•FTIR and NIR spectroscopy can be used for coffee authentication.