Café arábica (Coffea arábica) do tipo sombreado produzido no Maciço de Baturité-CE: perfil dos consumidores, sensorial e de voláteis

Abstract

Brazil stands out as the world's largest coffee producer, and Ceará, despite not being one of the largest producers, has a share in coffee production. Coffee quality is defined based on characteristics of the raw material as well as processing, factors that determine the formation of the chemical composition of coffee and affect the sensory quality of the beverage. Thus, the objective of this work was to characterize the profile of consumers, sensory and volatile compounds of Arabica coffee (Coffea arábica L.) of the shaded type produced in the Massif of Baturité. The raw material used was 100% Arabica coffee beans from different sites located in the Massif of Baturité, which were called Coffea A, Coffea B, Coffea C and Coffea D samples. For the construction of the consumer profile, 414 participants answered the online survey through Google Forms forms. For the sensory profile, focus group analyzes were carried out with 24 evaluators to characterize the coffee and to survey terms describing appearance, aroma, flavor, texture and residual to compose the CATA sensory sheet, the Q test of Cochran and correspondence analysis on CATA results. Gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry was used to identify the volatile compounds present in the samples. Of the descriptive terms present in the CATA form, only 5 (black color, coffee aroma, almond aroma, full-bodied texture, sweet residual) were statistically significant (p<0.05) to differentiate the samples. In the global acceptance analysis, the hedonic averages were in the grade corresponding to neither liked nor disliked and, despite this result, the judges stated that they would buy the Coffea B, Coffea C and Coffea D samples, and would not buy the Coffea A sample. 35 volatile compounds were identified. They are 2-furanmethanol, 1-(2-furanyl) ethanone, 2,6-dimethylpyrazine, 5-methylfurfural, 2-furanmethanol acetate, 2-ethyl-3,6-dimethylpyrazine, 1-(2-furanylmethyl)-1H -pyrrole, 3,4-dimethoxystyrene, volatiles common to all samples. The results showed that the judges neither accepted nor rejected the samples, and also showed that the participants were unable to identify a significant difference between the analyzed coffees.