Coffee free of negative flavours

DEFINITION: The coffee beans, following the harvest, can be attacked by certain moulds and mildews which, under specific environmental conditions, can produce metabolites that are harmful for health (ochratoxin A – see detoxified coffee) or that damage the quality of the coffee in the cup (trichloroanisole and geosmin). Trichloroanisole and geosmin, responsible for negative flavours identified by the connoisseurs of the coffee cup by the tastes “Rio” and “earthy” or “musty”, cause deterioration in the quality of the coffee while not being harmful to health. According to the same principle, even the hints of “wood" in some Robusta coffees are significantly subdued.

REMOVAL PROCESS: The process of removing these negative flavours uses the extraction capacity of dichloromethane with regard to these substances. Demus holds the patents (2 international and 1 Italian) of this process, based on scientific studies that were presented to the International Congress on Coffee Science (ASIC), held in Trieste in 2001. Currently, these patents are applied by Demus treating green coffee with a procedure deriving from decaffeination. This procedure enables the recovery of contaminated batches or those affected by mould, that otherwise would get lost.