We use technology to verify the origin of coffee

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Coffee is highly susceptible to mislabeling, which is alarming given the cost of gourmet beans. But now science and technology have combined to ensure that consumers get exactly what they are paying for.

Coffee is one of the most traded commodities in the world , along with wheat, soybeans and barley. But unlike those products, coffee is highly susceptible to adulteration and mislabeling.

Adulterated coffee is almost as old as coffee itself. The use of cheap substitutes that add weight to coffee beans and other products to increase their price dates back to the Middle Ages. Laws were passed in the 13th century banning this practice, but they did not prevent the addition of harmful substances such as lead, sand and dirt to coffee beans until well into the 18th century.

Today, other products added to coffee beans achieve similar goal how to get usa whatsapp number 2017 study on food fraud listed coffee as one of the top six agricultural products (along with olive oil and honey) adulterated with non-coffee materials, such as twigs, chicory, soy, barley, corn husks, and sugar, as well as substandard coffee beans. Yet none of this information is listed on the label.

The amount of adulterated coffee produced worldwide is debatable, due to a lack of sufficient testing. However, tests carried out by the Quadram Institute in England suggest that up to a third of coffee beans labelled as 100% Arabica have non-Arabica content. The test results have led the institute to estimate that fraud in the industry ranges from 5% to 20%.

Considering what consumers pay for high-priced coffee beans, these numbers are alarming. The two main types of coffee beans, Arabica and Robusta, each have unique flavors and aromas that influence cost, with Arabica, a species of coffee bean native to the Coffea arabica plant in Ethiopia, commanding the highest price (Robusta is another species, native to sub-Saharan Africa). But where the beans are grown makes an even bigger difference. Kona coffee, produced in the Kailuea-Kona region of Hawaii’s Big Island, for example, is made from higher-priced Arabica beans, but so is coffee produced in Colombia. Yet a one-pound bag of Kona coffee retails for about $75 — more than double the price of a one-pound bag of Colombian coffee.

No two coffees are alike, due to factors such as soil composition, rainfall and sunshine, which combine to give different coffees their distinctive characteristics. The flavour and aroma of Kona coffee, for example, is described as a mix of chocolate, honey and fruit. These characteristics derive from the region's dark, mineral-rich volcanic soil, humid climate and high mountain altitude.

Consumers who savor these flavors pay a premium to satisfy their cravings. But are they really buying 100% Kona coffee? In many cases, no, a story that is being told through scientific technology.

Kona Baloney
One such example is a false labeling lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle in 2019. The plaintiffs include several Kona coffee farmers who allege that the market has been flooded with generic commodity coffee products labeled as Kona coffee. The defendants range from coffee wholesalers and distributors to several retail giants.

“Objectively speaking, our view is that you can’t have the volume of coffee labeled as ‘100 percent Kona’ or ‘Kona blend’ based on the available supply of coffee,” says Paul Richard Brown, an attorney with Karr Tuttle Campbell , the Seattle-based law firm that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the farmers, along with attorneys at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein.