ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a list of the chemical components of coffee beans and beverages. The principal sources of aliphatic compounds in roasted coffee are fragmented carbohydrates and proteins. The aliphatic polyamines, putrescine, spermine, and spermidine, are present in green coffee beans, but they are all decomposed during the roasting process. Several of the lower molecular weight aliphatic compounds, in a mixture, are part of the roasted coffee aroma. A nine-compound mixture with roasted coffee aroma contained isopentane, n-hexane, acetaldehyde, dimethyl sulfide, propanal, isobutanal, isopentanal, methanol, and 2-methylfuran. Although the aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbons are usually associated with tar and soot formation, in a firing or roasting process, compounds such as fluoranthrene and pyrene have been found in green coffee. In coffee there is a series of phenolic compounds that is characteristically present, which are derived from caffeic and ferulic acids.
