Serra Francesca, Guillou Claude G, Reniero Fabiano, Ballarin Luciano, Cantagallo Maria I, Wieser Michael, Iyer Sundaram S, Héberger Károly, Vanhaecke Frank
European Commission, Joint Research Center, Institute for Health and Consumer Protection, Physical and Chemical Exposure Unit, BEVABS, TP281, Via Fermi 2, 21020 Ispra, Italy.
Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom. 2005;19(15):2111-5. doi: 10.1002/rcm.2034.
In this study we show that the continental origin of coffee can be inferred on the basis of coupling the isotope ratios of several elements determined in green beans. The combination of the isotopic fingerprints of carbon, nitrogen and boron, used as integrated proxies for environmental conditions and agricultural practices, allows discrimination among the three continental areas producing coffee (Africa, Asia and America). In these continents there are countries producing 'specialty coffees', highly rated on the market that are sometimes mislabeled further on along the export-sale chain or mixed with cheaper coffees produced in other regions. By means of principal component analysis we were successful in identifying the continental origin of 88% of the samples analyzed. An intra-continent discrimination has not been possible at this stage of the study, but is planned in future work. Nonetheless, the approach using stable isotope ratios seems quite promising, and future development of this research is also discussed.
在本研究中，我们表明咖啡豆的大陆产地可通过结合生豆中几种元素的同位素比率来推断。碳、氮和硼的同位素指纹图谱相结合，作为环境条件和农业实践的综合代理指标，能够区分生产咖啡的三个大陆地区（非洲、亚洲和美洲）。在这些大陆上，有一些生产“特色咖啡”的国家，这些咖啡在市场上评级很高，但在后续的出口销售链中有时会被误贴标签，或者与其他地区生产的较便宜咖啡混合。通过主成分分析，我们成功地确定了88%分析样本的大陆产地。在本研究的现阶段，尚未实现大陆内部的区分，但计划在未来的工作中进行。尽管如此，使用稳定同位素比率的方法似乎很有前景，并且还讨论了该研究的未来发展。
