A Quick NIR Based Method for Ascertaining Coffee and Chicory Percentage in a Mixture

Coffee is a widely consumed beverage of the human population for several centuries. In coffee consuming countries encompassing India, Brazil, France, and parts of the USA, chicory is added to coffee as a substitute and to enhance the color of the beverage. There is hardly any non-destructive technique to ascertain the percentage of chicory and coffee in the solid mixture. Herein, we report a simple and quick near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) based method for quantification of coffee and chicory percentages in the solid mixture. The method has been developed for Arabica, Robusta variety coffee powder in addition to instant coffee powder. We evaluated a commercial coffee powder having reported values of 65 % of Coffee and 35 % of Chicory by employing the developed method. The achieved method revealed a result of 64.2 % of coffee and 35.8 % of Chicory. Results demonstrate the power of NIR spectroscopic method as a rapid technique for quantification of coffee and chicory percentage in the solid mixture which is expected to facilitate the consumer and coffee industry.