Review on Coffee Antioxidant and Its Health Benefit

Abstract

Coffee has been for decades the most commercialized food product and most widely consumed beverage in the world. Antioxidants prevent oxidation of other molecules in our body. Coffee shows the greatest antioxidant activity and major source of antioxidants. Antioxidant content can be maintained or even enhanced by the formation of compounds with antioxidant activity (AA) such as Maillard reaction products. AA of coffee brews is strongly affected by coffee roasting process. Measuring antioxidant activity of coffee would help assess their potential as a source of natural antioxidants. Reviewing AA of coffee is the aim of this seminar paper. AA coffee can be measured by various chemical and physicochemical methods. Coffee is the most antioxidant rich beverages. Roasted coffee brews showed a greater oxygen scavenging capacity than the crude coffee brew. These results suggested that the changes in the antioxidant properties of the coffee brews may be attributed to a further development at any degree of roasting. AA of semi dry and natural coffees was quite similar. Redox potential values of coffee brews during storage at 30°C under ordinary atmosphere greatly increased in the first few days. Contribution of non-phenolic fraction to the overall AA of coffee brew is much lower than that of the phenolic fraction. Evaluation of antioxidant content of local coffee is very important for coffee value addition.