Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Products per se – or processes of preparing or treating... – Beverage or beverage concentrate
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-14
2001-10-02
Weier, Anthony J. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Products per se, or processes of preparing or treating...
Beverage or beverage concentrate
C426S591000, C426S564000, C426S569000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06296890
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to a heavily foaming coffee fraction, a process for its manufacture, and its application as an additive to instant coffee, resp. coffee extract.
Instant coffee is a beverage, well-known since decades. The product in question is a powdery and residue-free coffee product instantly soluble in water that is obtained by aqueous extraction of ground coffee and subsequent drying, preferentially by lyophilisation. The main advantage of instant coffee lies in the fact that a coffee drink may easily be obtained by simply dissolving the product in hot water without utilisation of a coffee machine. A disadvantage vs. roast coffee, however, is the only minor formation of foam in the cup after preparation of the beverage, p.e. is highly important for cups of expresso coffees.
Many attempts had been made to improve the foaming properties of instant coffee. One proposal is the addition of bicarbonates; that, however, has the disadvantage of forming of too large gas bubbles. Foam is a biphasic system composed of gas bubbles within a liquid film, constituted by an aqueous solution of surfactants. In roast coffee there is a two-layer configuration of surface-active molecules with water molecules between them. The high strength of the film explains the honeycomb-like structure formed by small bubbles growing together.
The object of the present invention is to overcome said disadvantages and to provide a strongly foaming coffee fraction, suitable as additive for coffee extracts.
Surprisingly it was found that a coffee fraction may be isolated from roasted coffee, preferably dark roasted coffee, that shows strong foaming properties of a beverage, prepared from instant coffee, where the fractions had been added individually.
Thus, there is provided according to this invention a heavily foaming coffee fraction which is characterized by the following bands in the FT-IR-spectrum: 3400 cm
−1
, 2900 cm
−1
, 1655 cm
−1
, 1524 cm
−1
, 1000-1150 cm
−1
, 894 cm
−1
and 876 cm
−1
.
The invention also provides a process for the production of said coffee fraction comprising the following steps:
(1) defatting of ground, roasted coffee with an organic solvent and extracting of the defatted ground, dark roasted coffee with hot water,
(2) filtrating the extract obtained from step (1),
(3) adding a precipitation agent to the extract obtained from step (2) and centrifugation of the thus obtained precipitate,
(4) dissolving the precipitate obtained from step (3) in water or an aqueous alcohol,
(5) dialysing the solution obtained in step (4) against water,
(6) filtrating the non-dialysable solution and
(7) freeze-drying the filtrate obtained in step (6).
As stated above, the heavily foaming coffee fraction of this invention is characterized by the following bands in in the FT-IR-spectrum: 3400 cm
−1
(OH and NH stretching), 2900 cm
−1
(CH stretching), 1655 cm
−1
(Amide I band), 1524 cm
−1
(Amide II band), 1000-1150 cm
−1
(C—O—C stretching), 894 cm
−1
and 876 cm
−1
(carbohydrate anomeric bands).
Moreover, the heavily foaming coffee fraction of the present invention is characterized by certain proton signals in the 1H-NMR-spectrum, namely: carbohydrate proton signals (3-5 ppm), aliphatic proton signals (0.5-2.5 ppm), aromatic proton signals (around 7.0 ppm).
Furthermore, the coffee fractions of the present invention are characterized by values of surface tension less than 55 mN/m as 3.7-3.9 g/l aqueous solution at 25° C. A further characterization of-the coffee fraction of the present invention is given by the values for persistency and consistency after mixing with conventional coffee powder.
In the following the production process for the coffee fraction of the present invention will be described in detail:
Step 1
In this step ground, dark roasted coffee, for example Coffea Arabica origin, is defatted in known manner by heating with an organic solvent under reflux in a suitable apparatus, e.g. a Soxhlet apparatus. As far as the organic solvent is concerned aliphatic or aromatic hydrocarbons such as hexane, benzene, diisopropylether, petrolether, diethylether and dichloromethane may be used. A preferred organic solvent is n-hexane. Alternatively the defatting can be carried out using the known supercritical carbon dioxide technique as described in German patent 21 06 133 under pressure and at temperatures of 20-50° C., preferably 40° C. In accordance with this technique the fatty substances are removed by circling the carbon dioxide through the coffee containing pressure vessel and transferring the solute into an adsorption pressure vessel containing activated charcoal.
After said defatting treatment the defatted and dried product is subjected to an extraction process using hot water of about 80° C. to 100° C., preferably about 90° C. The extraction step may be repeated once or twice or more. As stated, the extraction agent is hot water including ion exchanged water such as Milli-Q water.
Step 2
The extract obtained from step 1 is filtrated and the solid filter residue is discarded. The filtration is carried out according to the filtration techniques used in the coffee industries using known filtration apparatuses.
Step 3
To the filtrate obtained from step 2 a suitable precipitation agent is added. Suitable precipitation agents are ammonium sulfate, ethyl alcohol, acetone, acid and ethyl alcohol-acetic acid mixtures, ammonium sulfate or ethyl alcohol being preferred. The mixture is aged for some time, e.g. overnight, at low temperatures, e.g. temperatures in the range of 0-80° C., preferably 4° C. The resulting precipitate is collected by centrifuging in usual manner.
Step 4
The precipitate from step 3 is dissolved in water or an aqueous alcohol, such as aqueous ethyl alcohol, if necessary under heating.
Step 5
The thus obtained solution is dialysed extensively against water, e.g. an aqueous NaCl solution and Milli-Q water (in this sequence).
Step 6
The non-dialysable solution from step 5 is filtrated using conventional filtration techniques.
Step 7
The filtrate from step 6 is freeze-dried in the usual way. A preferred procedure comprises freezing the filtrate from Step 6 in liquid nitrogen and lyophilizing at room temperature and a pressure of 0.2 mbar.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5350591 (1994-09-01), Canton
patent: 0 796 562 A2 (1997-09-01), None
patent: 1 073 738 (1967-06-01), None
S. Compton “Headspace gas chromatography-fourier transform infrared spectrometry for monitoring volatiles in commercial brand coffee” LC-GC International, vol. 4, No. 3, 1991, pp. 42-47, XP002107807.
European Search Report for EP 99101042 Jun. 30, 1999.
Navarini Luciano
Petracco Marino
Illycaffe S.p.A.
Sughrue Mion Zinn Macpeak & Seas, PLLC
Weier Anthony J.
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