Headspace Analysis of Philippine Civet Coffee Beans Using Gas Chromatography‐Mass Spectrometry and Electronic Nose

Civet coffee, the most expensive and best coffee in the world, is an economically important export product of the Philippines. With a growing threat of food adulteration and counterfeiting, a need for quality authentication is essential to protect the integrity and strong market value of Philippine civet coffee. At present, there is no internationally accepted method of verifying whether a bean is an authentic civet coffee. This study presented a practical and promising approach to identify and establish the headspace qualitative profile of Philippine civet coffee using electronic nose (E‐nose) and gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS). E‐nose analysis revealed that aroma characteristic is one of the most important quality indicators of civet coffee. The findings were supported by GC‐MS analysis. Principal component analysis (PCA) exhibited a clearly separated civet coffees from their control beans. The chromatographic fingerprints indicated that civet coffees differed with their control beans in terms of composition and concentration of individual volatile constituents.