Overview
Coffee
The coffee roasting industry involves the processing of green coffee beans into roasted coffee products, including whole and ground beans and soluble coffee products.
The coffee roasting process consists essentially of cleaning, roasting, cooling, grinding, and packaging operations. Figure 9.13.2-1 shows a process flow diagram for a typical coffee roasting operation. Bags of green coffee beans are hand- or machine-opened, dumped into a hopper, and screened to remove debris. The green beans are then weighed and transferred by belt or pneumatic conveyor to storage hoppers. From the storage hoppers, the green beans are conveyed to the roaster.
Roasters typically operate at temperatures between 370° and 540°C (698° and 1004°F), and the beans are roasted for a period of time ranging from a few minutes to about 30 minutes. Roasters are typically horizontal rotating drums that tumble the green coffee beans in a current of hot combustion gases; the roasters operate in either batch or continuous modes and can be indirect- or direct-fired. Indirect-fired roasters are roasters in which the burner flame does not contact the coffee beans, although the combustion gases from the burner do contact the beans. Direct-fired roasters contact the beans with the burner flame and the combustion gases. At the end of the roasting cycle, water sprays are used to “quench” the beans.
Following roasting, the beans are cooled and run through a “destoner”. Destoners are air classifiers that remove stones, metal fragments, and other waste not removed during initial screening from the beans. The destoners pneumatically convey the beans to a hopper, where the beans are stabilize and dry (small amounts of water from quenching exist on the surface of the beans). This stabilization process is called equilibration. Following equilibration, the roasted beans are ground, usually by multi-stage grinders. Some roasted beans are packaged and shipped as whole beans. Finally, the ground coffee is vacuum sealed and shipped.
Additional operations associated with processing green coffee beans include decaffeination and instant (soluble) coffee production. Decaffeination is the process of extracting caffeine from green coffee beans prior to roasting. The most common decaffeination process used in the United States is supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction. In this process, moistened green coffee beans are contacted with large quantities of supercritical CO2 (CO2 maintained at a pressure of about 4,000 pounds per square inch and temperatures between 90° and 100°C [194° and 212°F]), which removes about 97 percent of the caffeine from the beans. The caffeine is then recovered from the CO2, typically using an activated carbon adsorption system. Another commonly used method is solvent extraction, typically using oil (extracted from roasted coffee) or ethyl acetate as a solvent. In this process, solvent is added to moistened green coffee beans to extract most of the caffeine from the beans. After the beans are removed from the solvent, they are steam-stripped to remove any residual solvent. The caffeine is then recovered from the solvent, and the solvent is re-used. Water extraction is also used for decaffeination, but little information on this process is available. Decaffeinated coffee beans have a residual caffeine content of about 0.1 percent on a dry basis. Not all facilities have decaffeination operations, and decaffeinated green coffee beans are purchased by many facilities that
produce decaffeinated coffee.
In the manufacture of instant coffee, extraction follows the roasting and grinding operations. The soluble solids and volatile compounds that provide aroma and flavor are extracted from the coffee beans using water. Water heated to about 175°C (347°F) under pressurized conditions (to maintain the water as liquid) is used to extract all of the necessary solubles from the coffee beans. Manufacturers use both batch and continuous extractors. Following extraction, evaporation or freeze-concentration is used to increase the solubles concentration of the extract. The concentrated extracts are then dried in
either spray dryers or freeze dryers. Information on the spray drying and freeze drying processes is not available.
Major Processes
Major Equipment
Natural Gas Technologies
Source: Coffee Overview Text from http://www.epa.gov/ttn/chief/ap42/ch09/final/c9s13-2.pdf 4/2007; Overview coffee image from http://www.indiamart.com/amirthacoffeebeans/#coffee-products 6/2007;