DISCRIMINATING METABOLITE PROFILES OF THE WILD AND THE CAGED LUWAK COFFEES WITH 1H NMR-BASED METABOLOMICS
Lizma Febrina(a,b) Nizar Happyana(a), Yana Maolana Syah(a)

a) Natural Products Chemistry Laboratory
Organic Division, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences,
Institute of Technology Bandung,Jalan Ganesha 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
b) Pharmaceuticals Research and Development Laboratory of Farmaka Tropis, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mulawarman University JL.Penajam 01, Samarinda, East Kalimantan 75119, Indonesia

Abstract

Kopi Luwak (civet coffee) is an excotic Indonesian coffee and the most expensive coffee in the world. It originated from coffee cherries fermented in the digestive system of the Asian palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphoditus). In the market, there are 2 types of kopi Luwak, namely the wild and the caged civet coffees. However, the chemical information of both civet coffee is still limited in the literature. NMR techniques, including 1H NMR, COSY, and TOCSY combined with chemometrics, were used to evaluate the metabolite profiles of roasted Luwak coffee beans. The coffee samples used in this work were roasted beans of the wild and the caged civet coffees obtained from Malabar Mountain, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. OPLS-DA was applied to reveal the similarities and differences within the coffee samples. Our results showed the most discriminant metabolites of the wild roasted civet coffees were malic acid and citric acid. Meanwhile, the characteristic metabolites of the caged civet coffee were acetic acid, lactic acid, and lipids. This study demonstrated that the wild civet coffee possessed a unique metabolome and was different from the caged civet coffee. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first scientific report regarding the discrimination of metabolite profiles of the roasted (wild and caged) Luwak coffees with NMR spectroscopy approach.

Keywords: Luwak Coffee, Roasted Beans, NMR, Metabolomics

Topic: Food Chemistry