STUDY OF THE CHEMICAL AND PHYSICOCHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ROASTED COFFEE AND COFFEE BREW

Analytical determination of biogenic amines in foods is considered use ful for two reasons: in consideration of the biological activity of so me of them; and as they can represent a quality index of foods, especi ally in relationship with the hygienic conditions of production proces s. A number of papers appear in the literature, dealing with analytica l methods, but scarce research about their characteristics shows that these methods are not quite suitable for each kind of food and that a number of modifications should be introduced by time to time, in relat ionship with food characteristics. In this paper, the optimisation of the method is described for amines determination in fish and meat prod ucts; furthermore, data concerning influence of pH, kind of salt used for acid extract saturation, kind of acid used for extraction from a s olid matrix and choice of solvent mixture used in the purification ste ps are discussed.