Caffeine, trigonelline, chlorogenic acids and sucrose diversity in wild Coffea arabica L. and C-canephora P. accessions

Numerous aroma precursor evaluations have been undertaken with green coffee beans of both species of worldwide economic importance: Coffea arabica L. and Co a canephora P. Efforts have been made to characterise cultivars of t hese two species. The originality of this study is to present the biochemic al diversity of wild accessions originating from Ethiopia and Kenya for C. arabiea (38 genotypes) and from five African countries (Cote d'Ivoire, Guin ea, Congo, Cameroon and Central African Republik) for C. canephora (38 geno types). The biochemical aroma parameters assessed by HPLC analysis were: (1 ) the two alkaloids, caffeine and trigonelline, (2) chlorogenic acids and ( 3) sucrose. Results reveal that the two species showed significant accessio n differences for all compounds. Between-species-average-content comparison confirms that C. arabica showed more trigonelline and sucrose and that C. canephora presented more CGA and caffeine. C. canephora diversity was highe r than that of C. arabica, except for trigonelline and sucrose. For C. cane phora, results showed that: (1) no differences were highlighted between acc essions for countries of origin for the alkaloids and sucrose, and (2) the 3-CQA content allowed to accessions to be pooled into two groups. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.