Physical, sensory quality and chemical composition of the coffee cultivated in the east of Caldas Calidad física, sensorial y composición química del café cultivado en el Oriente del departamento de Caldas

The East of Caldas is made up of the municipalities of Manzanares, Marquetalia, Marulanda, Pensilvania, Samaná and Victoria, which together represent 22% of the department's coffee area. In order to evaluate the quality of the coffee in this area, 310 coffee samples were taken from 65 coffee farms. The selected farms had an average coffee area of ??2.02 ha, and altitudes above 1,800 m, in 39% of the cases. The objective of this work was to evaluate the physical, sensory SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) and chemical quality of coffee, determining the content of caffeine, trigonelline, lipids and sucrose, using NIRS technology. The average healthy almond value was 76.92%. 75.16% of the samples did not present sensory defects. The defects that were presented were: ferment (8.06%), immature (7.74%), earthy (5.81%) and rest (2.58%). The total score values ??in the samples without defect ranged from 80.69 to 82.07 points, which, according to the SCA scale, classifies them as very good. The coffee samples from the municipality of Victoria showed the lowest caffeine content (1.11%), while the Marquetalia coffee had the highest sucrose content (6.90%). The principal component analysis with all the variables evaluated classified three groups of municipalities according to the quality of the coffee. Group 1 made up of Marulanda, Pennsylvania, Samaná and Marquetalia, group 2 made up of Victoria and group 3 made up of the municipality of Manzanares.