Abstract
Robusta coffee is known to be high yielding than Arabica coffee, since it is more vigorous in growth. However, it is limited by the inferior cup quality. The aim of the study was to evaluate the performance of the Arabusta hybrids and its backcross derivatives for bean physical characteristics and organoleptic properties including their interrelationship. Nineteen coffee genotypes were evaluated at Siaya ATC and KALRO-Alupe, using randomized complete block design with three replications. Data on the bean grades and sensory traits was carried out on beans harvested in the year 2018. The results indicated that there was a significant variation on both the sensory and bean grade traits from the two locations. On average, Arabusta hybrids showed better performance on bean traits when compared to its backcrosses and Robusta. There was a highly significant positive correlation between the sensory traits which had highly significant positive association with aftertaste (r=0.96), aroma (r=0.84), balance (r=0.85), flavor (r=0.96) and overall standard (r=0.96). The positive significant correlation between the 100 bean weight and the AA bean size is an indication that weight of beans can be used in predicting the bean sizes. The interspecific hybridization enables the transfer of good cup quality attributes from Arabica coffee to Robusta coffee. Key words: Flavor, Arabica, bean grade, quality, Arabica, Robusta, environment, variation.
Highlights
The most common popular beverages that are consumed globally are coffee and tea, with over 148 million cups of coffee being consumed on an annual basis; since it is the most preferred drink (ICO, 2019a)
The cup quality of Arabica coffee is superior to that of Robusta coffee; Arabica coffee is usually blended with Robusta coffee on 50/50 basis to improve Robusta sensory traits and the crema formation most of the times (Folmer et al, 2017; Dias et al, 2018; Liu et al, 2019)
There was a significant variation among the coffee
Summary
The most common popular beverages that are consumed globally are coffee and tea, with over 148 million cups of coffee being consumed on an annual basis; since it is the most preferred drink (ICO, 2019a). Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil and more research is being carried out on coffee due to its distinct characteristics in terms of flavor and aroma This is in order to ensure that the consumers are supplied with. For coffee exporting countries such as Kenya, the production and supply of quality coffee is important since the prices they fetch are dependent on this factor. This is because the consumers discriminated the different coffees based on their origin, cup quality and the biochemical content (Fridell, 2014). This is because the consumers discriminated the different coffees based on their origin, cup quality and the biochemical content (Fridell, 2014). Sunarharum et al (2014) reported that the quality of coffee results from interaction between genotype and the environment (G x E) and consumers of high quality coffee may prefer labeling of the species and the country of origin (Cheng et al, 2016)
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