Manufacture of a Coffee Substitute from Date Kernels of the Algerian Variety Mech-Degla

Abstract

The present study has two components, in the first place the morphological and physicochemical characteristics of the inedible part of the date (kernels) have been determined, in order to bring additional knowledge on these characteristics, which helps to highlight the possibility of their valuations. The dimensions of the date kernels are between (0.9021 to 1.2829g) for the weight, (1.9 to 2.5cm) for the length and (0, 5 to 0.8cm) with an average of 0.6cm for the width of the core. An acidic pH of 4.55, and a moisture content of 6.38% has 0.8% ash content and a crude fiber content of 76.37%, a total sugar content of 4.69%, a crude protein content of 5.42% a fat content of 15.9% and the pulp / core ratio is 4.79. The second part deals with the valorization of the “Mech-Degla” date kernels in the manufacture of a coffee substitute. A sensory evaluation of color, smell, flavor and general appreciation of the date kernel coffee substitute was performed. The production of a date-kernel-based coffee substitute is one of the processes for exploiting the by-products of date processing. Statistical analysis of the sensory evaluation results of color, odor, flavor,and general acceptability reveals that although this is the first time for most tasters to taste a coffee substitute at core dates, but they showed great acceptability towards this new product especially when they added sugar (sweetener).