Increasing the sustainability of the coffee agro-industry: spent coffee grounds as a source of new beverages

This work describes a new process for the production of beverages from spent coffee grounds (SCG), as well as the chemical and sensory profiles. The process consisted of the extraction of antioxidant phenolic compounds of SCG, followed by the fermentation of this extract supplemented with sucrose and fermented broth distillation. Thus, two fermented (10.4% and 10.0% of ethanol, by volume) and two distillated (38.1% and 40.2% of ethanol, by volume) beverages were obtained. A total of 45 and 59 volatile compounds (alcohols, esters, aldehydes, terpenes, lactones, pyrazines, norisoprenoids, volatile phenols and acids) identified and quantified by GC-MS characterized the aroma and flavor of the fermented and distilled beverages, respectively. Twenty sensory descriptors define the sensory profile of the two beverages which corroborated the pleasant smell and taste of coffee in the distillate beverage. Therefore, this work demonstrates that the fermented and distilled beverages obtained from spent coffee grounds have acceptable organoleptic qualities that make them suitable for human consumption.This research was funded by Portuguese National Fund through FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (grant SFRH/BD/75195/2010).Peer reviewe