Summary: | The exocarp and mesocarp of the coffee bean are traditionally not peeled in some regions of Indonesia when producing coffee using traditional methods. Even though it has been a long practice among traditional coffee farmers, unpeeled coffee has a very limited market due to its sensory weakness and thus hardly meets international coffee standards. Therefore, product diversification can be a strategic approach to improving this sub-grade coffee’s economic value. One of the alternatives is developing the coffee into kombucha. Kombucha processing has been well known for its ability to transform non-delightful sensory attributes into something more acceptable. In this study, the effects of different sweeteners and concentrations were investigated and designed as a nested experiment. Both peeled and unpeeled coffee were brewed with the French-press technique and used as a medium for kombucha. Different sweeteners, such as sucrose, glucose, and a mixture of sucrose and honey, were also applied in ratios of 5, 10, and 15%. It was observed that both peeled and unpeeled coffee kombucha have a competitive level of sensory preference with similar total sugar, total acidity, and total dissolved solids (p-value > 0.05). Those were achieved by adding 15% sucrose for peeled coffee kombucha and 10% sucrose-honey mix for the unpeeled one.
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