Abstract
This study aims to understand college students customer's preference and the difference of coffee grade by comparing the result of Q-grader, who was trained professionally and received certification for a sensory evaluation of coffee grade. The results of the chemical analysis of raw coffee and coffee berry show that those of specialty grade had slightly higher, but not significant, water content. Further, the pH of specialty grade coffee was high in coffee beans and after roasting, the commercial grade became high. There was no significant difference between the specialty degree and commercial degree in color before and after roasting. In this study, the panels for the sensory evaluation included 24 university students. The preference of evaluation items of sensory evaluation consist of aroma, acidity, bitterness, astringency, aftertaste, and overall satisfaction. Items for the strength evaluation consist of aroma, acidity and bitterness. The sensory evaluation was expressed by applying a 5 point Likert scale (1: extremely low~5: extremely high). In the sensory evaluation, it was evaluated that specialty grade coffee had strong acidity and commercial grade coffee was strongly bitter. The result of the sensory evaluation shows that female students are sensitive to coffee taste. In the analysis of frequent visit to coffee shop, the not-frequently-use-group rated that specialty grade coffee with higher overall satisfaction than commercial grade coffee in factors such as aroma and acidity. The group which did not prefer Americano coffee rated that specialty grade was higher than commercial grade in all factors except aroma, of which the result is similar to the cupping test.
