Comparative study of caffeine content in beans and leaves of Coffea arabica using UV/Vis spectrophotometer

Abstract

Caffeine is one of the compounds found in coffee beans and other parts of coffee plant. However, the relative caffeine content in different coffee plant parts is least researched. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the content of caffeine in green coffee leaves and beans. In this work, we report content of caffeine in green coffee beans and leaves of Coffea arabica using UV/Vis spectrophotometer with liquid-liquid extraction method. Obtained results indicated that the content of caffeine in green coffee beans and leaves are in the range of 9.94±0.20 to 11.46±0.10 mg/g and 2.53±0.07 to 2.73±0.16 mg/g, respectively. On top of that, the percentage of caffeine content in green coffee beans is more than in leaves in the range of 73.44 to 77.31%. These results show that there is statistically significant different content of caffeine in green coffee beans than its green leaves in a given coffee plant. Key words: Caffeine, green coffee beans, green coffee leaves, UV/Vis spectrometer.