Applications of hyperspectral imaging in the coffee industry: Current research and future outlook

Coffee quality and varieties matter for its ultimate flavor. As multiple factors influence taste during coffee production, hyperspectral imaging (HSI) stands out with great potential for quality assessment, defect supervision, and character identification. With a relatively comprehensive summary of current HSI-based research in coffee, this literature review critically reveals HSI’s competence and present shortcomings in practical applications within the coffee industry. Sequentially, potential applications of HSI technology in coffee component analysis and flavor estimation, blemish diagnosis, and origins or attributes identification are illustrated. Finally, several key challenges and future perspectives of HSI are indicated from a practical and sustainable perspective, with digitalization as a major goal in the coffee industry.