The quality of green coffee beans is affected by various steps in the manufacturing process, including cultivation, refinement, packaging, shipping, and storage. This study focused on the changes in parameters, including packaging material, shipping method, and storage during the distribution process of green coffee beans from the country of origin to Japan. Standard commercial coffee (CO) beans are packaged in gunny sack (GS), shipped in a dry container (DC), and stored in a normal temperature warehouse (NTW). However, the flavor of CO coffee beans often deteriorates. Thus, measures must be undertaken to ensure the high quality of specialty coffee (SP) beans. In the present study, Columbian SP coffee beans were divided into vacuum packaging (VP) and gunny suck (GS), shipped either in a reefer container (RC) or dry container (DC), and stored in a constant temperature warehouse (15℃) or normal temperature warehouse. The sensory evaluation results obtained by analyzing the changes in parameters such as total lipid content, acid value and pH on arrival after6and12months helped in determining appropriate methods for the quality maintenance of green coffee beans. These results suggest that green coffee beans enclosed in VP, imported in a RC, and stored at CTW showed minimal decrease in lipid content, and minimal increases in acid values and lower pH values as compared to those packaged in gunny sack, shipped in a DC, and stored at NTW. Significant changes in parameters and their positive correlation with sensory evaluation results were achieved. Thus, this study demonstrated the importance of packaging, shipping, and storage in an environment unaffected by oxygen, temperature and humidity for proper quality maintenance of green coffee beans.

　The quality of specialty coffee (SP) is evaluated based on the grading system (number of defects of green beans and sensory evaluation of roasted beans) of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, while the quality of commercial coffee (CO), which is a product with a wide variety of uses, is evaluated based on the export standards (number of defects and altitude) of its country of origin. Nevertheless, a physicochemical quality-based evaluation method has not yet been established. In this study, the pH, titratable acidity, organic acid content, total lipid content, and acid values of Kenyan, Guatemalan, and Columbian SP and CO samples were analyzed and evaluated to correlation with sensory scores to find new indicators for quality evaluation of coffee. Significant differences were shown to the pH and acid values of all SP samples, and in the titratable acidity and total lipid contents of some SP samples. In addition, the sensory evaluation scores for all the SP samples were more than 80, and were significantly higher than those for the CO samples. The significance of values obtained from the physicochemical analysis is reflected in the sensory evaluation scores, and it was suggested that they affect the coffee quality.