Abstract
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) is a powerful elemental analysis technique. The Nd:YAG laser of 1064 nm was used in this investigation to perform a semi-quantitative analysis of mineral composition in Harari coffee with and without herbal additives such as clove, ginger, and cardamom. In this work, mineral contents were detected in five samples including pure Harari coffee, coffee with ginger, coffee with cloves, coffee with cardamom and coffee with a mixture of all the previously mentioned additives. The presence of elements such as iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium and sodium was shown in all five samples. Moreover, with the addition of the herbs ginger, cardamom and cloves or its mixture to Harari coffee, an increase in the mineral contents was detected in the coffee samples. The percentage increase of the elements in the samples with added herbs was calculated through the comparison to the pure coffee sample. A semi-quantitative LIBS analysis is shown to be a rapid method to monitor the change in elemental composition of food samples. Furthermore, this work illustrated that adding herbs to coffee might be considered a good option to increase certain deficient elements in the body.