In the search of flavors, aromas, and stories: an integrative review about special coffees

Abstract

Coffee agribusiness plays an important role in the global economy, as it promoted and still does promote changes in the economic, cultural, and social aspects of humanity. The drink is consumed worldwide. At an even more comprehensive level, coffee, mainly the specialty coffee beans, represents several opportunities to be exploited by the players who make up its agro-industrial chain. The objective of this study was to present the state of the art of the international academic production on agribusiness special coffees, and for that, it uses an integrative literature review, by the analysis of the production of academic articles on this topic which are published in the indexing base Web of Science. The search string <TO = special* _coffee> was used without time restriction. Initially, 32 articles were attained, that after full reading were limited to 19, then they were analyzed and cleared by means of four categories, which were synthesized in the form of a table and, still, generated a framework for future research. Relevant information on the market as a whole were gathered, from rural producers, associations and cooperatives, involved industries, certification organizations, until reaching the consumers of agribusiness special coffees.