(Unila): Ambon has a distinctive and delicious coffee blend known as rarobang coffee. This sort of coffee is brewed with a blend of body-warming spices, such as cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and walnuts. If you wish to enjoy rarobang coffee, you will have to fly to Ambon. In Ambon, rarobang can be easily found in coffee shops or cafes.
Inspired by this spice-rich coffee, a team of students from Unila created a product of an instant rarobang coffee called ralocaf easy to carry and it can now be found throughout Indonesia, even overseas.
“With instant packaging, rarobang coffee is now recognized by coffee lovers particularly millennials who are still not familiar with this Ambonese specialty coffee,” said Unila Agricultural Product Technology student, Bella Amanda Iswahyudi who was also the head of the research team.
According to Bella, ralocaf had advantages, one of which is a decaffeination process of raw materials, robusta coffee. The food grade eggshell powder is also added so that the coffee is rich in natural calcium.
According to Bella, the innovation of rarobang coffee was funded by the student creativity program (PKM) for entrepreneurship (2022) in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Culture.
The research titled Ralocaf: Instant rarobang coffee innovation typical Ambon low caffeine fortified eggshell powder, qualify the product for the 35th national student scientific week (Pimnas) in Malang scheduled November 30 to December 4, 2022.
Members of the research team were from different faculties, Aisyah Tri Ramadani (Agricultural Produce Technology ‘2020), Amelia Febrina Valentina (Accounting ‘2020), Shobbah Mubarok Robani (Agricultural Industry Technology ‘2021), Meysha Nur Daffa (Pharmaceutical ‘2021), and supervised by lecturer Pramita Sari Anungputri, S.T.P., M.Sc., M.Sc.
Bella described that their team first conducted a preliminary survey to 183 respondents and the results showed that the majority of the respondents (83.1%) admitted that they had no idea and never drank rarobang coffee. This motivated the team to conduct research and created a ralocaf product in the form of rarobang coffee in instant packaging.
According to Bella, ralocaf is a coffee product rich in both spices and calcium and it is low in caffeine. Robusta coffee, the main ingredient for ralocaf coffee, is eliminated through a decaffeination process using pineapple bromelain enzymes which are fermented for 48 hours.
Ralocaf is made through the process of fortification, adding food grade eggshell powder as a nutritional value, which is beneficial to prevent individuals from having low calcium.
The ralocaf can be categorized as healthy coffee since it is low in caffeine, calories but is high in calcium which in turn will increase body’s immunity; it is believed that ralocaf is safe for consumption by all levels of ages.
With reference to the laboratory test, ralocaf contained caffeine of 5,000mg/kg. This suggests that ralocaf has lower caffeine than “ordinary coffee” we commonly consume with the caffeine content 14,000mg/kg. It also contains 216 mg of calcium which can meet 20% of the nutritional adequacy rate.
Ralocaf has been marketed since July 2022. Currently, ralocaf is already available in several marketplaces. Ralocaf is also promoted on various social media, such as, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and also Tiktok.
Ralocaf is expected to be an alternative drink that can be consumed by various groups of people without being worried about the impact of caffeine. [PR Team]
