Is what’s in your coffee cup exactly what you think it is?

When you’re drinking your coffee can you tell what beans are in the cup?

Well you might be surprised to learn that a recent study found that one on ten posh coffees contain cheaper beans than the one’s claimed to be in the pack.

It’s about the prized Arabica bean.

This bean has a rich, smooth and luxurious taste that means it can sometimes demand high prices. So some people try to pass off the somewhat inferior Robusta bean as its more expensive cousin.

Research conducted by the Quadram Institute, formerly the Institute of Food Research led a study that tested 60 coffee samples sold around the world, including 22 in Britain. The study discovered that six of the 60 contained Robusta beans but the researchers concluded that a fifth of Arabicas sold worldwide may be fraudulent.

The tests were conducted using new techniques that used radio waves and magnetic fields to obtain data about the coffee’s molecular structure.

Arabica beans make less bitter coffee but are more costly to manufacture because of how the plants are grown and that the plants themselves are less hardy than other widely used varieties.