Dear F. Serra,

Mr. Chuck Dothet (spelling) at Finnigan did some preliminary work with
alkaloids in this area a few years ago and this was published as a Finnigan
note, I believe.

Mr. Bill Popp with one of the herbal companies out west (U.S.) did some
research to develop methods for verifying different herbal products. He
used light microscopy and electron microscopy for herb identification.
Contact Prof. D.J. Weber, Dept. of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young
University, Provo, Utah.

You might also use elemental analyses, either atomic absorption or ICAP or
some similar method. This has been used for some time by geologists to locate
certain minerals, e.g. uranium (for uranium, a Geiger counter can be used on
herbarium samples).

G. Martin, Water Sciences Laboratory, University of Nebraska, Lincoln,NE,USA

At 02:35 PM 1/4/99 -0100, you wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>I am planning to start a research on coffee to test the reliability of
>stable isotope to identify varieties of coffee and their origins.
>Unfortunately I have found no literature at all on the subject.
>
>Is anyone doing something similar out there???
>
>Cheers
>
>Francesca Serra
>
>Centre of Stable Isotope Geochemistry
>Geokarst Engineering S.r.l.
>AREA Science Park
>Trieste
>Italy
>Tel. +39 040 226720-(lab.)226320
>Fax +39 040 226806-(lab.)226320
>
>