The Health Benefits of Coffee

Daily consumption of coffee has health benefits...who knew? Despite the prevalence of coffee consumption for many centuries, there has been little medical research into its effects until the last several years. Coffee contains hundreds of compounds that are poorly studied to date; caffeine has been the primary focus of research until now.


Latest epidemiologic studies consistently show coffee consumption reduces rates of common diseases:

• Depression/anxiety
• Heart disease
• Type 2 Diabetes associated with obesity
• Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases
• Cancer
• Alcohol/drug addiction

There are many compounds in coffee that are altered during the roasting process that may be involved in these health benefits. Major mechanisms for these benefits include antioxidant activity, opiodergic modulation, and adenosine agonism.

For the first time in history, a center for coffee research has been developed at Vanderbilt University which encompasses biomedical, sociological, anthropological, and economic study of coffee as a phenomenon. This institute, founded in 1999, is the epicenter of coffee research in the United States and possibly the world. And it's at my alma mater!

Source: The Vanderbilt Institute for Coffee Studies at the Vanderbilt Institute for Latin American Studies.

Disclaimer: The information contained on this page is general in nature and is not meant to substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professional. None of the statements on this site are a recommendation as to how to treat any particular disease or health-related condition.

The Sweet Smell of Coffee Roasting...

One of the most important steps in the journey from bush to brew is roasting. An over-roasted bean is a tragedy that happens frequently in the coffee industry. You can often spot it by the charcoal flavor in your cup or an excessive oiliness on the outside of the bean before grinding. Some fine beans can hold up to a darker roast; others lose their flavors and nuances completely. Any dark roasted bean should be rushed to brew, as any oils that form on the outside of the bean can go rancid quickly once exposed to oxygen.

Back to the roasting process...a large-scale roaster (or even a small portable home roaster) may be used to roast the green beans so that they may be brewed. Before roasting green beans are typically greenish-brown and have a somewhat grassy smell. Roasting causes many complex chemical reactions to occur, much like baking.

At Ashley & Cooper Coffee Roasters, we use a Diedrich IR-12, which has a 12 kg or 30 lb maximum capacity. During roasting, there is a distinctive aroma released that pervades our facility...that of roasted chocolate, with a slightly sweet perfume. If you spend any time in our facility while roasting is occurring you will leave smelling of roasted coffee...it is that pervasive!

Each bean must be test-roasted and cupped to find the perfect level of roasting. This is because every bean has a different size, moisture content, density, and weight, depending on origin, screen-size, and whether it is a special bean such as the Peaberry, which is a round mutation with a denser bean. When a fine specialty coffee is roasted in just the right way, the difference in the cup is indescribable.

The Journey of the Green Bean

Our faithful green bean, once it has been screened for quality, is put into a marked bag or barrel.

In many countries, beans marked for export must be inspected and certified by government or independent coffee organizations. Next stop? Bags or barrels of specialty coffee are shipped to a roaster or a bean broker.

An important thing to note about this process is that green beans may be stored for a year without losing quality. Coffee is a commodity, like many other agricultural products; in fact it is the second largest commodity in the world behind oil.

Once the coffee bag or barrel makes it to a bean broker, it is typically sold to a roaster for the final step in the process: roasting.

Finally...The Coffee Bean!!!

With all this talk of plants, cherries, and fruit, how do we get to our faithful coffee bean? Inside each pretty red "cherry" from the coffee plant there are typically two coffee beans nestled, flat sides together, protected by the skin and pulp of the fruit.

It is the process of gently extracting the beans from the remainder of the fruit that is described as being "wet" or "dry." How a coffee is processed is one of the important aspects that can affect the flavor of the coffee in your cup!

Wet processing involves soaking the beans and allowing some level of fermentation to occur. What is left is then allowed to dry, usually in the sun, while being raked. Once dry, the remains are beaten to remove the beans from the pulp, mucilage, and other leftovers from the fruit. The green beans are then separated and screened thoroughly, often by hand, before being checked for quality and packaged into barrels or bags for distribution.

Dry processing differs in that it involves drying the cherry on raised screens or patios, with or without some level of mechanical or hand-removal of the fruit and mucilage to expose the parchment-covered cherry. Since the parchment contains sugar, fermentation still occurs, though at a slower rate than the wet-processed beans. Dry processing is the traditional method used in Ethiopia as well as parts of Central America, and is becoming a more widely-used technique in small farms to add new and different flavor profiles to their specialty coffee.

The Coffee Fruit

More about the origins of the coffee in your cup! In the last post we talked about the coffee plant/bush/tree. Now for the specifics about the coffee fruit.

The tiny coffee berries form in clusters at the base of the leaves of the tree, and take half a year or more to mature on the branches of the plant before harvest. When ripe the so-called "cherries" are picked and processed by either the wet or dry method. Harvest typically occurs between August and January, depending on the region and the altitude of the farm. Frequently cherries ripen at varying stages, and at the top coffee farms and estates they are hand-picked only when ripe, whether it is in the beginning of the harvest or the end.

The Coffee Plant (or Tree or Bush)

If you've ever wondered where exactly coffee comes from, we are today starting a series of posts about the origins of the bean that produces the drink consumed by most adults, and its journey from bush to brew.

Coffee is grown as a tree or bush, which resembles a camellia bush with jasmine-like blooms. In the wild, the evergreen arabica plant grows up to 20 feet, however, when cultivated is pruned to approximately 6 feet to maximize its yield and to make harvest easier.

Coffea arabica is not the only type of plant used to produce coffee; Coffea robusta is another species commonly used (common being an apt term since most robusta is not typically considered high quality enough to produce gourmet coffee; it is used to produce lower-quality coffee such as brands produced on a very large scale and sold at many supermarkets). One exception is the Kopi Lowak coffee, which is a very unusual gourmet robusta coffee "processed" by the Asian Palm Civet, a cat-sized mammal found in southeast Asia. This coffee retails for well over $120 US per pound.

There are several varietals of Coffea arabica, including C. arabica typica, C. arabica bourbon, C. arabica caturra, and C. arabica catuai. The typica is the base plant for many other varietals, produces a small amount of coffee cherries, but yields an excellent cup of coffee. The bourbon is named for the Isle of Bourbon (or Reunion Island) where it was discovered. This variety has a higher yield of fruit but produces less coffee, since each cherry is denser and more likely to fall off from wind and rain. This variety does well at higher altitudes. The caturra is a mutation of the bourbon, discovered in Brazil. It has performs well at lower altitudes but though it yields fewer cherries at higher altitudes, the quality increases. The catuai is a hand-engineered hybrid of the Mundo Novo (a natural hybrid of typica and bourbon discovered in Brazil) and the caturra. This is a high yielding plant that is great for areas with strong winds or rain because the cherries more stubbornly stay on the branches.

The last two varietals are highly prized in the specialty gourmet coffee market. These are the Maragogype and the Blue Mountain. A natural mutation of the typica plant, the maragogype produces a very large bean, to which it credits its name - the "elephant bean." It was first discovered in in the early 1990's. Blue Mountain is a famous varietal that thrives at very high altitudes and is very disease resistant. It produces a bean with a very high flavor profile, and was first grown in Jamaica. It has now adapted to grow well in Kona, Hawaii, but cannot adapt to most growing areas and produce the high quality bean for which it is known.

For more information, check out Wikipedia or CoffeeResearch.org

Keeping your Awesome Coffee FRESH!

Our best tips for the freshest coffee? Purchase the freshest beans available in whole bean form (this minimizes surface area exposed to oxygen) in a bag with a one-way valve. This will require the use of a home grinder just before brewing.

The ideal way to store the coffee beans once the bag has been opened is in a sealed glass jar, preferably one that does not allow sunlight to permeate. A less expensive option, and an even more efficient one, is to use a Ziploc! Simply press air out before sealing and storing away from direct sunlight.

Another important tip: never freeze your beans! Freezing and then thawing disrupts the moisture balance in the bean and will not prolong the life of your coffee.