Coffee is Good for You!

From the pages of MensHealth Magazine: the definitive, comprehensive article about coffee. Do you really need any other guidance on this?

Coffee is good for you!

"Coffee is the world's most popular fix. And yet it's hard to know what to make of the mixed messages about its effects on our health. We want to set the record straight: Coffee, down to its deep, dark, caffeine-filled soul, is good for you. And that's good, because four out of five American adults drink the heady brew.

"Coffee is one of the most heavily researched products in the world today," says Roger Cook, director of the Coffee Science Information Center. "And the vast majority of this research clearly shows that drinking coffee can be quite beneficial to your health." Of course he'd say that. But the research backs it up. That morning cup can help decrease your risk of Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and type-2 diabetes. But there's a difference between a healthy love and a dubious addiction. Pour yourself a second cup and read on.

THE BEAN

Out of the nearly 100 different varieties of coffee beans, only two make their way to the cup. Arabica, known for its deep, complex flavor, accounts for about 75 percent of the beans sold throughout the world. Robusta, a cheaper bean usually considered a filler, is often found lurking in the canisters you buy in the supermarket.

THE ROAST

"The darker the roast, the fewer characteristics of the bean you taste," says Kenneth Davids, a cofounder of CoffeeReview.com and the author of Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing, and Enjoying . Most single-origin coffees, such as Colombian, Sumatra, and other coffees named after countries, are lightly roasted to preserve the beans' natural flavor. Blends are typically roasted for a desired flavor. The three main categories:

Medium
These coffees are roasted for 9 to 11 minutes, like most grocery-store varieties. Also called Breakfast Roast.

Dark
In this common European method, batches are roasted for 12 to 13 minutes until the oils reach the surface of the beans. Also called French Roast.

Extra Dark
Roasted for at least 14 minutes, these oily beans taste so smoky that it's nearly impossible to identify where they were grown. You drink it for the deep roast, not the nuance of the bean. Also called Italian or Espresso Roast.

THE REGION

All good coffee is grown between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, where the climate is ideal for producing rich, full-flavored beans. Each of the three major coffee-growing regions produces a distinct flavor. Known for their lighter coffees, the Americas produce more joe than any other region. "Latin American coffee's crisp, bright acidity comes as a direct result of its climate and the volcanic soils the beans grow in," says Andy Fouché, a certified coffee specialist with Starbucks Coffee. Africa/Arabia, the region where coffee was born 1,200 years ago, produces a smoother, less acidic cup than the Americas. The Asia/Pacific region produces the boldest of coffees, often with a heavy, earthy taste.

BEWARE OF FLAVORED BEANS--these are usually cheap Robusta beans roasted to oblivion and flavored artificially. If you need a hazelnut or vanilla fix, buy a bottle of flavored oil and mix a teaspoon into a cup of the good stuff.

THE BREW

Even the most carefully roasted beans can be ruined by sloppy brewing. Start by buying your coffee fresh in small batches every 2 weeks. Skip the preground stuff and the oversize supermarket grinder and buy your beans whole instead; grinding them just before you brew will make the best cup. For a standard automatic-drip machine, use filtered water and 1 to 2 tablespoons of ground beans for every 6 ounces of brewed coffee. When it comes to storing your beans, keep them out of the freezer--it destroys the essential oils that make coffee delicious. Keep coffee in your cupboard in a dark, airtight container.

THE BENEFITS

Pure, black coffee is one of the world's most potent elixirs. "Generally, drinking 1 to 3 cups a day will increase your overall health," says Joe Vinson, Ph.D., a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania, who recently discovered that coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the American diet. These antioxidants have been shown to possibly prevent certain types of cancer, including colorectal, and reduce the risk of developing alcoholic cirrhosis by 22 percent. Moreover, the neurological impact of caffeine has been shown to retard the aging process and enhance short-term-memory performance. But keep your coffee intake to four 8-ounce cups a day; after that, the benefits are outweighed by an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

THE BUZZ

"Seventy percent of people's daily caffeine consumption comes from coffee," says Vinson. Caffeine content is determined by the type of bean and the way the beans are roasted and prepared. Arabica beans have about 1 percent caffeine, while Robusta beans have twice that (meaning that crappy cup from the gas station may have double the dosage). Roasting reduces the caffeine content--so stronger-tasting coffee doesn't necessarily mean more caffeine. Here's an eye-opener: According to Illy Coffee, a shot of its espresso has 35 percent less caffeine than the company's brewed coffee.

CATCH THE BUZZ 15 minutes after that first sip, your brain releases dopamine. Wakefulness peaks after half an hour.

THE LIFE OF A BEAN
From tree to cup to brain

PLANTING
After planting, coffee trees take about 2 years to develop fragrant, white flowers. As the flowers mature, a fruit, usually called a coffee cherry, is formed. The cherry matures in anywhere from 6 to 11 months and is then harvested and processed.

PROCESSING
There are three main ways coffee cherries are processed: wet, dry, and semidry. In wet processing, the fruit of the cherry is washed away, leaving the pit, a.k.a. the coffee bean. Dry-processed cherries are placed in the sun until the fruit is dried off the bean, which produces a sweeter flavor. Semidry is a combination of the two, and it's gaining popularity, because it combines the sweet flavor of dry processing with some of the ease of wet processing.

ROASTING
Roasting can be done anywhere from a factory to your home oven. Bringing out the richness in a raw bean without destroying its inherent flavor is a delicate art. "A medium roast of a good coffee is like a nice table wine, really bright with that pleasant acidity," says Kenneth Davids, a cofounder of CoffeeReview.com.

PREPARING
Good coffee is about proper flavor extraction from the bean, and each brewing method demands a different grind. French presses and percolators use the coarsest grind (about 5 to 10 seconds in your grinder), automatic-drip machines need a medium grind (10 to 15 seconds), and espresso machines require the finest grind (25 seconds).

METABOLIZING
Within about 15 minutes of your first sip, the caffeine starts the release of dopamine in your brain's prefrontal cortex. This effect, which increases wakefulness and mental focus, among other things, peaks in about 30 minutes.

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT

"Espresso is all about the crema," says Matt Riddle, a designer for Intelligentsia Coffee and the 2006 winner of the United States Barista Championship. "Think of a Guinness when it's poured; that's how the shot should look--a nice dark body, but with a reddish brown top." Achieve crema perfection and espresso ecstasy in five steps:

1. THE BEAN
Find the "Roasted On" or "Best Before" date and make sure the coffee's less than 2 weeks out of the roaster. "Coffee is a food; it can spoil like anything else in your cupboard," says Riddle.

2. THE GRIND
Use a burr grinder (we like the DeLonghi DCG59 Retro model, $45, delonghi.com) to make sure the beans are ground evenly. Setting the grinder on the finest setting should make the grinds about the size of table salt.

3. THE TAMP
Fill your basket until there's a quarter inch of room at the top. Now press down with your tamper, using about 30 pounds of pressure. "Use a normal bathroom scale to see how much force you need," says Riddle. Then tightly place the basket in the machine.

4. THE WATER
Make sure the temperature is between 198° and 204°F and the pressure is around 8 or 9 bars. The 2-ounce shot should take between 20 and 30 seconds to pour.

5. THE EQUIPMENT
Keeping it clean is the most important part. "Whether it's a $50 machine or a $5,000 machine, simply wiping down the parts with a dry paper towel once a week will keep oily buildup from forming," says Riddle.

(From MensHealth Magazine, 2007, "Know Your Joe" by Brian McClintock)