Coffee

Health benefits of drinking green coffee

Whether you drink it hot or cold, at home or in a café, coffee is everywhere. With 166 million 60-kg bag consumed in 2020/21 worldwide, it is no surprise that ways to consume it are as diverse as the multitudes of people drinking it. And yet, drinking green coffee hardly comes to mind as one of those ways. Nevertheless, significant health benefits of green coffee make it a worthwhile beverage to consider.

Green Coffee as a Beverage

Understandably, green coffee drinking is an entirely different experience. In fact, it is safe to say that it is almost a different beverage from regular coffee. Everything about it is distinct: from the color to the taste to the way you feel caffeine reacting with your body (people describe a smoother, more constant feeling rather than a jump.

It is easy to see why when you think about the process coffee beans go through to get to your table, in its regular black incarnation.

When coffee beans are roasted, they lose their moisture content (the closer they are to French roast grade the lower their moisture content), and some of the oils and other components get burned out. That’s why the more roasted coffee taste flatter, less acidic and sweeter (thanks to caramelized sugars) than milder roasts. Read more about the coffee processing steps in detail.

Now, apply that rule of thumb to green coffee. The drink tastes nothing like what you are used to because the more earthy, complex and floral notes come out. In fact, the taste is somewhere between matcha and green peas, and is very pleasant once you convince yourself that what you are drinking is good in its own right.

Health Benefits of Drinking Green Coffee

But what is beginning to attract a small but growing following to the green coffee drinker community is the beverage’s many apparent health benefits. We will list only a few major ones.

Longevity

As opposed to roasted coffee, increased longevity is one of the benefits that green coffee has. One of the theories is that ageing is caused by a process called glycation. Glycation occurs when sugar molecules bind to proteins and lipids in your body, which causes the proteins and lipids to change. This leads to accumulation of something called advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which is essentially biological waste. Accumulation of biological waste leads to loss of efficacy of your body’s physiological processes, which is ageing.

AGEs happen in your body naturally, from consuming various foods that either contain sugar or get broken into sugar. Thus, the ageing process is inevitable, but you can delay it. One of the ways to do it is by drinking more green coffee.

Green coffee beans contain chlorogenic acid that inhibits the formation of AGEs. In fact, coffee is one plant that has one the highest concentration of those on the planet. And roasting of coffee destroys this very valuable acid.

Which means that if you want to live longer (or age slower), drink more green coffee, and not its roasted counterpart.

Weight Loss

The idea that drinking more green coffee is good for weight loss is similar to the longevity theory. The AGEs are again one of the culprits that causes weight gain in adults. Various studies have shown that when your body produces AGEs, you gain more weight because of a clear link between sugars and fat accumulation. That wonderful chlorogenic acid we already discussed also helps burn glucose and fat and preventing blood sugar spikes and helps keep lipids stable.

High Antioxidant Content

Green coffee is an excellent source of phenolic compounds, and these compounds have been recognized to have certain antioxidant properties. Oxidation is a process that produces unstable chemicals (called free radicals) in your body, and that damage your body other cell membranes. This has been linked to a host of diseases, including heart disease, some cancer types, arthritis, and brain nerve cell damage, which can lead to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

Antioxidants in coffee (as well as in other food) neutralize free radicals. Additionally, our good friend chlorogenic acid has been linked to controlling various types of tumors, further reducing cancer risks.

Some Side Effects

Of course, there are some side effects to drinking green coffee. And, as opposed to green coffee-specific benefits, these side effects are coffee’s common ones. Thanks, caffeine.

You can definitely drink too much coffee and that could lead to mood swings, increased anxiety, disrupted sleep patterns, and can even be related to spikes in blood pressure. So, just use your common sense as you do with any other type of stimulating beverages and regulate your daily intake.

How to Make a Green Coffee Beverage

Unless you get a green coffee extract, making green coffee from beans is slightly more artisanal from making your regular morning brew. Firstly, the higher oil and moisture content means that green beans are much harder and, therefore, much more difficult to grind. Second, brewing time is generally a little longer.

We have tried a few methods for and recommend using a proportion of about 1.7 ounces (50 grams or about two handfuls) of green coffee to 24 ounces of water. Grind the beans in a good grinder/blender with enough water to cover the beans. Since green coffee beans are very tough, you will need water to be able to do any damage to them without destroying your grinder.

Once ground, put all the coffee and the remaining water into a pot and set to simmer on your gas stove for about 5-6 minutes. We recommend using a gas stove where heat can be best controlled. Finding a great pot for a gas stove is going to be key for brewing excellent green coffee.  Make sure you scrape all the coffee from inside of your grinder as the small pieces tend to settle down and refuse to leave the grinder voluntarily.

After 5-6 minutes of brewing, you can filter the coffee through mesh or just enjoy it with some of the sediment which has a pleasant earthy taste.

Also Read : Different types of coffee mugs