Coffee: description, properties, benefits



Coffee, one of the most consumed beverages in the world, is a plant of which there are several vatrietas . Rich in antioxidants, it has a stimulating effect on the nervous system. Let's find out better.

Description and variety of coffee

The coffee plant is an evergreen tree belonging to the Rubiacee family. It can reach 12 meters in height but is kept lower (about 3 meters) to facilitate the collection of drupes.

There are about 60 existing coffee varieties but only 25 produce fruit with a commercial value. Among these are 4 types of coffee used to prepare the drink:

  1. the Coffea arabica L., the most known variety (it represents the ¾ of the world production) is simply called Arabica, among which the most famous is the Moka. Originally from the Arabian peninsula, this variety is cultivated today both in places of origin and in other Central and South American countries on mountain soils rich in minerals (the higher the altitude, the better the organoleptic qualities of the roasted coffee bean);
  2. the Coffea canephora Pierre ex Froehner, called Robusta, a very widespread variety of coffee because the plant, as its name says, resists diseases very well and can also be cultivated in the plains. It is native to the Congo but today it is cultivated in different countries;
  3. Liberica, grown mainly in Liberia and Ivory Coast. The seeds are large and resistant to pests. Its quality is inferior to that of Arabica and Robusta, even if the grains are very fragrant;
  4. Excelsa grows everywhere and is very resistant, provides a high yield and has a taste similar to that of the Arabica.

The most widespread varieties in Italy are Arabica and Robusta, which have both qualitative differences (Arabica coffees are very fragrant, sweet, round, slightly acid; Robusta coffees are angular, astringent, slightly fragrant and bitter), both quantitative in their chemical composition.

Coffee production

There are two main ways to process fruit and extract green coffee seeds:

  • washed, when the fruits (cherries) are stripped, washed and then the dried seeds and finally peeled to free the beans;
  • natural, when the fruit is dried whole in the sun for up to 20 days. When peel, pulp and seeds are dry, hulling machines are used.

At the end of the processing - both with the washed method and with the natural method - the fruits have been transformed into green coffee and are classified according to their shape and size.

Subsequently, roasting of the seeds or roasting takes 15 minutes and is carried out using hot air currents (240 ° C). In roasting the beans are transformed into light grains of intense brown color and, in this crucial quarter of an hour, about 800 volatile substances are formed, responsible for the taste and aroma of roasted coffee, together with brown pigments, melanoidins, substances mainly not absorbed by the intestine and whose structure and role are today of great interest for their antioxidant power.

Discover also the properties of ginseng coffee

The properties of coffee

Coffee contains hundreds of substances and its chemical characteristics vary depending on the species of the plant, the place of growth and the processing of the drupes, as well as the roasting of the seeds and the thermal process that transforms the green bean into a roasted bean, ready to be ground and used for the preparation of the drink.

Caffeine, despite representing only 1.3 to 2.4% of coffee raw material, is the best known substance and has many known pharmacological properties, although, 180 years after its discovery, it still engages many researchers in numerous studies. It is the substance that characterizes coffee but it is not exclusive to this plant since we find it in numerous vegetables such as cocoa beans, tea leaves, guarana berries and also cola nuts but in lower concentrations.

Due to the presence of caffeine, coffee is one of the nerve foods, ie those that can stimulate the nervous system.

Other methylxanthines, alkaloid substances such as 1, 3-methylxanthine (known as "t eofillina " predominantly in tea) and 3, 7 di-methylxanthine (known as " theobromine " predominantly in the chocolate).

Coffee, ally of

Coffee is a drink surprisingly rich in antioxidants in fact it contains hundreds of biologically active molecules including phenolic compounds (chlorogenic acids, caffeic acid, ferulic and para-coumaric acid) and melanoidins which have a remarkable antioxidant activity.

It is also rich in methylxanthines such as caffeine, which act by stimulating the central nervous system, a mild psychostimulant that mainly improves attention and alertness.

On the cardiovascular system, caffeine, in addition to having direct effects on cardiac muscle contraction, has been associated with a series of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Among these it was mainly associated with increased blood pressure .

Caffeine increases the secretion of hydrochloric acid and pepsin in the stomach on the gastrointestinal tract . Therefore coffee is not indicated in subjects with gastritis and ulcer. However, caffeine does not cause gastro-oesophageal reflux, gastritis or ulcers in healthy subjects.

Acute caffeine has a thermogenetic effect in humans, raising energy expenditure by about 100kcal. This effect, although more mildly, persists even during the usual consumption of coffee.

If to the thermogenetic effect is also added the property of caffeine to stimulate and improve the use of energy for physical work starting from lipid substrates (body fats), it is clear as caffeine, at doses taken with a moderate coffee consumption, can contribute to maintaining body weight and making the best use of the body's energy sources.

Benefits and contraindications of coffee

After tea, coffee is the most consumed beverage in the world . In the past, drinking coffee was considered a bad habit compared to excess drinking alcohol or smoking.

However, unlike alcohol and smoking which are really harmful to health, over time numerous scientific evidences have accumulated to show that not only coffee does not hurt (except in subjects with some pathologies) but, if consumed in moderate doses, it can even do well, making it a good source of antioxidants.

This statement also seems to be valid for decaffeinated coffee.

But how many cups of coffee could we consume? Bearing in mind that the amount of caffeine not to be exceeded is about 2-3 mg per day per kg of body weight and bearing in mind that a cup of espresso or mocha contains from 40 to 80 mg of caffeine, the quantity of 3-5 cups per day is what allows the body not to accumulate caffeine but to metabolize it throughout the day without having "pharmacological dose effects".

Coffee curiosity

The word "coffee" comes from the Arabic qahwa or kahwa which means "wine", to which coffee was associated for its characteristic dark color.

The coffee sector involves:

  • 700 companies at production level
  • 7 thousand employees
  • € 3.4 billion the value of production
  • 600 million for export
  • 130 thousand public businesses serving coffee
  • 70 million cups of coffee consumed by Italians every day.

A legend has it that in the Chehodet monastery in Yemen, one of the monks, having learned from a shepherd named Kaldi that his goats and his camels kept themselves "lively" even at night if they ate certain berries, prepared with them a drink in the intent on staying awake to be able to pray longer.

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