Quick answer: The healthiest coffee is the light-to-medium roast, served in a paper filter, 90 minutes after waking up and finishing at least 10 hours before bedtime€Ÿ. Most people should drink it black, or lightly with some splash of milk/fat, but never on a completely empty stomach if you are someone prone to having anxiety or digestive issues.
The Performance Optimizer: Strategic Filtering & Cortisol Management
You’re not drinking coffee just to wake up; you are drinking coffee to hit a higher gear. But a big mistake is to assume that the “unprocessed” or “raw” technique of brewing coffee is always better.
The Counter-Intuitive Truth: The French Press is a risk to your heart.
The naturalness of the French Press or Turkish coffee is what many health conscious people love. But these unfiltered methods will leave high levels of diterpenes (namely, cafestol and kahweol) in your cup. Though yummy, these oils clog a receptor in your intestines that controls cholesterol.
The Science: In a huge study (more than 500,000 participants studied over a period of 20 years), drinking filtered coffee was linked to lower mortality from other causes than unfiltered coffee. Unfiltered coffee was found to increase LDL (bad) cholesterol.
The Protocol: Switch to Paper Filters (Drip, Pour-over, or Chemex). The paper physically captures the cholesterol-raising oils, while allowing the beneficial antioxidants (polyphenols) to pass.
The Strategy: The timing “90-Minute Rule”
Some people drink coffee when the alarm goes off. This is biologically inefficient. As you awaken, your body produces a natural stress hormone called cortisol to aid in getting out of bed. This is the “Cortisol Awakening Response.”
The Logic: If you introduce caffeine (which also elevates cortisol) to your natural daily horomone spike, you build the tolerance more quickly and increase stress/anxiety without giving yourself a better energy boost.
The Fix: Wait 90 minutes to 2 hours after getting up. Just let your natural cortisol peak and start to fall. Then introduce caffeine. You will also be more alert for longer and generally have less of a blood sugar crash in the afternoon.
FOR THE FAT LOSS & FITNESS ENTHUSIAST- OPTIMIZATION & NUTRIENT TIMING
You don’t want your coffee to be stalling your results it’s supposed to be boosting them! The “Bulletproof” trend (of adding butter/oil) is the biggest trap here, used wrongly.
The Critique: The ‘Butter Coffee’ Pitfall
Butter or MCT oil in coffee is awesome if you’re only eating dinner (just straight water and black coffee/fat to kill hunger) or following a Ketogenic diet. But if you’re consuming a 300-calorie butter coffee along with a carb-heavy breakfast (say, oatmeal or toast), then that’s effectively creating a “metabolic traffic jam.” Your body will utilize the easy carbs to fuel your run and store all that coffee fat ASAP.
The Protocol: Caffeine as an Ergogenic Aid
The Window: Ingest 3 to 6 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight approximately sixty min before you start exercising.
The Benefit: Caffeine stimulates “fat oxidation” (or the burning of fat for energy) by mobilizing fatty acids from fat tissues. If you don’t work out after imbibing, those fatty acids often simply go back to storage.
The Science: Research shows, pre-workout caffeine consumption substantially enhances mean power output and fat oxidation, specifically in aerobic exercise.
If You’re The Sensitive, Anxious Type: “Buffer” Technique
You adore coffee, but it feels like it doesn’t love you back — not when it causes the jitters, acid reflux or even costochondritis or makes you feel “wired and tired.” You don’t necessarily need to quit; what you do need is to change the chemistry of delivery.
The Counter-Intuitive Truth: It’s not just the caffeine, it’s the method of delivery.
Either way, anxiety from coffee tends to come from when caffeine hits your blood stream a bit too quickly with a surge of adrenaline and norepinephrine.
Technique 1: The L-Theanine Pairing
If coffee causes the jitters, you don’t necessarily require less coffee; you might just need more tea chemistry. L-Theanine, an amino acid found in green tea can help relax without causing drowsiness.
The Protocol: Supplement 100mg – 200 mg of L-Theanine along with your coffee.
The Result: “Calm Focus.” L-Theanine rounds off the rough edges of the caffeine stimulant effect. It stops the vasoconstriction — when blood vessels tighten, often causing headaches and anxiety.
Method 2: Cold Brew to Heal the Gut
Acids inside coffee beans pour out quickly and energetically into hot water.
The Fix: Try Cold Brew. Flavor profile Unlike hot-brewed coffee — which often has the grounds in contact with the water for only several minutes — cold brew sits and steeps, undisturbed, in chilly water for 12-24 hours, so the chemical profile is different. It makes a brew that is an estimated 65-70% less acidic than traditional hot coffee. For those with GERD (reflux) or sensitive stomach linings, this makes a huge difference.
Never Empty Always on an empty stomach!
Black coffee on an empty stomach directly increases hydrochloric acid production. This acid eats away at the stomach lining if there is no food to digest.
The Fix: Snack on a bit of protein or healthy fat just before you take your first sip. This serves as a mechanical barrier.
For the Advocate of Purity: Beyond ‘Organic’
You are concerned about pesticides and poisons. You probably purchase Organic, but that is only half of the equation.
The Hidden Danger: Mycotoxins (Mold)
Coffee is a product in high humidity preservation. The largest health threat in so-called “natural” coffee may not be pesticides, it’s mycotoxins (specifically Ochratoxin A), byproducts from the mold which can grow on beans during storage and milling. If processed improperly, even organic coffee can be moldy.
The Logic: Wet Method vs. Dry Method
- Dry Process (Natural): The coffee cherry dries with the bean. Tastes fruity, though the risk of mould during drying is higher.
- Wet Process (Washed): The fruit is removed from the bean as soon as possible and then washed.
The Protocol: You want “Washed” or “Wet Processed” beans, and you specifically want them from high-altitude areas (where mold doesn’t proliferate as easily). There are brands certified “Mold-Free”, but opting for washed beans (from trusted single-origin roasters) is far and away the most realistic method of reducing exposure to these toxins.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What’s wrong with french press or unfiltered coffee in terms of heart health?
A: Unfiltered brewing techniques, such as with a French press or Turkish coffee, produce high levels of oil compounds known as diterpenes (cafestol and kahweol) in the cup. Research studies have found that these oils block receptors in the intestines that control blood cholesterol levels and increase LDL (bad) cholesterol. Fiber filters like paper physically capture these oils and let the good-for-you antioxidants through.
Q: Is there any speculation why I’m “supposed” to wait 90 minutes in the morning before I have my coffee?
A: Drinking coffee first thing in the morning prevents what’s known as “The Cortisol Awakening Response,” the early a.m. hormone spike that activates your body and minimizes grogginess. That combined with caffeine amps up your stress response and decreases tolerance. By holding out 90 minutes, cortisol levels to fall naturally during the food coma not following it resulting in sustained energy and a smaller ‘wall’ come mid-afternoon.
Q: What can I do to avoid getting the jitters, or anxiety, from coffee?
A: You can supplement your coffee with 100mg-200mg of L-Theanine, an amino acid from tea that helps produce a state of “calm focus” and combats the vasoconstriction. Or instead, try the less acidic Cold Brew, or counteract it by eating a small amount of protein or fat first which will buffer your stomach.
Q: Does “Butter Coffee” work for fat loss?
A: Butter or MCT oil would only work if you were fasting (proper fasting, mind) and/or on a Keto diet. If you drink high-calorie butter coffee with a carbohydrate breakfast (say, oatmeal or toast), that metabolic traffic jam interrupts the normal process of burning the sugar and instead prioritizes using the fat from your coffee.
Q: How can I prevent my coffee beans from growing mold and toxin-producing fungus?
A: To minimize exposure to mycotoxins (mold toxins), select beans that are “Washed” or “Wet Processed,” especially grown at high altitude. The higher humidity and extended exposure to water present in the “Dry Method” pose a greater threat of mold during the drying phase, than washed beans where the cherry is removed instantly.
References
About the Filtration of Coffee And Health Of The Heart:
- Source: The European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
- Paper: Coffee intake and mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.
- Date: April 2020.
- Outcome: Boiled coffee contains compounds that boost blood cholesterol. Consumption of filtered coffee was linked to a 15% reduced risk of death from any cause versus no consumption.
On Cortisol and Circadian Rhythms:
- Entity: The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
- Topic: The Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR).
- Context: Cortisol levels are reported to peak 30-45 min following waking, and then decrease over the day. Using stimulants in the peak could potentially interfere with endogenous circadian regulation.
On Caffeine and Fat Oxidation:
- Source: Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition.
- Research Study: Pre-exercise caffeine ingestion does not change time to exhaustion during cycle exercise.
- Date: January 2021 (yet within meta-analysis).
- Conclusion: Caffeine consumption is able to significantly increase metabolic rate and lipid oxidation during aerobic exercise.
On L-Theanine and Anxiety:
- Entity: Nutritional Neuroscience.
- Conclusion: Theanine reduced the incidence of pressing attention shifts in a task that requires such pressing attention.
- Result: The L-theanine and caffeine combo boosted performance on cognitively challenging tasks while diminishing the “sensitivity to distraction” and anxiety that sometimes results from taking caffeine by itself.
