Specialty lattes and other coffee drinks are generally not healthy options because they tend to be loaded with fat and sugar. But what about black coffee? Does the way that it is brewed have any impact on its nutritional quality? A 2018 study done by Megan Fuller, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, and Niny Rao, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at Thomas Jefferson University in Philladelphia, suggests that it does.
Cold brew coffee is made by steeping ground coffee in room temperature water for a long while - 8 to 24 hours. Hot brews are made by passing very hot water through the ground beans in various ways. The study compared the acidity and antioxidant levels of hot and cold brewed coffees to determine if one brewing method produced any significant advantage of the other.
Cold brewed coffee is often believed to be less acidic than a hot brew, but the study found no evidence that this was so. The pH values in each brew were found to be essentially the same (pH of around 5, which is just slightly acidic). So despite the marketing, cold brew coffee is no "easier on the stomach" than hot brew.
Hot brew coffee turned out to have have an advantage though, in that it
has higher antioxidant levels than cold brew coffee. Antioxidants are responsible for most of the beneficial health effects of moderate coffee consumption.
“Coffee has a lot of antioxidants and, if you drink it in moderation,
research shows it can be pretty good for you,” Fuller said. “We found
the hot brew has more antioxidant capacity.”
None of this is to say that if you enjoy cold brew coffee you should avoid it. Just don't expect it to be any particular benefit over a hot brew.
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