The coffee cherry’s outer skin is called the exocarp. Beneath it is the mesocarp, a thin layer of pulp, followed by a slimy layer called the parenchyma. The beans themselves are covered in a paper-like envelope named the endocarp, more commonly referred to as the parchment.
Outer Skin or Exocarp
In the beginning of fruit development, this outer layer of the cherry is green. As the fruit matures, it turns yellow, then orange, and finally a ripe red.
Mucilage or Mesocarp
This is the flesh of the coffee fruit - during cherry maturation, this layer is rich in sugars.
Parchment or Endocarp
This thick, shell-like layer surrounds the bean and is comprised of 3-7 layers in total.
Bean or Seed
The beautiful green coffee bean or seed, while still inside the cherry, matures to become the coffee we all know and love once it is roasted to perfection.
Inside the parchment, side-by-side, lie two beans, each covered separately by yet another thin membrane. The biological name for this seed skin is the spermoderm, but it is generally referred to in the coffee trade as the silver skin.
In about 5% of the world’s coffee, there is only one bean inside the cherry. This is called a peaberry (or a caracol, or “snail” in Spanish), and it is a natural mutation. Some people believe that peaberries are actually sweeter and more flavorful than standard beans, so they are sometimes manually sorted out for special sale.
The quality of coffee is determined by how coffee is grown and processed. The more care and expertise farmers are able to pour into cultivating healthy coffee beans, the better the coffee will be.
Compounds of Coffee
Coffee contains a vast amount of antioxidants, which are used to help combat issues in your body that slip past your immune system.
Our bodies naturally oxidize, which affects our aging process and how our body handles stress.
But it’s not so simple.
You need to roast coffee in order to get those antioxidant benefits, and you might actually get more benefits from light-roasted coffee as opposed to a dark roast.
That’s because there’s a higher concentration of chlorogenic acid in light roast, which is an antixodant and anti-inflammatory agent.
Chlorogenic acids and caffeine work together to give you the health benefits of coffee. there are also three other coffee components that you should know about besides chlorogenic acids.
Caffeine
Caffeine is a naturally occurring plant product and a mild stimulant. It’s the most referenced aspect of coffee.
Diterpenes
Diterpenes are happy inside the oils of coffee and are derived from cholesterol. In western coffee making techniques that involve paper filters the diterpenes are absorbed. In European methods such as Turkish coffee and Scandanavian boiled coffee, these molecules are passed on to the finished product.
Melanoidins
This is where your coffee gets its color.
If you just dropped beans into water, it’s just going to look dirty, but melanoidins are created during the roasting process as a result of a chemical breakdown and structural change.
As we mentioned earlier, you don’t get all the benefits from coffee until you roast it.
Melanoidins allow those traits and benefits to come through.
Coffee components come into play when you discuss roast type, volume, milligrams of caffeine in a daily dosage, and any health benefits.
Where Coffee Acts in the Body
Positive Bodily Effects of Coffee
Coffee has cardiovascular benefits, so long as you aren’t consuming too much caffeine in a single day.
For most healthy adults in their respective BMI ranges, about 400 milligrams of caffeine is acceptable each day, provided you are not substituting coffee for a good night’s sleep.
It’s been speculated, in more instances than one, that a lack of sleep or low quality of sleep may be related to heart disease. Caffeine can keep you awake at night.
As for the cardiovascular benefits, some are still emerging.
Coffee can boost your metabolism, which makes it an excellent pre-workout beverage, especially if it’s consumed prior to a cardio-based workout.
Coffee aids in breaking up fats at a faster rate, thanks to the introduction of multiple chemical reactions from the roasting and brewing process.
That benefit actually carries on further down as well.
The acids help with movements, but everyone reacts differently.
Lastly, before we continue to the negative impacts, the caffeine in coffee acts as a stimulant (hence why it affects your heart, colon, and stomach, which are all muscles).
Your level of alertness and mental stamina can also be increased, but only temporarily.
You have something in your brain called adenosine, which basically makes you feel sleepy, and caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors for a short amount of time.
The bottom line is this: coffee is good for you, provided that you don’t have a hypersensitivity that can bring on the symptoms of insomnia or other risks.
Slight peaks in blood pressure, spatial awareness and alertness are positive, primarily in a healthy individual.
Consuming an abundance of anything can have negative effects, so limit your consumption to 250-350 milligrams per day for optimal performance, and to prevent dependency.
Coffee may also cause frequent urination, and in turn, dehydration.
Dehydration is also associated with constipation, so in an ironic way, your coffee could have a polar opposite outcome to what we discussed earlier, even though it’s reacting the same way.
While coffee can help you stay alert and focused, those adenosine receptors we talked about earlier come back into play when insomnia is on the table.
Since everyone reacts differently, some find that caffeine blocks those receptors for longer than others, resulting in the symptoms of insomnia.
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