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What Is Black Coffee?
Coffee is a popular beverage that is made from roasted coffee beans. Black Coffee benefits the health of our body in many ways; from reducing chances of strokes to improving immunity. Coffee seeds are roasted to different degrees, depending on the required taste. These seeds are picked from the various coffee plantations which are now grown in approximately 70 countries around the world. Then the seeds are processed, dried, and brewed in boiling water to make the drink we love and know as coffee.
Coffee is known to have originated in Yemen in the 15th century, and since then it has become amongst the most likable, and widely consumed drinks globally. It has different colors i.e., black, dark brown and light brown too. Black coffee is bitter, and it has a refreshing effect because of the presence of caffeine in it.
The amount of caffeine present in coffee depends on the type of preparation. For example, the French press coffee has more caffeine if brewed from more roasted seeds than an espresso, which is brewed from lightly roasted seeds.
Also Read: Green Coffee For Weight Loss: Benefits, Side-Effects & How To Prepare
Watch: Why Black Coffee Is Good For You – Health Benefits
Various Reasons To Sip On Coffee | Benefits
- Coffee does not have any nutritional benefits for your health, but it is a great source of antioxidants.
- The benefits of coffee also depend on the type of water used because of the calcium and magnesium content in changes across water sources.
- Coffee has 0% of fats, carbohydrates, cholesterol, which is helpful in protecting you from certain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Type 2 diabetes, and liver infections.
- It also reduces depression. (1)
- Caffeine in coffee makes you smarter and also keeps you awake. It makes your mood better. It also sharpens your memory. It doesn’t make aging look all that bad! It helps in aging beautifully reducing the risk of wrinkles at an early age, which again, makes you live longer.
Consuming coffee in the right amount and with the correct ingredients and at the right time can give you lots of beneficial results, which leads us to our next point.
How Much Coffee Can You Consume In a Day?
Anything which benefits you if consumed excessively can harm you as well. There are various studies comparing coffee drinkers with non-coffee drinkers, and the results are astonishing.
1. Is Addictive
Over the years, doctors have always warned people about the drawbacks of coffee. But still, people can’t stop drinking coffee. That is one of the major drawbacks of coffee. The caffeine present is addictive, and even though excessive coffee drinking can cause heart disease and stunted growth, people can’t stop themselves from drinking coffee once they get hooked to this beverage.
Caffeine increases the craving for coffee in humans. It basically plays with your mind. Caffeine makes you think you require coffee for everything from staying awake at work to release any sort of tension.
2. Messes With Digestive System
Another side effect of too much coffee is that it messes up your digestive system, which further leads to stomach ulcers and heartburns.
As mentioned earlier, an excessive amount of anything can be dangerous for your health.
Generally speaking, consuming 3-4 cups of coffee a day is considered safe. Now, that also varies from person to person because everybody has a different metabolism. Before you indulge in that extra cup of coffee, you should probably take advice from an expert.
Consumption of caffeine has another side-effect. Undoubtedly, it gives you instant energy, but you may feel headaches and fatigue later in the day. The major reason for this is that coffee helps in keeping you awake and if consumed in large intakes, it can mess with your sleep and disturb your sleep cycle and if you don’t get proper sleep, eventually you will get headaches and get tired and fatigued.
Roasting Coffee And Types Of Roasted Coffees
Roasting is a very crucial part of making coffee beans. Roasting fills coffee beans with fragrance and aroma and gives them a flavor. Roasting is done by very quickly heating the seeds at a high temperature and then suddenly cooling them for perfection. There are various types of roasting:
1. Lightly Roasted
Lightly roasted beans don’t have a rich flavor, i.e. they are less bitter, but they have a larger amount of caffeine in them. These beans will not have any amount of oil on their surface because they are lightly roasted and their color is also light brown.
2. Medium Roasted
Medium roasted beans have a slightly richer flavor than the lightly roasted ones, and they also have a non-oily surface. They are also referred to as American roast because they are preferred in the US.
3. Medium-Dark Roasts
These beans have some amount of oil on the surface, their taste is richer than both the light and medium roasted beans. They are dark in color and they have a tangerine taste.
4. Dark Roasts
These beans have oil on their surface. They have a bitter taste and they are the richest form of coffee.
Types Of Coffee In India
Here are some types of coffee that you’d love to try at least once:
1. Black coffee
It is just brewed with hot water.
2. Latte
It is a brew with milk and a little vacuum of foam on top.
3. Café mocha
It is a drink with flavors of chocolate and whipped cream.
4. Cappuccino
It has lots of foamy milk.
5. Frappe
It is a brew served cold while all the others are served hot.
6. Macchiato
It is like a latte but with more milk and foam, served in layers rather than brewing it all.
Out of all the above-mentioned coffees, Black coffee has major health benefits. Let’s give you an insight into black coffee.
More About Black Coffee
Black coffee is just regular coffee without any extra additives. You pour hot water and add the required amount of coffee in it and that’s it! That is black coffee, no sugar, no milk, no cream, etc.
Coffee benefits you only when consumed in the correct form, and black coffee is the best way to get all the benefits of antioxidants and nutrients present in coffee. Since there are no additives in it, some people don’t like the taste of black coffee and that’s when various other methods of preparation were introduced. If you really want to enjoy coffee, the way it actually is, then black coffee is the answer.
The amount of black coffee that can be consumed without any side effects is the same as consuming any other coffee, which is not more than 3-4 cups a day.
Black Coffee Benefits
9 benefits one can get from having black coffee in adequate.
1. Shapens Memory
It sharpens your memory. It makes your brain more active, that’s why having black coffee before or during work makes it a lot easier to deal with stress at work. Because it sharpens your memory, it reduces the risk of dementia.
2. Energy Boost
Drinking black coffee gives you an ample amount of energy for an intense workout. Before you leave for your gym, taking a shot of black coffee really helps in your physical performance as it increases the adrenaline in the blood.
3. Decrease Harmful Enzymes
Black coffee decreases the harmful enzymes produced in the liver, protecting it from hepatitis and fatty liver diseases.
4. Helps In Production Of Insulin
It reduces the irritation level in the body and reduces the risk of stroke. It also reduces the risk of diabetes as it helps the production of insulin in the body.
5. Cleanse The System
If consumed in the right amount, black coffee has the capability to cleanse your system. Black coffee causes increased passing of urine, which in turn drives out all the harmful bacteria out of your body.
6. Release Stress
Black coffee makes you happier. There is a chemical in the brain known as Dopamine, which is a ‘pleasure chemical’. Black Coffee increases the level of dopamine in your brain, which eventually makes you happier. If you see someone stressed or depressed, give them a cup of black coffee every day, and eventually, you will see the results for yourself.
7. Increase Immunity
Black coffee increases your immunity, and people who drink 2-3 cups of black coffee every day, fall ill far less than the people who don’t drink black coffee.
8. Boost Metabolism
People wonder that green tea has more health benefits in case of weight loss, but black coffee has equal health benefits because it is calorie-free. It boosts your energy and helps you lose weight but boosting metabolism. (2)
9. Helps In Weight Loss
Black coffee helps in weight loss and should be consumed without sugar. Caffeine boosts your metabolism, reduces food cravings, which helps in weight loss.
Caffeine disintegrates the fat which is stored in the body and delivers them into the blood, which then boosts your energy and helps in your workout, leading further to lose weight. Contrarily, caffeine is addictive, so it should be consumed limitedly.
Methods To Prepare Black Coffee For Weight Loss
There are specific methods to prepare black coffee for weight loss, they are as follows:
Method 1: Add grind coffee in boiling water
In order to make the clearest black coffee, you just must grind coffee and add in boiling water and after that add a filter to the dripper and let it pour in a cup.
Method 2: Make it in Coffee Maker
Another method is to make it in a coffeemaker, but every coffee maker has its own protocols to make coffee. There is no general method to make coffee in a coffee maker, instead, you should follow the set of rules of the coffee maker provided by the company.
How To Enjoy Drinking Black Coffee?
It is no more a question that whether black coffee has health benefits or not. Black coffee has numerous health benefits. But, we all know, drinking black coffee is not an easy job. Some people may drink it like it’s a piece of cake and some who can’t even bear looking at it, drink it for health benefits. Let’s see how you can drink black coffee without shuddering.
- If you are making coffee in a coffeemaker, and after a few days, your coffee tastes different, then you should clean your coffee maker. There might be a possibility that your coffee maker is dirty and there is a residue in it, which is giving your coffee a different, bad taste.
- If you don’t like your black coffee, then you should try another type of coffee. Go around and look for a different type of ground coffee. You can buy small samples of different varieties of coffee and try each of them and see which you like the most.
- Avoid putting sugar in your black coffee and instead use salt or a pinch of cinnamon powder or vanilla extract.
How Black Coffee Benefits Your Skin?
Black coffee also benefits your skin in several ways. It reduces the excess fat from your skin by amplifying blood vessels under the skin and by improving blood flow. Thanks to the antioxidants in black coffee, it soothes your skin when applied in the form of a mask on your face or any part of the body.
It also reduces sun spots, visible aging, redness, inflammation, and dark circles. Black coffee is a great source of Vitamin B3, and it may reduce the risk of skin cancer. It also fights the harmful bacteria attacking our skin due to pollution and helps in acne prevention or treatment. (3)
How Black Coffee Benefits Your Hair?
Black coffee also benefits your hair. If applied on the scalp, it enriches the roots of your hair and prevents hair fall. Black coffee improves the texture of your hair, giving it volume. It makes your hair smooth, which makes it easy to handle. It also increases blood circulation in your scalp.
Conclusion
In conclusion, coffee is a flexible drink, i.e. it has various purposes and benefits. The only drawback is the addiction to caffeine. You must drink black coffee for its benefits but maintain the balance as excess consumption of anything can be harmful. (4)
Frequently Asked Questions
We answered few interesting FAQs about black coffee.
1. How much black coffee can you have in a day?
One cup of black coffee (approx. 240 ml) contains about 100mg of caffeine. A healthy individual can have up to 400 mg of caffeine each day.
2. What is the best time to drink black coffee?
Coffee or caffeine, in general, can be consumed between 10 AM and noon, or between 2 PM to 5 PM. It is not advisable to have coffee early in the morning since that is when the body produces a lot of cortisol. Cortisol helps reduce stress in the body.
Caffeine early in the morning starts to decrease the production of cortisol in the body. This creates a dependency of the body towards caffeine. It also increases the tolerance of caffeine in the body since it replaces the boost cortisol gives you.
3. Does black coffee increase dehydration?
Black coffee does not cause dehydration. However, it is a mild diuretic, meaning it helps the kidney flush out sodium and water in the form of urine from the body.
4. Is it safe to consume black coffee during pregnancy?
You can have coffee during pregnancy, however, it is safer to limit the quantity. Up to 200 mg of caffeine is fine for consumption but more can lead to low birth weight of the fetus. In certain cases, excess caffeine consumption could lead to miscarriages.
5. Is black coffee good for diabetics?
Black coffee is beneficial, as in, it can help protect the body against diabetes. However, some studies have shown that black coffee poses dangers for people with type-2 diabetes.
6. Does black coffee help with weight loss?
Black coffee can boost the rate of your metabolism. It stimulates thermogenesis, this helps you burn more fat.
7. Is black coffee safe for children?
Coffee is not as bad as energy drinks or sugary drinks for children. But, there is no need for children to consume black coffee or any type of coffee since they are naturally full of energy.
8. Is black coffee bad for the heart?
Black coffee is not bad for the heart. In fact, black coffee lowers the risk of stroke, coronary heart disease and heart failure.
9. Does black coffee cause oral health problems?
Black coffee contains tannins which can stain your teeth. Also, black coffee can cause bad breath since it sticks to your tongue.
10. Does black coffee aid hair growth?
Black coffee stimulates the hair roots. It restores hair growth and prevents hair loss. It improves hair structure and growth.