Cold Brew

IS COLD BREW COFFEE REALLY BETTER FOR YO U?

Our coffee science team clear up 3 myths & half-truths about the health benefits of cold
brew coffee

Don’t let the title fool you…we love cold brew. We’ve written a guide on how to brew
it, reviewed Nitro Cold Brew equipment & even sell our own bottled cold brew. It’s safe
to say we’re big fans.

What we’re not a fan of, is misinformation.

It turns out, when you combine health and the internet, you inevitably get a whole lot of
nonsense. So, to help get the facts straight, we’ve compiled the current scientific
evidence on the topic and condensed it into this bite sized summary

INTRODUCTION

Almost all arguments talking up the health benefits of cold brew, focus on the lower
acidity compared to hot brewed coffee. The logic goes:

1. At lower temperatures, fatty acids are less soluble in water (true, see here for
details warning: shameless self-promotion)
2. Lower fatty acid content leads to more acidity (probably, would at least partially contribute)
3. Acidity is bad for you (if coffee is bad for you, don’t eat strawberries)

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any measurements done on pH by the proponents on

acidity, but thankfully, there is some good stuff in the academic literature that can shed
light on these claims.

WHAT DOES SCIENCE HAVE TO SAY?

1) COLD BREW IS ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS ACIDIC THAN HOT BREW COFFEE

Yes, it turns out the pH of cold brew is only 16% less acidic than hot brew coffee, rather
than the 60% quoted virtually everywhere.
To find the answers, we consulted the Scientific Communications journal under the
Nature publishing group[1].

Research by: N.Z. Rao And M. Fuller, 2018 (DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-34392-w)

Their numbers show that, on average, there is about 16% difference in total titrable
acidity. In some cases, such as the Ethiopia Ardi and the Myanmar coffees, the pH was
lower (i.e. more acidic) by about 60%. However, in Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and
Colombian coffee was the same pH. For Brazil, hot coffee had a higher pH (i.e. less
acidic). So, it seems that pH is more a function of origin, processing method
(and possibly roast levels) than it is on the brew method.

(Side note: the solubility difference between the fatty acid Myristic acid at 100°C vs.
25°C is about 60%. This means that the total brew acidity is, perhaps, not solely
dependent on fatty acid extraction.)
So, is cold brew less acidic? Yes, slightly by a factor of 16% on average. Will that
make a difference to your gut health? I’m not a doctor (of medicine), but I’d imagine
eating a strawberry may do worse for your bowel.

2) COLD BREW COFFEE HAS LESS ANTIOXIDANTS THAN HOT BREWED

COFFEE

Hot coffee, on average, holds a 20% higher antioxidant activity than its cold counterpart.

It’s also interesting that this roughly correlates to the proportional increase in solubility of
radical scavenging fatty acids. Of course, antioxidant activity is not limited to these
compounds alone, but it’s an interesting observation nonetheless.

Behold the graph below from the same source as above:

FINAL THOUGHTS

We say, drink the coffee you like because you enjoy it.

If you’re looking to drink cold brew coffee simply for the health benefits, there aren’t any
big gains one way or the other.

N.Z. Rao And M. Fuller, 2018 (DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-34392-w)

So is hot coffee is ‘better’ for you, in terms of radical scavenging/antioxidant potential.

3) IF COLD BREW IS BETTER FOR GUT HEALTH, IT’S PROBABLY NOT DUE
TO LOWER ACIDITY

It seems that it’s not the ‘lower acid content’ in cold brew that prevents irritation in the
bowel – but the higher polysaccharide content.

A recent article looked at the biological effects of higher polysaccharide content present
in cold brew coffee. This may explain the sweeter taste, and the impact it has on your
gut health. It turns out, according to research by the Korean Department of Food
Science and Biotechnology, the crude polysaccharide (sugar) extract in cold brew
coffee stimulated the macrophage functions (i.e. pathogen/bad cell destroying cells in
our bodies) in the intestinal system.

In simple terms, these supercells help fight disease in your gut.

Food for thought.