If you’re getting into specialty coffee, you might be a bit confused by the term “green coffee.” After all, when most of us see the beans, they’re already a rich brown color.
These unroasted, lesser-known siblings of your favorite brew have been linked to weight loss, boosted energy levels, and blood sugar control. But what’s fact, and what’s fiction?
Here, we’ll explore everything you need to know about green coffee and what it can do for us.
What Is Green Coffee?
Green coffee is the raw, unroasted beans of the coffee plant. The only difference between them and the brown coffee beans we’re most familiar with is that they haven’t been roasted yet. Both arabica and robusta plants produce green coffee beans.
How Are Green Coffee Beans Produced?
The coffee plant produces fruits known as “coffee cherries.” Farmers remove the flesh of these fruits to harvest the pit within — the coffee bean. Once the outer layer of flesh is removed, there are usually two coffee beans within the center. These are green coffee beans.
Sometimes, there is only one green coffee bean within the pit of the cherry. This is called a “peaberry” bean and is quite rare, happening only in around 10% of any coffee harvest. Peaberry beans are prized for their unique flavor and strong caffeine content.
Harvesting and processing coffee beans is a very old practice, but its complexities are interesting. After the beans have been gathered, they need to be processed and dried. The simplest and most traditional method is spreading the cherries out on racks so they dry out in the sun. This natural drying process gives the coffee complex flavors and a richer body.
After drying, the skins are removed, and the green coffee beans are left behind. They are then typically sold to roasters, where they’re roasted to levels we’re more familiar with.
What Does Green Coffee Taste Like?
Green coffee tastes different from “regular” coffee. It has none of the dark, toasted flavors, and instead tastes quite grassy and herbal. It’s commonly described as having a vegetal flavor with mild bitterness and acidity.
When green coffee beans are roasted, they lose some flavors to evaporation or change due to the Maillard effect. The biggest one is a balanced astringency — a dry taste like cranberry juice.
Here are the most common flavor notes of green coffee:
- Herbal: Grassy, vegetal, tea-like taste and aroma.
- Citrusy: Mild lemon, lime, and bergamot-like flavors.
- Earthy: A gentle bitterness and richness.
- Woody: Notes of oak, walnut, and pine.
- Astringent: Sharp, acidic, and dry-tasting.
- Mildly Sweet: Delicate sweet notes.
What Can You Do With Green Coffee?
Green coffee is packed with different potentially beneficial plant compounds and unique flavors. Although green coffee isn’t as tasty as roasted coffee, there’s plenty you can do with these beans.
Brewed Green Coffee
Green coffee is often brewed as-is to create a hot or cold drink. As with roasted beans, you need to grind green coffee to ensure good contact between the beans and the hot water. Then, these grounds are brewed like regular coffee, producing a drink with a much milder flavor, which some compare to herbal tea.
Green coffee is typically brewed using immersion, with hot water poured over the beans and left to steep for up to ten minutes in a French press or pour-over such as the Clever Dripper. Though this is a long brew time for roasted coffee, green coffee's flavors are less soluble. Using hotter water and brewing for longer allows the flavors and aromas from the beans to dissolve.
Green Coffee Extract
Green coffee bean extract is a popular supplement in the wellness world. In essence, it’s the same as a drink made by brewing green coffee beans but a more concentrated version.
Green coffee extract is often made by immersing coarse-ground beans in a small amount of cold water for several hours before straining.
Green Coffee Beans Benefits
Green coffee is a fairly common ingredient in some supplements for its potential health benefits.
Here are some of the potential benefits of green coffee:
- Weight management — Despite being popular in wellness and weight loss circles, the research citing green coffee as an effective weight loss tool isn’t conclusive [1]. However, many people claim it can aid in weight loss when used in conjunction with other methods.
- Diabetes management — Green coffee beans contain a lot of chlorogenic acid, which is known to lower blood sugar levels. On top of that, a 2019 study found that green coffee beans can improve fasting blood glucose levels [2].
- Cancer prevention — One study has linked the treatment and prevention of some cancers to chlorogenic acid [3]. Scientists behind the research believe that cancer is a metabolic disease, and the chlorogenic acid in green coffee may aid in its treatment. However, further studies are required before it’s used in cancer treatment.
- Lowering inflammation — Inflammation is a common symptom of many diseases, and extracts from both green and roasted coffee have anti-inflammatory properties, according to research [4].
Is Green Coffee the Same as Green Tea?
Green coffee and green tea are two completely different beverages. Green coffee is simply coffee beans that haven’t yet been roasted. Green tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant — a completely different species.
Interestingly, this green color comes from the same thing in both plants — chloroplasts, a plant cell that contains chlorophyll and carries out photosynthesis. So, while the green color comes from the same part of the plant, green tea and coffee are from separate plants.
Other Interesting Forms of Coffee
Green coffee is the starting point for all coffee in the world, but there are tons of complex and delicious flavors.
Here are some other interesting forms of coffee:
1. Butter-Roasted Coffee
Butter-roasted coffee is a traditional method of roasting Vietnamese coffee beans. Before cooking the beans, roasters toss the green coffee beans with butter.
Originally, this started as a way to mask bad flavors from bad crops. However, with the advent of modern farming techniques, crops have improved in flavor. Modern butter-roasted coffee is made to enhance the natural flavors of the coffee beans.
During roasting, certain chemicals from coffee beans combine to form new, delicious flavors — a process called the Maillard reaction. By adding butter, you add a second Maillard reaction that occurs at the same time, leading to a complex mixture of tasting notes. The final coffee is typically roasted very dark, with rich, nutty, and delicately sweet-tasting notes.
2. Honey-Processed Coffee
Honey-processed coffee is a bit of a misnomer — it contains no honey at all but is instead an alternative method of processing coffee beans. Essentially, it’s the halfway point between wet-processing coffee beans and dry-processing them.
The beans are washed as in the wet process, but some of the mucilage is left on them. They are then left to dry and ferment, with the mashed-up mucilage often taking on a honey-like color and aroma. Finally, the dried mucilage is removed from the beans during milling, and you’re left with green beans.
This is a popular method of processing coffee today because it’s far less water-intensive than other processing methods, leading to a less environmental impact and cost for the farmer.
3. Fermented Coffee
Fermented coffee has been deliberately fermented to create a specific flavor. After the usual harvesting and processing, the green beans are soaked in water with specialized bacteria.
The sugars present in the beans will metabolize slightly, leading to different flavors depending on the bacteria used. Finally, the beans are removed from their bath before being washed, dried, and roasted.
FAQs: What Is Green Coffee?
Now that we’ve explored green coffee and other interesting types of coffee, let’s answer some FAQs.
1. What Does Green Coffee Do to You?
Green coffee is packed with chlorogenic acid, which may aid in weight loss. However, direct studies have found no notable weight loss in participants who took green coffee extract [1].
2. How Is Green Coffee Different from Regular Coffee?
Green coffee beans are the same as regular coffee beans, just unroasted. The coffee cherry is picked from the plant before being processed and hulled. At the center of each cherry are two green coffee beans.
3. How Do You Make Green Coffee?
Green coffee beans can be made into a hot drink similar to herbal tea. It's most commonly prepared by properly grinding the beans as you would roasted coffee and then adding it to a French Press with hot water. The grounds are steeped for around ten minutes to extract the flavors. The brew is then strained and enjoyed.
4. How Safe Is Green Coffee for Weight Loss?
More studies are needed to determine whether or not green coffee has a notable impact on weight loss [1]. More research is also needed to determine its safety — green beans do still contain caffeine, which could lead to complications for some.
5. Who Should Not Take Green Coffee?
The main concern when drinking coffee of any kind is caffeine intake, which acts as a stimulant to the body. Generally, pregnant people and those with heart or blood pressure conditions should be careful with caffeine.
6. Is Green Coffee Bean a Fat Burner?
More studies are needed to determine whether green coffee is an effective weight-loss tool. There have been studies already, but not very many, and the studies have generally found that green coffee doesn’t greatly impact weight loss.
7. What Does Green Coffee Taste Like?
Green coffee has a flavor similar to herbal tea. It’s milder than regular coffee, with none of the flavors from roasting, though it does have woody, plant-like flavors.
8. Which Coffee Is Best for Weight Loss?
Despite the fact that green coffee is often said to aid weight loss, studies haven’t found that green coffee is particularly beneficial to weight loss efforts [1]. Therefore, black (roasted) coffee could be a better tool for weight loss as long as it’s consumed as part of a balanced diet.
9. Does Starbucks Use Green Coffee?
Yes, Starbucks roasts its own coffee beans and has a long history of doing so. This process will include acquiring and roasting green coffee beans to the company's desired level. However, unroasted coffee beans aren’t available in Starbucks stores.
10. Do You Put Milk in Green Coffee?
Milk is generally not combined with green coffee. The bright acidity of these beans doesn’t pair well with dairy.
References
- Haidari, F., Samadi, M., Mohammadshahi, M., Jalali, M. T., & Engali, K. A. (2017). Energy restriction combined with green coffee bean extract affects serum adipocytokines and the body composition in obese women. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition, 26(6), 1048–1054.
- Nikpayam, O., Najafi, M., Ghaffari, S. et al. Effects of green coffee extract on fasting blood glucose, insulin concentration and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR): a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventional studies. Diabetol Metab Syndr 11, 91 (2019).
- Lukitasari, M., Nugroho, D. A., & Widodo, N. (2018). Chlorogenic Acid: The Conceivable Chemosensitizer Leading to Cancer Growth Suppression. Journal of Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine, 23, 2515690X18789628.
- Moreira, M. E. D. C., Pereira, R. G. F. A., Dias, D. F., Gontijo, V. S., Vilela, F. C., De Moraes, G. D. O. I., Giusti-Paiva, A., & Dos Santos, M. H. (2013). Anti-inflammatory effect of aqueous extracts of roasted and green Coffea arabica L. Journal of Functional Foods, 5(1), 466-474.
