What's Inside a Cup of Coffee?

youmightfindyourself:

Caffeine
This is why the world produces more than 16 billion pounds of coffee beans per year. It’s actually an alkaloid plant toxin (like nicotine and cocaine), a bug killer that stimulates us by blocking neuroreceptors for the sleep chemical adenosine. The result: you, awake.

Water
Hot H2O is a super solvent, leaching flavors and oils out of the coffee bean. A good cup of joe is 98.75 percent water and 1.25 percent soluble plant matter. Caffeine is a diuretic, so coffee newbies pee out the water quickly; java junkies build up resistance.

2-Ethylphenol
Creates a tarlike, medicinal odor in your morning wake-up. It’s also a component of cockroach alarm pheromones, chemical signals that warn the colony of danger.

Quinic acid
Gives coffee its slightly sour flavor. On the plus side, it’s one of the starter chemicals in the formulation of Tamiflu.

3,5 Dicaffeoylquinic acid
When scientists pretreat neurons with this acid in the lab, the cells are significantly (though not completely) protected from free-radical damage. Yup: Coffee is a good source of antioxidants.

Dimethyl disulfide
A product of roasting the green coffee bean, this compound is just at the threshold of detectability in brewed java. Good thing, too, as it’s one of the compounds that gives human feces its odor.

Acetylmethylcarbinol
That rich, buttery taste in your daily jolt comes in part from this flammable yellow liquid, which helps give real butter its flavor and is a component of artificial flavoring in microwave popcorn.

Putrescine
Ever wonder what makes spoiled meat so poisonous? Here you go. Ptomaines like putrescine are produced when E. coli bacteria in the meat break down amino acids. Naturally present in coffee beans, it smells, as you might guess from the name, like Satan’s outhouse.

Trigonelline
Chemically, it’s a molecule of niacin with a methyl group attached. It breaks down into pyridines, which give coffee its sweet, earthy taste and also prevent the tooth-eating bacterium Streptococcus mutans from attaching to your teeth. Coffee fights the Cavity Creeps.

Niacin
Trigonelline is unstable above 160 degrees F; the methyl group detaches, unleashing the niacin—vitamin B3—into your cup. Two or three espressos can provide half your recommended daily allowance.

Cite Arrow reblogged from youmightfindyourself
76 notes | | Oct 5, 2009
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  6. natlav reblogged this from youmightfindyourself and added:
    fkn fascinating.
  7. manzer reblogged this from mikehudack and added:
    I still LOVE coffee!! mikehudack:
  8. crudesmausoleum reblogged this from youmightfindyourself and added:
    (youmightfindyourself:)
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  14. ramenpride reblogged this from disgustingthingsihaveeaten and added:
    i love coffee more now
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  17. mikehudack reblogged this from youmightfindyourself
  18. youhavetoseeittobelieveit reblogged this from kirstenbecken and added:
    Caffeine This is why the world produces more than 16 billion pounds of coffee beans per year. It’s actually an alkaloid...
  19. carolineyi reblogged this from saar
  20. coffeemakescreative reblogged this from zehnuhr
  21. yzzzz reblogged this from saar and added:
    making me thirsty.
  22. pettsson reblogged this from saar
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  24. bloggedbybjorn reblogged this from zehnuhr and added:
    Wired Magazine investigates
  25. saar reblogged this from zehnuhr
  26. ninedaysoff reblogged this from zehnuhr and added:
    {is this stuff true?! I can’t belive half of it!}
  27. kirstenbecken reblogged this from zehnuhr
  28. zehnuhr reblogged this from youmightfindyourself and added:
    niacin – vitamin B3 – into
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