Pressed coffee is going mainstream — but should you drink it?

The coffee aficionados in my life seem a little smug these days. They feel vindicated now that the brew they’ve long touted as superior — European pressed coffee — has finally gained mainstream acceptance. No longer the domain of trendy coffee houses and upscale restaurants, pressed coffee is now fashionable in the United States and can be found in many places where coffee is sold. And the device to make this kind of coffee — known as a French press — has begun popping up on all kinds of store shelves, from tony boutiques to big-box chains. But this hot trend has a cold hard fact you should know about. What’s the brouhaha? You make pressed coffee by mixing boiling water and coarsely ground coffee beans in a special glass pitcher, then letting the mixture steep for a few minutes. There’s no filter to keep coffee grounds from getting into your cup; instead, you press an attached mesh plunger from the top of the pitcher to the bottom to strain the liquid and trap the coffee grounds. And it’s this lack of a filter that makes pressed coffee different and potentially risky if you drink too much of it. Without a filter, some of the oily substances found in coffee beans, called diterpenes, wind up in your cup. Coffee aficionados say these oils make the brew taste better. But you should know that diterpenes have been shown to have a negative impact on health. “Five to eight cups a day of unfiltered coffee may actually raise your ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol,” says Dr....
Source: New Harvard Health Information - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Healthy Eating Prevention pressed coffee Source Type: news