The Coffee Episode with Alex Manos and Alex Higham from Exhale Coffee

But to your point around
growing the plants in a stress condition. So it's there's a lot of research
in that around red wine and how the resveratrol
concentration of it is affected by growing it
and the stress and chlorogenic acid Israeli the resveratrol of coffee and there is some research
which shows that coffee go to altitude because of the extra stress
and the thinner air, etc., and the use of a high concentration
of chlorogenic acid in the original beam. So that's another thing that we tested
as well. Doctors, Kitchen recipes, Health
Lifestyle. Guys, thank you so much. Alex and Al, I know you both call
Alex when I call one of you Al, which is the founder, Al and Alex Manas,
who is what what is your role? Alex, your medical advisor.

But your background is is pretty cool. Yeah. So I guess my official title
as the Chief Wellness officer. So I, I help out with the content,
especially from a health perspective. So me and I'll go back a few years now. But yeah,
my role is to help and assist in things like the blogs that go out
the science section on the Excel web page, and I obviously join now for podcasts,
so we have good chats with people about coffee,
which is lots of fun. And my background is initially started
in classical training and massage therapy, but because of my own health issues, I had ongoing digestive issues
from a very young age.

I was diagnosed with IBS finally
when I was 18 and went on to study nutritional therapy, partly just because
of that sort of natural evolution. I really found that diet just played such a huge role
in alleviating my gut symptoms and and then as the whole sort of functional
medicine movement came to the UK, started satisfying with the Institute
for Functional Medicine. And I guess most recently I've done
my Master's in personalized nutrition. So I've kind of gone from there,
the movement, the physical side, more into the nutrition
and functional nutrition side. Yeah, that's, that's a big it's, it's,
it always it doesn't surprise me anymore
that so many people have like a personal health story when it comes
to how they got to nutrition. And I'd love to dive
into some of the topics around gut health,
the impact of coffee on the gut with this having a positive or negative
effect as well, depending on the and. But before we get
to that, let's chat to Al, the founder of of Exhale Coffee, who I've known for
probably about a year now.

We've been chatting. We met a few times. You've had your own health story as well,
I guess. Exactly. I mean, it's the classic of everybody
who's going into a business like this. The health related business
had their own health story, but basically before launch and Exhale,
I was an accountant for about 15 years working in 100 companies,
very kind of very much in the corporate world, deeply unfulfilled accounts
and totally the wrong career for me. And then I kind of was just plunged
along with that. Around six years ago,
I started developing my own weird and debilitating health issues
and getting loads of crazy symptoms from no go issues as well,
but also the kind of the brain fog and the fatigue
and all that kind of stuff. And I didn't realize at the time, but it turns out I was actually developing
an autoimmune condition and it was literally affecting everything
across my whole life from parenting throughout a baby. Around that time to work,
I was getting into endurance sport, so it was just really stopping me and so many events like I had pulled out
more than I actually entered.

And basically it kind of it was in and out of most hospitals
across London because of my symptoms. And I was just haven't got any answers. So I started trying to take control of my own health
and decide research in more and more how I could kind of
what could change my lifestyle and what dietary changes
and other lifestyle changes it could make to try and take back
control over health. And then more research. And the more I kind of tried to push
the endurance and the the athletic kind of challenges, which is kind of where I was
getting the fulfillment from in life. And the more I came across coffee as being playing quite a pivotal part
in both of those, like on the endurance side of it obviously was using it
for the performance benefits.

Then on the health side, it just turns out
from the research that it had, you can have such a profound impact
and health as well. So then I was desperate
to get out of accounting. So this kind of this whole coffee
idea and movement kind of spark that transformation in me to finally have
the courage and the motivation to get out of accounting
and launch a business around kind of coffee for health and
for performance which is very it's I was. Bob Yeah, yeah. I mean if anyone has ever met you the the thought of you being an accountant
is sort of far removed from what your day to day is like now,
but also like your weekends.

I mean when you say you're an athlete and your high performance,
I think you're really underestimating it just for the listeners. Like you do
ultramarathons, you're probably about to tell me
that you're doing some like Crazy 100 K Run this weekend or something like
because every time we speak, you're like, Oh yeah, I'm doing this this weekend. So, you know, having an air conditioned
would have really impacted that, I guess. Yeah, totally. And like, yeah, I'm kind of training
for my first 100 mile Ultra. They got the like for example yesterday,
everybody into the office but it was a three hour
run into the office and fired by a hill repeats
and the steepest hills in London.

So it's kind of yeah that's why
that's my day to day life at the minute. Really. Yeah. Well, you live and breathe the brand,
which is aspirational, but it's also, you know, about grounding yourself
with a delicious tasting, high quality coffee
that's full of performance. Environmental benefits, and. And just, you know, the pleasure and the
flavor of having, like an amazing cup of coffee.

The hot drink, my favorite drink. So tell us a bit about like where the
the idea sort of generated and began to take shape
because I think everyone has ideas, particularly
if you're in a job which is not fulfilling or, you know, you've always wanted to move into some space
that you have an interest in. For a lot of people, that is wellness. Where did you spot the gap in in the in the market
for a healthier coffee? Because I don't think most people people
just think of coffee as coffee.

Go to brands, you get different forms,
you get single origin, etc. etc. But what, where,
where's the health aspects. Yeah. So that I actually first decided
I wanted to set up a coffee roastery about six years ago as well
when I was traveling around Bali, but it was set then in Bali. It would be taken out baby Joe Maternity
leave, traveling for three months out of session every day, sleep deprived. I know certainly some of the craziest ways
in the world over kind of waste. The water's over razor sharp coral and
coming into like life or death situations. And I'd really one really close call and then I kind of became slightly obsessed with coffee from that point
because of how much it weight me off of how it really helped my performance
that I could go from having a terrible night's sleep
to to go out and have one of the best sets of my life, but at the same time
come back and then be a great parents.

And rather than just flying
at half mast continually. And then as I started learning
about basically as a side swap in more things in my life for more health
conscious decisions and foods a few days later and started realizing that
actually there is no healthy coffee, but actually coffee
could be one of the most beneficial. Always with the most beneficial parts
of a healthy lifestyle is the fact that I realized
that there was a gap in the market because there's nothing for me
to swap my coffee to. But then there was all signs mountain support and coffee
as being a great health product. So that's
where the kind of the idea came from. And did you discuss that
with Alex early on and what is that the relationship? Would you go to school together or like friends or going to be my health issues? Alex was my functional medicine
practitioner. Cocktail use guided me through
my health issues and we had a chat around two and a half years ago
maybe, and I said to him, What are your views and coffee? And Alex thought it was asking,
Should I cook coffee out of my diet to help my health issues? And Alex actually said, Put it this way,
I started drinking coffee for his health benefits, and that's when I've been on this journey
already thinking about healthy coffee.

And I was like,
Well, actually you've got this idea to launch a business
around a healthy coffee. Do you want to join me on it? And he said,
Hell yeah. Wow, that's so cool. That's epic. And so,
so, so the health aspect of coffee. Why are you convinced of that? Alex? What was what, what was your introduction? Yeah, can I say that? Ali You made my life sounds so boring. He makes and he makes everyone's lives. So, like, every time he chats,
you know, he's either running, like, on the way to something
which tells you about something he's preparing for,
which is, which is epic. But yeah, yeah,
but I there to answer the question, I think I just stumbled across a paper basically on companies that started
discussing the health benefits and there's kind of a running joke
I think in in nutritional therapy which is you start
your first year as a student and you look in the lecture theater
and everyone's got their bottles of water or that green tea, but by third year
everyone's just looking exhausted back with the coffee.

And I think there is this kind of this it's easy to think that because
of the caffeine and we're all stressed that we should be limiting our coffee
and it's a guilty pleasure. And that's when I came across that paper, I was like,
Oh, actually this is great news. And I wasn't I wasn't even particularly
fond of the taste at that time. So I started drinking it
literally for the health benefits. I had never drinking coffee before,
so it wasn't like I was actually personally excluding it
because I thought it was bad, as per say. And then I kind of
I guess my taste buds evolved and now, like the highlight of my day
is my, my morning coffee. Yeah, yeah. I had I had my own sort of journey through coffee, so I didn't start off drinking coffee
at the start of university. It was only until last year. So probably similar to you guys. I started when I was in my fourth
or fifth year of medicine, and I started off
like right at the bottom rung.

As you can imagine, this is you're going
to like, absolutely horrify the listeners. But I was it was a mocha with extra
coffee from Starbucks and I would get like a large one as well,
and I would literally use it for the caffeine benefits
because it would give me that perk. But then I would be right back there
like 3 hours later needing another one.

And so that was sort of where I started
on my coffee journey. And then I,
like gradually went to different ones like lattes and flat whites
gradually removing the sugar. And then when I when I went to Sydney,
I had my first flat one when I was out there in 2014,
and that's when the penny dropped. It was like, this is what coffee is
meant to taste like. It's incredible. And now I my standard coffee
is, is a long black because I really love to taste
every element of the actual raw products in there
and all the complexity and the flavors. And it was similar to the cupping session
that we did out the other the other week. That was that was an amazing experience. The first time I've done, Oh, maybe you can explain
what cupping is to the listeners because it was it was new for me
and I hadn't had that before.

Coping is I mean, primarily it's a way to taste the defects
in a coffee. So in kind of average commodity level
coffee takes a cup of coffee to taste for default defects,
but is a standard protocol that you have to follow. So in the specialty coffee world, copying is really important
because to be a specialty coffee, a coffee has to score over 80 out of 100 on the SCA scale for coffees. Okay. And there's this really strict protocol
of how to brew that coffee, first of all, and then how to taste it and how to score it,
and what different things you're looking for when you taste in it
so that in theory, someone could taste the same coffee
anywhere in the globe. But many country for many background
follow it any diet and they'd score it
almost exactly the same out of a hundred. And irrespective
of all of those different conditions. And it's that strict protocol
and it does really work like that. And it's actually it's a huge it's a huge thing for the industry
because a score of one or two difference could really impact the amount
that's then paid to the farmer goes to coffee 79
and it's not quite specialty grade.

Then the price that the farmer can sell it
for is considerably less. So it's a really strict kind of process,
as much fun as it is when we do it with all the select
and then everything else. It's kind of it's actually really
you take it very seriously. You do it in like labs, like with you, the red light, so you can't be impacted
by the color of the coffee and all this.

To my word. Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's some let's
bring it back to the health benefits of coffee
because this is kind of where we started. And Alex,
I want to bring you in here again. So let's take a macro approach
about what we know about coffee and the impact
of the consumption of coffee and the association
with different conditions and how we might describe it as potentially preventative
to certain things. What do we know about that
level of evidence and and, and the association with coffee. Yeah it's is actually pretty incredible
really. So I think my favorite statistic is
if you're a coffee drinker, especially if you're averaging three
or four coffees a day, which seems to be generally the sweet spot in the research, there's a 10% excuse me, reduced
risk in all cause mortality, which basically just means if you drink
that much coffee, you're 10% less likely to die from anything, which is just sort
of a fun statistic, I think.

But we also see significant reductions
in sort of cardio metabolic conditions. So type two diabetes, metabolic syndrome
generally has a nine, 10% reduced risk and liver
conditions is another one. So we see a 29% reduced risk
in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And in the research
will probably come back to this because there's a really strong
gut microbiome and integrity connection with kind of nonalcoholic
fatty liver disease. But we also see almost a 40% reduced
risk in liver cirrhosis. We see significant
reduced risks in liver cancer.

My second least favorite stat is around
neurodegenerative stuff because I think a lot of people are so scared
that could be in their future. I think it kind of tugs
on the heartstrings. I think for a lot of us and as a 25%
reduced risk of Parkinson's disease and a 65% reduced risk of Alzheimer's
disease, and and a lot of this research
has pretty strongly suggested it's not just caffeinated coffee,
but decaf coffee has very similar health benefits and protects us
at these sorts of magnitudes. And from a cardio vascular perspective,
we see a 30% reduced risk of mortality by stroke and 19% reduced
risk of coronary heart disease. And and I think that covers
kind of a lot of the big ones. Other cancers
include prostate and they material melanoma and there's a couple of others as well
there. And so from an overarching perspective,
we see significant reduced
risk of a lot of different conditions. Colon cancer being another one, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So huge associations with some of the the the most widely known
and the most prevalent conditions that we have three
see any other associations with other caffeinated
and perhaps non caffeinated drinks like maybe tea or green tea in particular.

Do is it comparable
or is is that one better than the other. I'm just thinking about the non coffee listeners who perhaps can't have coffee
for whatever reason. Would there be some comparable benefits? I couldn't say with 100% certainty. I know there's research out there
that has compared it and from memory there are somewhat similar outcomes and that's probably
just because one of the things in coffee that is providing these health benefits
is the polyphenols which will later and polyphenols or C
found in things like tea and green tea, but also things like and cocoa and,
you know, various fruits and vegetables
just at different levels ultimately.

So because these polyphenols,
they're one of the primary and mechanisms or constituents
that's leading to these health benefits. We're definitely seeing some of that
within sort of normal tea
drinking and green tea as well. Yeah, Yeah, definitely. We had a chat. I remember one of the first times
and you were kind of blown away by the concentration
of different polyphenols that you have in coffee. So let's, let's go into that kind
of detail for a bit because when I did a bit of research
around coffee, I was kind of blown away. A It's a significant contributor
to our total polyphenol intake, particularly in the States,
A B, just the magnitude of different types of polyphenols that you get in coffee
is, is pretty incredible. So we understand that
there are some associations with coffee drinking and reduced all cause mortality
plus a few other or a bit more nuance to that statement
as well.

Let's go into okay
what's in coffee from at a micro level in terms of those different polyphenols,
which what are the standout constituents? Yeah. So firstly,
I'd say going back to your original point and there are seven different studies,
the first of which was a 2004 Norwegian study which shows that coffee
contributes on average 66% of your total dietary
intake of polyphenols. And then it's been six studies since then,
which kind of confirms similar numbers. So coffee is the predominant
source in our diet and those polyphenols in coffee,
there's a specific one called chlorogenic acid, which is the kind
of most abundant polyphenol in coffee. It's one that most studies cite as being the one that's
giving the health benefits of coffee. And it also in the green state
of the coffee and green bean, it accounts for an average of seven
or 8% of the total weight of the beans. So it's a huge portion of the bean.

And then as you roast the coffee, which
maybe will go into that kind of drops as you go through the voting process
in the various stages of its lifecycle. Aside from chlorogenic acid,
there's a whole lot of other compounds. I mean, there's about a thousand
different compounds in coffee overall. There's loads of them,
and we like continually discovering new ones in coffee that are associated
with different health outcomes as well. But aside from that,
the Chlorogenic acid does things called Malinois dings, which are formed
during the voting process, and they are that particular particularly relevant to the kind of
the gut health side of the chop. There's also things called custom car wheel, which have a lot of research
behind them as well, that to detect beans which are a fat soluble associated
with the fatty acids in coffee.

And yet there's loads of other things like
lignans and then potentially some kind of negative compounds in coffee as well,
which we want to try and avoid most out. So so yeah, it's just the yeah, it's
just so much going on in there. Yeah, definitely. So thousands of chemicals,
the standout ones being the polyphenols for which you have your chlorogenic acids of which
there are a variety of different ones. And I would love to go into a bit
about the roasting process actually, and seeing how you can change that
and the process that you went through to find you healthy coffee, your data, things
that you just mentioned there, which again have some potential mechanisms
by which they might be health promoting. And then your Malinois genes,
which I understand are products of the roasting process
of the myriad reaction. And and there is it acrylamide is that the negative chemical
referring to that we want to try and reduce exactly
acrylamide is a negative one and yeah the roasting process really impacts
the levels of all of these different ones.

So as I mentioned, chlorogenic acid starts
at its highest concentration in the green bean
and then as you roasted, slowly drops off and then somewhere around a medium
to dark, it drops off a cliff and then is yet to adopt. GROSS You can have lost 90%
of the original concentration of chlorogenic acid. So you want to avoid dark,
really dark roasted coffees. Then the glenoid in the form during the
my large reaction, which is the caramelization of the sugars in the coffee,
which peaked around a medium post. And then they start dropping off again
towards the dark roast and then the capstone calorie olive. Also, they peak around a medium, so they start in the highest concentration
in the original green set of the coffee.

And then as you roasted dark, they because they're associated with the oils
in the coffee, the fatty acids. When you post the dark coffee,
when you see the surface of the bean being shiny with the oils, that's the oils
leaving the coffee being taken with it. These cuffs don't carry all compounds
that are that are within the oils. So again, you kind of
want to avoid the dark those coffees, but you want to develop the coffee
far enough into the medium both to get the benefits of the mellow
annoyance. Yeah. Is a balance that activity
in all of these different compounds early. Well I was going to go into the mechanisms behind the benefits,
but let's talk about the process because I think we're at a good point
there, because in your story you go your your practitioner is now your friend
and and involved in the business.

Where did you when did
you even stall like trying to think about, okay what being in my going to use
who am I going to use to import would talk us through that
that whole process. Yeah. So fortunately
there's a lot of studies done on coffee. So in the last ten years alone
there's been over 8000 studies in coffee. So it took me around two years of research
and reading the science on coffee to try and figure out
and come up with this theory. And then basically the start of 2020,
around about the time lockdown started, I kicked off this process
and I got 45 coffees from plantations all around the globe
that meet certain criteria that I knew would lend themselves
to higher concentrations of polyphenols. Well, it's 45 coffees. You had this great day,
and I got in copying the first five coffees with taste,
tested them all, chose our favorite tasting ones of them,
and then sent them off to be lab tested.

And then we found we chose the coffee
that I want to our our to ask how how did you what was the criteria
that you used to get those 45. So there had to be organic farmed out and then these other parts of the process
which would lend themselves to a high concentration. So for example coffees
you play your where can be there's a few different processes
like a wash or a natural process. Most of them are
if you do a natural process, coffee then is left out on drying
beds under the sun to dry for longer, so the UV rays of the sun can degrade
some of the polyphenols and effects the quantity
that you get in in the final cup. So we only went for washed
processed coffees and then these are the processes
around the decaf, an action of it. And because we were looking for a decaf
coffee as well, we wanted to use chemical free decaf method. And then people had said things like the is this low, is that there is low, is it
there is in the science you know that and different varietals of coffee
would be better than others but also robusta beans versus
arabica beans.

And so we really just tested
a real broad range of, of coffees that kind of met these different criteria just to kind of get
an understanding ourselves. Right? So so the criteria was had to be organic. Yeah. Had to be washed. Remember what washes I don't
if you explain that what is washed again so it's a process of how you so so coffee
grows inside a cherry on a tree and it's the process through
which you get the coffee seed of the coffee bean out of that cherry
and you ferment the coffee cherry and then the beans drop
to the bottom of and vice versa. And that's how you remove the mucilage
and the cherry from the coffee beans. And then the washed version
best is natural. Depends on how that dried
and the natural ones just let them dry and beds
for a lot longer.

The wash ones that kind of washed
and then dried and machinery basically. Gotcha. Okay, fine. So because I think for a lot of people
when they see on the front of especially like these third wave
coffee packs, it just nothing makes sense. You know, what is worse? What is, you know, this method like, it's
very confusing. So this is great. So you went for an organic, organic,
washed, washed, um, for Robusta Arabica. So we tested a couple of Robusta beans, but mainly Arabica beans because robust
the beans generally don't taste as good. So if you're going for a single origin
robusto, it's just so hard. The really many,
although it is a bit of a neat wave and they are actually the most sustainable, so it is a new way
to try and get better quality robustness. But we went mainly
Arabica is we tested a few Robusta and they didn't seem to have much more
and they weren't any better than the Arabica is the ones you know.
Oh okay. Okay good to see went for
are also made not to be specialty grade was a key as well
so specialists made coffees that really like the coffees
to be specialty grade it has to be free from defects
like I said, they judge
the amount defects in the coffee and if you have a defect in the coffee,
like broken coffee beans, all these are the things it can really affect how they roasted and introduce
negative compounds into it.

And also it's
really looked after at the farm. So they said we're kind of using the
organic fertilizer and that kind of thing. And also looking after the crops means
that especially two grade coffees often go to higher altitude, tend to have higher
concentrations of polyphenols in them are like
any food, better looked after food. Yeah,
if you go on the farm on a plantation and it's fed with kind of like a,
you know, not a monoculture plantation, maybe permaculture or something like that,
you're going to get a lot more nutrients absorbed
in all of those crops in the farm. So that was kind of the theory
that we applied is are Absolutely.

Yeah. I mean, I want to take people
through this thought process because there's so much
that you've gone into and otherwise it kind of just gets brushed over. So you have all these different criteria. And it's interesting you said that
about the the defects in coffee beans, because when I think about vegetables,
I'm wonky veg and imperfect veg. Those are great because the imperfections
have shown that they've had they've been stressed
and you actually get those an increased concentration
of those different plant chemicals. Whereas with a bean,
as you've not explained, it has to be a good shape and size
because that affects the roasting person. So I wouldn't have put that together.
So that's what you want. You want
the bean to roast that really even way. So all of the beans in the roast
devoted to the same level, that's the only way you can guarantee
a kind of more even flavor profile. And also on the retail side. But to your point around
growing the plants in a stress conviction. So it's there's a lot of research
in that around red wine and how the resveratrol
concentration of it is affected by growing it and the stress and chlorogenic acid Israeli the resveratrol of coffee.

And there is some research
which shows that coffee go to altitude because of the extra stress
and then a red etc. leads to a high concentration
of chlorogenic acid in the original bean. So that's another thing
that we tested as well. So so say you go, this is brilliant. So this high altitude, okay, so you've got like a high proportion
of one of the key components that makes coffee
so healthy in the first place. And then and so and so and so you go see
that all down to 45 different plantations. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They want fortified coffees that met all of the criteria
that were available at the time. And again, give us a give us an idea of how many how many different plantations
they're all like.

And the world. I mean, hundreds of Thousand Oaks Line. Yeah, yeah, I know. I thought as much. You know, even in Africa alone. Yeah. There's so many smallholders plantations that are no bigger
than your average garden in England. You know, probably, you know,
they is a lot there's a lot of that. Go ahead. But yeah,
so that was the whole sourcing process. And then around roasting,
it's even more complex because the kind of the roasting of the coffee
really affects how. Yeah, like I mentioned before,
so like once we found this coffee that had the highest inherent potential,
we had to roast it loads of different ways that the roaster plotted them on a graph
to see where this drop off point was, to see why the chlorogenic acid, which is slowly dropping,
would then drop off a cliff.

So we wanted to roast
that kind of as far into the roast process as possible
to develop that natural sweetness and the sugars in the coffee,
the mile out reaction. But we didn't want it to pass this
drop off point where you just the concentration of the close
any possible stop freefalling basically. So there's a real balancing out there to this are brilliant because I can't imagine any other roaster really taking it to this level
of thinking about not only the flavor,
I think most of us in the same in the same way a chef makes a meal,
they're purely doing it for flavor. They're adding butter and cream,
they're adding so they're adding mzgee.

They're adding all these different
flavor enhancers to to create a really palatable meal,
which is beautiful and delicious. But there is a balance. And I think there is what you're doing
is essentially bringing the flavor aspect, but also concentrating on the functional
benefits as well, which is, which is why I think we get on so well,
because I'm trying to do that. You know, you're trying to do a copy,
but I wouldn't say that as well as that as well.

At every stage of our process,
we considered the sustainability as well. So literally
when we got those original 45 coffees, we had a whole load of sustainability
criteria that if they didn't meet it, we just didn't put them at the table. So that in be a healthier
coffee out there, but it just maybe didn't taste
good enough. Also, it just, you know, the farmer wasn't
paid a fair price for the coffee and it didn't meet
our sustainability criteria. So it was a real balancing act
between all three of those. Yeah, Yeah. Because I remember you actually explain
the cupping that you were explaining the differences between fair trade
and actually what is a genuinely fair price to the farmer
and how you, how you cater for that.

I mean, you work
really, really closely with your and your importers as well. I mean, you've got a great relationship
with them, but maybe you could talk a bit more
about that actually, because I don't think people fully appreciate the the degree that you have to go to
to actually ensure that you farmers are actually being paid
properly. It's not just the presence of a label, a treat that there's going to be
a lot more thought process behind that. Yeah, definitely. And you know, it's about choosing
a reputable importer as well.

And we were kind of one of the best
in the in the industry and they go above and beyond supporting
the farm and the plantation as well. And, and yeah, the fair
trade model is great. It doesn't really apply as much
in the specialty world because the Fair Trade model
guarantees the price. So that coffee is a commodity product. It's like a traded on the stock exchange,
like oil and whatever else. And gold. So coffee is a commodity product
and as a result, the price of that coffee and then the price that gets paid to
the farmer is so dependent on the stock market. And these things
that are out of their control. So the Fair trade certification
is a really good way of guaranteeing a minimum price
that farmers get paid for that coffee and which isn't reflects it, which isn't affected
by the stock exchange. And it works really well in general,
but it only really works at the commodity level. Coffee. So the cheaper coffees, once you get into a specialty coffee world,
the farmers are getting paid three, four, five, ten times
as much as the fair trade price anyway.

So they don't go through the fair Choice education
because it's kind of the next level, which is where this scoring of 100
is so important. And if you go less than eight
and you're not specialty coffee, then it is a much more difficult process
for them. Gotcha. Gotcha. Alex, I'm going to bring you back in here
because we've got to the point where Al is roasting the coffee
to make sure he's got all those beautiful polyphenols
and it tastes great. You're reducing the negative impacts of the of the many out
effects of the roasting process.

Let let's go into some of the mechanisms behind
why these polyphenols have benefits. There's only so much that we can tell, I
guess, from in vitro and in vitro studies. But but maybe we can go through
some of the hypotheses and the mechanisms. Yeah. So I think the
the short answer is that we see that these compounds have antioxidant
and anti-inflammatory properties. And as you say, we've got
we've got different layers of evidence. So the statistics
we mentioned earlier around sort of the reduced risk of conditions
through drinking coffee are largely from obviously
epidemiological observational studies, but that's still valuable.

So some of the recent studies
they've tried to do their best to get rid of all the compounding factors like
smoking, exercise and things like this and the sheer number of people over
sometimes extended periods of time really strengthens those associations. So some of these studies are looking at
900,000 almost admitted individuals and the one around all cause mortality
was half a million people in the UK. And we see some of these associations
in different ethnicities, cultures around the world as well, which I think
is just an interesting kind of finding. The other research does
have some conflicts when we think about gender
and ethnicity as well, so we have to be mindful of that,
I guess ultimately. But from an in vitro, in vivo
sort of test tube laboratory type analysis where
we can start to look at these mechanisms, we do see a reduction in various
pro-inflammatory mediators.

So things like interleukin six cytokines
and there are studies in humans that have shown a reduction in
C-reactive protein, which is a well known inflammatory marker in the blood. So there is some human research
that's kind of correlated that as well. But actually one of the things, two things
that are really interesting, apart from just as antioxidant
anti-inflammatory perspective, is the epigenetic mechanisms that can go on. And also what you guys
have been discussing about around the environment in the climate
that that coffee bean is grown in and the stress response leading to greater
quantities of these phytochemicals. There's a theory
which is the same is happening at a steady level in the human
meaning that a lot of these polyphenols or have a degree of toxicity
associated with it like if you drink too much green tea, that can actually be
quite problematic for your house. So there's this idea that actually
one of the mechanisms involved with coffee is that the polyphenols is stimulating
something called Nora two.

Nora two is stimulated. That's then leading to this kind
of adaptive cellular response whereby we're seeing an upregulation
in endogenous antioxidant systems. Because bear in mind, you know,
we talk about antioxidants from coffee or we talk about the zinc, selenium,
vitamin C, but we have endogenous antioxidant molecules and systems and
these are actually getting up regulated by not only chlorogenic acid,
but a lot of the other compounds that were mentioned earlier, like the data
beans and chai going to mean as well. And so there's different mechanisms
that are at play there. And then the epigenetic
one and epigenetics I think is basically kind of defined
as above genetics. So when we talk about epigenetics, we're talking about
how our genes are being expressed and the most researched mechanism
is related to methylation.

So with methylation and missile compounds,
which I can only describe as like a carbon hydrogen molecule,
that's as best as I can go with it is either added or removed to a certain segment of the DNA, which is
then influencing genetic expression. So these genes are kind of being on or turned off is the
the common way it's described. So what research has shown through these kind of genome wide association
studies includes is that chlorogenic acid in coffee
seems to be influencing the methylation
of these DNA strands and genes and. That's having an impact on the integrity
of our DNA, which is strongly associated with most health conditions, especially
the ones that we've been discussing.

Cancer being probably the best example. So you've got kind of the easy idea
of antioxidants and inflammation is influencing
genetic expression and it's also inducing our own
adaptive responses in the cell, which is very different to, I guess,
some of the stuff happening in the house space at the moment with the idea
of removing plants because that that toxic this kind
of whole metallic homeostasis response, which is that the appropriate
amount of stress is is important and same principle for exercise, same
principle for fasting, same principle. It's a hot or cold therapy. You know, it's amazing paper
that came out a few years ago talking about a quiet resilience
and like we have a quiet immunity. You get exposed to a bug the next time you're exposed,
you've got a more efficient response. It's the same sort of principle.

More you expose yourself
to these little micro stressors, the more adaptive
we become, the more resilient we become. So yeah, that's kind of,
I guess, an overview of these mechanisms. Yeah, I think you've explained that
so eloquently and well. And just to summarize for the listeners,
so you got these different potential mechanisms,
one of which is quite easy to understand because I think we tend to talk about it
in relation to vitamin C containing green foods, for example,
Fruits and vegetables in general have these direct antioxidant
anti-inflammatory activities. But what you've really well described
is this concept of possible misuse of phytochemical on basis, which is essentially like the analogy
a little bit of harm.

This is good, not too much harm, too
late to harm, but that sweet spot and the upregulation of your innate self
defense mechanisms, which is by the end of to pathway,
which is I don't wanna get into the details of like
keep one and how that goes into you know, into the nucleus and you upregulate
certain genes But basically if for the listeners, if you could
conceptualize the nerve pathways, this cascade of different processes
that occur in response to stress and that upregulates your antioxidant
and anti-inflammatory mechanisms which has a net benefit to you, the host
And the analogy I was I was actually explaining this
to my analyst yesterday, the analogy I love to use is the one
that you just mentioned of exercise. So when you exercise, that's innately
a stressful condition, like what Al does every weekend is stressing his
his muscles to intense degree. But the the net impact of
that is going to be resilience because you're training the muscle
to be hypertrophy, to be more resilient and then the net
benefit is actually anti-inflammatory. So it's a paradoxical concept to get your head around, but one that can be applied
to fruits and vegetables.

But but also coffee,
which I'm happy to hear about, I think for me as well,
is that there's another interesting theory around
something called xeno homeostasis without killing,
as I'm talking about, in rabbit holes. But I think that could be
that there is basically that if you eat a food that's benefited
from its own emetic response. So the best variation in red wine
or growing coffee at altitude by eating up food that's benefited
you and you will also benefit because it will have high compounds
in itself which help protect itself from those hostile and harsh conditions. But then when you eat those those plants
and those doing that, it and you also benefit from it.

So That's the interesting theory as well. Definitely what Xena, who me says
I'm going to be looking at straight away. Sinclair is big on it, so there you go. David He's been on the podcast. It Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talking about the marks of aging
and so this all very much plays in because it's about activating those stress
response, those adaptive stress responses
that we all have within us, inside of us. So where there is a bit of lack of food,
but there is exercise, whether it's cold shock
or whether it is consuming fruits and vegetables that elicit that response,
you know, it all kind of plays into that. And the idea of of getting to the root
cause of what might be causing issues and increasing your resilience,
which is amazing.

Yeah. I'll add one thing that doesn't
really get discussed in the research much, which is that
the community social element of coffee, which is got to have arguably
the most potent health benefit, you know, you don't get many people having their 3
to 4 months of coffee and isolation a day, whether they're at the office
and having a quick coffee break or whether it's at home with their partner
or family, you know, there is that social element of coffee drinking
and tea drinking, obviously, as well, which has to be kind of
in the mix here as well.

Yeah, definitely. It plays into this idea of the coffee
paradox that I just wrote about this week as I was preparing for this podcast
about how it paradoxically raises your blood pressure and its associated with smoking
despite the lower all cause mortality. So yeah, I'm sure the community aspect
definitely has some part to play in that as well as all the other mechanisms
that we discussed in. Okay, so let's go back into the process. So you've got your coffee
with the high amounts of polyphenols, you've
reduced the amounts of, of the acrylamide.

You get into that lovely level. There's another step that you also take,
so you get your coffee independently now
tested for environmental pollutants. What? Where was the what?
Why did you do that? Is there an issue
with with coffee in general, or is it is it just like another layer of making up
the healthiest coffee you can find? So we so yeah, we basically we tested out
coffee for nine different things. Independent labs,
nine different things and one of those. So going back to your discussion
on the mechanism of coffee, one of those was on the antioxidant
capacity of the coffee and that was kind of like
the icing on the cake at the end. And when people talk about our coffee
as being healthy because of the antioxidants, I do like to
highlight the fact that we also tested it for other things and it's those
that gave it that antioxidant capacity, and that's just the only mechanism
that was easily measurable. So we could have measured
lots of other things that were going on if we had the technology,
all the money to do it.

So the other eight things that we tested
were initially it was all about focus on finding a coffee that was highest in the healthy compounds
that can be in coffee. But then also on the negative side,
we tested false. We chose an organic coffee to begin with
and then we tested it for Mycotoxins the pesticides for heavy metals, orca
toxin and aflatoxins because and this isn't it's not such a huge issue for everybody. But, you know, there are certain people
who do have quite a high body burden of, say, pesticides
or toxins already. And it is a really big issue for them. Arguably, I'm potentially one of them. But because coffee is on the pesticides
side, coffee is one of the it's the third most trade crop globally
with pesticides behind cotton and tobacco.

And even with those ingest. So coffee is yeah it's heavily
treated with pesticides but you know there is some debate
as to the roasting process, how much that ends up
in your final coffee. But it is 5050 designs. And then on the Mycotoxins
side, like coffee, a lot of coffee is kind of transported
in hessian sacks. It's not really looked after very well from the end to end process. And another thing that we look for through
our whole process was coffee that's imported in, we call them grain
pro socks, which are inside the hessian. They're lined with this plastic. Her meticulous seal stock,
which keeps the coffee really action keeps any mycotoxins or anything,
any molds out of the coffee.

So that was another thing
that we added to the list of 45 coffees. They had to be transported in grain
products to keep it really fresh as well. So. So yeah, it's
just all about kind of keep it out as much of the body as possible. But that was kind of, you know,
I'd hate to say that that's something that everybody should worry about
because that's kind of a, you know, it's a minefield.

And and yeah, once
you start worrying about those things, you really kind of start
getting afraid of food. Like, totally, yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up
because I think the health and safety of food is a real thing. And I think it's growing because as we get
exposed to more information, it can be pretty anxiety provoking. But I think it's also something that
we have to have a pragmatic conversation with. And when science is 5050, making those choices and actually creating when you're in the position
and you have the responsibility to put something
that somebody is going to ingest, you know, the way and the the the method
that you're taking to ensure that you're you're giving a top quality product
if it isn't already apparent by this point,
you know, it's it's very clear and you definitely making the right decision.

And you mentioned something that I want you
to pick up on this concept of body burden. So we had Dr. No Professor Swarthmore on the podcast
a few episodes back talking about the impact of environmental pollutants
at large on a number of different conditions, one of which is fertility. And I think we definitely need
to have more open conversations without scaremongering about the ways
in which we can reduce body burden. And if that is choosing a coffee
that has gone through a rigorous process, something that you consume habitually,
daily, two times a day, I think that's something
that if you can afford it, it's something to opt in to
and then we need to choose a food landscape
and actually vote with our pounds as to the kind of quality products
that we want to see on our shelves. And I think this is a small step
and that draws a large set for you guys. But I think in general, I think it's
a step by step in the right direction. Yeah, and coffee is a huge part, a lot of people's diets
because, there aren't many foods or drinks that you would have twice a day or three
times a day every single day of your life.

So it's kind of a it's
one of the ones that is worth choosing a better quality version of
because you have so much of it in general. Yeah, totally. I totally agree with that. So I, I can't imagine this whole process
would have been very cheap to this point. You're done, you're copying it. You've got these different plantations. You've got to sit down, you've roast it.

You know, the perfect amount. What was
what was the next step after that? How did you come up with the number,
first of all? But so the next that was around
the brewing of the coffee, right? So I so aside from that,
what happens at the plantations then what happens in the roaster
at the end of the coffee has a huge impact on what finally makes it
through to your cup of coffee. And there was a 2014 study
which tested 104 espressos bought from cafés in Scotland,
Italy and Spain and found a 31 times difference in the concentration
of chlorogenic acid between the highest and lowest was 31
times difference. And that's like every stage of
the process magnifies that, including the brewing process. So the last stage of A was to read
the research again and try and understand what the theory was and, how to brew
the healthiest possible cup of coffee. And then that's where then we
we kind of we tested that theory and then a bug about coffee down to a Dr.

John at the research lockdown in Plymouth
and got her to test the antioxidant power of the coffee
so wow yeah very huge Boswell Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that
actually with the brewery method, because just to give some insights
and this and so I've obviously gone from store
bought coffee to making coffee myself at home and
I've used a variety of different vessels. So I used to using the Aeropress, I moved to a B 60 ceramic one and now I've I've got a beautiful espresso machine
that I absolutely love, sat right next to me. And yeah, it just brings me so much joy
to have like barista quality coffee whenever I want. And it's an investment, but certainly something
that is going to pay off because I don't need
to go to a coffee store to enjoy. I'll go there for the communal benefits
obviously, Alex, but I'll go.

I'll go for I'll stick with my habitual
coffee a day for my machine. But so talk to us about the different
brewing methods and how that might impact the benefits
as well as the flavor of the coffee. Yeah. So I guess going back
to how you originally brewed your coffee using the records and the filter papers,
so that kind of the most obvious one is declare the clearest differentiator
between brewing methods is that if you use a paper filter
through your coffee, whatever it is, whether it's a Cemex, a drip or V6,
they're aeropress with a paper filter. That paper filter
removes up to 98% of the coffee, so and cover all from the coffee. So these two really healthy compounds
because they're oils, right? Yeah, exactly. They're fat soluble,
they're in the oils and the paper removes those oils from the coffee.

So if you're using a paper
filter in your coffee then, then you're not going to get the benefit
of the cups on cow will. Paradoxically, as, as with everything
with coffee, it is those oils and the capsule and cowbell
which have been associated with coffee, causing a slight increase
in spikes in your cholesterol levels, which is one of the reasons why
coffee was bad mouth in the first place. But then that also plays
into the whole paradox of coffee. And that coffee can cause
a temporary spike in cholesterol. But then actually
if you look at the epidemiology, coffee's associated with a reduced risk
of all of the diseases that you would relate to, like coronary
heart disease, cardiovascular disease. All right. So actually, long term,
it seems to benefit short term. You get some kind of spike in cholesterol. Anyway, that's up in a slightly different
tangent. It's similar to the impact of blood
pressure, I guess, as well, because it will increase your blood
pressure in the short term. But overall it's related to reduced
cause cardiovascular issues.

So Exactly. So back to the Bruin. So if you use a V-6
that you can get steel V6 this, but also if you use that Aeropress,
you can use a steel aeropress But then if you're kind of like a good old cafeteria drinker
or something like that, there are ways that you can your brewing
method to make that healthier itself. So brewing coffee is a chemical reaction. Like any other chemical reaction,
the amount of polyphenols that leave the beans and absorbed into that cup of coffee
is affected by certain variables. So things like temperature
speeds of a reaction. So if you bring your car fancier with a
slightly hotter temperature than usual, your that's going to speed up the reaction
and the extraction of the polyphenols
and get a healthier cup of coffee. The grind size of the coffee
is really important. So if you use a finer grain
size of coffee, the coffee has a larger surface area,
which means also a more efficient reaction and a more efficient extraction
of polyphenols. And then finally, the amount of time that
the coffee is in contact with the water. So if you would normally brew
your cafeteria for 3 to 4 minutes, if you are an extra minute,
maybe 4 to 5 minutes, you're likely to attract
more polyphenols as well.

So there's lots of ways you can tweak
whatever your favorite brew method is. Stick with that brew method and then just tweak
that to make it more optimized, basically. So so it explained it down for for the listener who just wants to go
and buy a coffee and and know that it's the healthiest method of brewing to maximize the potential benefits. What what what should they go in order You know I would not I, I would say that the healthiest possible way to brew coffee
is the way that you enjoy drinking.

Get the most fanatical because of the joy that drinking
coffee brings. We don't want to get in the way of that
at all. So what I always say
is, whatever your favorite brewing coffee is,
just tweak it to make it healthier, optimize basically using those earlier
principles of energy. What, what, what
how do you take your coffee? It just black. Yeah. Just like,
okay the filter and I just go that way. But I'm just going back
to what Al said as well. You know, it's worth highlighting that most of this research is done
on like ordinary bog standard coffee. So again, it doesn't have to be some sort
of idealistic brewing method, etc. like you're getting this
from an bog standard. So then the question becomes
what are you getting from a cherry picked, so to speak, and coffee Bean Yeah, but
one thing to add on the brewing a paper I saw this morning was around
the water that you use that's sort of mineral rich water,
kind of buying some of these polyphenols and reduce
that presence in your coffee brew.

And so that was quite an interesting
finding. A reduce the presence. Yeah, how interesting. That's so because the idea
I, I heard about this company I don't know if they still exist
they were looking for funding a couple of years ago,
but they were called third wave water and I think they actually had minerals like a mineral sachet
that you add to your water to give a little bit more flavor
to the coffee that you consume. I don't know what minerals they had in it,
but that's that's super interesting. Yeah. So I'm not sure what the takeaway
message is. You know, this is where you got to just be using tap water
in that anyone. Maybe that's the takeaway message
is that coffee actually you don't
need to add minerals to the water because coffee
does have a lot of these things, right.

So small. So aside from all of these polyphenols
and phytochemicals in the coffee,
we also tested certain vitamins as well. And vitamin B3,
for example, two cups of coffee provides 20% of your RDA of vitamin B3, which makes it one of the highest
natural sources in our diets and mean. So you don't it from the water
you can tell from the Yeah. And what about milk what a lot of people have milk in the diet
obviously oat milk up is super popular. Does that impact
the the health benefits too. Yeah. So I think I wasn't aware of this
until quite recently, but there is some evidence
indicating that it can. But again, it seems to be a bit mixed. So there is research indicating
that if you add milk to your coffee, it will again
prevent some of the absorption of these polyphenols
and it's just unanimous. And so, again, I would probably go back
to our point of, you know, if you enjoy adding milk and you don't enjoy a black
coffee, don't stress about it.

Yeah, yeah. Gotcha.
But also that type of milk. So we you know, we have this big dream
of hopefully going back to Doctor John of the antioxidant lab and getting her to test that coffee brewed
with lots of different types of milk. So then see which how that impacts
the different types about the antioxidant
capacity of the coffee. But at the end of the day, ultimately,
if people want milk in their coffee, they'll choose it based on their own
dietary requirements, you know, So it's kind of a hard one
for us to advise what people should do. And because that people have their own
kind of almost dogmatic beliefs on milk. Yeah, yeah. No, totally. And I think if you are going to do that, you should do
a different types of water as well. After what we just heard,
That would be very interesting to see. And certainly like put that out there
for people because I love the the that the scientific approach
you guys are taking to figuring out what the the how best to create coffee and how best to you know consumer as well within the realms of what people choose
to do what they find most pleasurable.

Yeah but it would be really interesting
to see what I'd say on that point. We've definitely not chosen
that easy, almost straight the day. And that's where kind of something we were
discussing earlier, which is where, you know, what we've chosen to do here
is we've chosen to take one ingredient coffee, which is is naturally
can be really rich in all of these things. And work with what's naturally in it
and work with retaining as much as possible
and develop as many as possible as well. Whereas the easy thing to do
and what the current trend in coffee is, is to take a really low quality
coffee, an instant coffee, then pump it full of whatever
the latest fad includes.

Yeah, I didn't like up to ten different
ingredients into your coffee and then you kind of re budget and call it
help It is it's the easiest thing to do whereas way
we've decided to work with one ingredient and just maximize the inherent
kind of beauty of that one ingredient. And it's kind of it's reflective
of what happens a lot across the health and wellness and food industry as well.

And it's not always just the easier
option, it's just the other things do it. And yeah, I agree. I have this kind of gripe with
the wellness industry in general, right? So as soon as a food is deemed to be
the healthiest, whether it's watermelon, whether it's kale or whatever,
you know, all of a sudden you have extract of of kale,
like sprinkled on to some like deep fried chips, and suddenly
that becomes like a healthy crisp. I mean, like, you know, you look at a green drink
and it's like got kale and you read it. It's like 5% kale, 50% apple juice,
which is pure sugar. And it's going to mainline to a liver. So, you know, I'm
not I'm not saying that to go to to give people anxiety
about the foods that they consume. But I think we need
to be more aware of that. And what your
what your you're tapping into. There is this trend
that I've seen where you have coffee and an adaptogen or neutropenic
or whatever the latest terminology that they're using, beautifully designed,
well branded looks super healthy, you know, proposed
benefits of ashwagandha or Bilbao Gingko or whatever 21 gingko with coffee.

But but that's you know, that's certainly a trend,
I think. And I just don't I'm hoping
that people particularly listening to the podcast I think a really clued up as to how to navigate labels. But in general, I think there is also a trend to being
a lot more conscious as a consumer. So you can actually recognize,
okay, this is actually a quality product because they've gone through all these
different layers of whether it's testing or whether it's, you know, bee cult status
or whether it's whatever to to guarantee that, you know, there's
there's a lot of purpose behind it.

It's not just the fad. Yeah. I just think you don't need to so like a lot of these things
people are into coffee to say and for example, coffee
gives you coffee with X with this adaptogen medicinal mushroom,
and it will give you more energy. But actually all you need is a cafe. If you want energy from your coffee, the caffeine is going to give you
all the energy you need. You don't need any more energy than that. And then the same with the health side
and the kind of adding things in to you. A more restful night's sleep. But around the health effects,
like adding antioxidants in coffee, like a like well, our test was a one brewed
cup of coffee had the same antioxidants as 12 products of blueberries,
all 55 oranges and one cup of coffee.

So why would you need more than that? Kind of on another level? And this kind of it's just it's all there
in coffee already and it's all there. You know, you'd already just think to
what is what's naturally in it. Alex, I wanted to ask you actually,
because we've kind of neglected people. We don't we can't have caffeine in the diet
or they have an erroneous effect.

What are the differences between people
being able to tolerate caffeinated beverages and and can you achieve similar health
benefits from health benefits from a a decaffeinated coffee,
whatever coffee you choose to consume it? Yeah. Maybe we can talk a bit about that
because I feel like I've just come off of coffee fast
for 30 days. I do this once a year
because I want to retain my sensitivity to caffeine
because I love the kick that it gets. But I also want to like, experiment
and see what the impact of regular consumption is having on my sleep
and stuff like that. So. So yeah, I'll talk about my experiences in a second,
but maybe you can talk a bit about that.

Yeah. So to the second question first,
most of the research shows us that decaf
coffee has the same health benefits, so you can have your decaf 3
to 4 months a day if you wanted to. That's going to provide you very similar,
if not the same reduced risk of all the conditions
that we spoke about earlier in regards to the difference between someone who sort of
tolerates caffeine better than someone else, there's there
is that genetic piece to the puzzle.

So to see
why type one or two gene variants of that will influence the activity of enzymes
that metabolize in caffeine. So it's generally said that you're either
a slow or a fast metabolism, and that's related to the rate
at which you metabolize caffeine. So a slow metabolize is going to have
caffeine lingering in that bloodstream for longer. And therefore, they may be the person
that has a coffee at midday and is still wide awake at 10 p.m.
kind of thing. Yeah, Whereas just to clarify that,
so that's if you express less of the syrupy one two gene, is that,
is that right? Um, is yes. So the COPD two gene is going to obviously
then impact the enzymes that are metabolizing the caffeine. So It's not black or white, I would say.

You know, I've heard people before
talk about if you take someone who's never had caffeine,
obviously that they don't really exist. But if you theoretically have a person and they their capacity to metabolize
might be quite different to someone who's a
or a fast metabolize that who's just got is accommodated to their caffeine intake
because obviously it does blunt We get used to caffeine
and it doesn't have the same impact. Hence your fast, for example. So there are other kind of bits,
other pieces to the puzzle there as well. And your day to day stressors,
it can impact the the caffeine in the coffee
because it's having an impact on your sympathetic nervous system. So, you know,
I know that I respond differently to my cup of coffee in the morning
based on my sleep quality that we collect, for example, or just
how stressed I am day to day is anything that's impacting the same system
as that coffee and caffeine is impacting.

We have to kind
of bear that in mind as well. There are studies that have looked at this and it at least healthy individuals who are regular coffee drinkers who are I think they were students as well,
but they were having a coffee, a a non stressful environment
and cortisol levels didn't change. So you think of the stress response and most people go to cortisol,
but actually that stays perfectly normal. However, there were markers associated
with the sympathetic nervous system that showed that that part of your stress
response is getting upregulated and so if you've already got someone
who is like sympathetically driven there in that stress response,
for whatever reason, you're
kind of putting a bit of fuel on the fire.

And therefore, again, decaf might be a more sensible option
from that perspective. Gotcha. Okay. And so that's really good news
for a lot like that, because they can enjoy decaf
and still have benefits as well. And I think that explains a lot
because I'm I can't remember what my DNA results demonstrated,
but purely from intuition. I know if I if I have coffee after 12
my sleep is significantly impacted and excuse me, I'm
after after my coffee fall.

So I was actually looking through my numbers because I tracked my truck,
my sleep for about three years now, and I could definitely see that
there was a huge impact on my deep sleep and my REM sleep,
which went up by 20% across the board when I switched
from caffeinated to decaffeinated. And so what? That's when I go back to caffeinated,
which I did just now. So I just had my first coffee
about an hour ago with you guys. I'm definitely going to be helping at four
earlier than I've been having right now. So instead, before 12, I'm going
to experiment with before ten, 10 a.m.

Just having my one or two cups per day and just see what
that impact has on my sleep. And I think, you know, the more integrated
we become with the, the more accessible tools become to us
where we can actually look at parameters of health like sleep quality,
cortisol levels, microbiome tests. Hopefully that's, I think, going to be a real driver towards behavioral change
that has created benefits. So yeah, it's super interesting to
to understand why people have differences. Yeah. And go back to your kind of intuitiveness
and the research kind of indicates that we do generally just draw
to that genetic predisposition.

So those who drink lots of coffee
generally are fast metabolizes, like the body just knows. And so, yes,
the genetic testing is super interesting, but you could probably tell by your just natural inclination
for coffee consumption. Yeah Yeah, for sure. Yeah, definitely. And it's really interesting to note that about the sympathetic drive as well
and how that has an impact. I was going to ask actually, not too much is well known about this,
but I'm just this week Tim Spector was talking about coffee
on social media and another one. I feel like I'm just plugging
all the previous in the podcast. He's been on the podcast as well. A year ago. Do we know what the impact is
of of of coffee on, on the microbiota and whether that impacts
the gut brain access at all. There's it's early days
I think is the best way to describe it but we definitely do have some research
and in fact there's a quote that I pulled out this morning
that kind of talks about how not only will your genome determine
sort of the bioavailability of kind of coffee metabolites,
but your microbiota will as well.

So obviously this kind of unfortunate
situation whereby the consumption of these sort of polyphenols can act
as prebiotic to the gut microbiome. So see increases in bifida
and lactobacillus in animal and human studies, but the health of your microbiome,
your microbiome influences your ability
to metabolize these polyphenols into healthier compounds,
if that makes sense. So the health of, the gut,
the more you're able to actually benefit from these things as well. So there's lots of other things apart
from that kind of prebiotic element when it comes to coffee
and the fact that we've discussed coffee, having antioxidant properties
kind of comes into the gut and.

The anti-inflammatory properties could
potentially have an impact here as well. We've mentioned
that coffee has a reduced risk from a colon cancer perspective,
but it also has pre motility effects. In a study of coffee,
consumers will have a to pseudo coffee. So for some people
that actually be really helpful and I do, I kind of wonder
whether that has an impact on sort of the Parkinson's element
because you know, anyone who listen to a podcast
or read a around Parkinson's knows that constipation can manifest 10 to 20 years
before the actual diagnosis. So if we're if we're able to maintain
a healthy microbiota and have a regular bowel movement,
which really should be 1 to 3 bowel movements
a day seems to be the norm. And then these are all having multiple effects
on all of the other conditions that we've discussed
because as we most of us now know, they've got is integral to college
health, to liver, how kidney health. We talk about all of these gut
something axes like.

So our paper yesterday
which was about the guts by accident. Really. Yeah but we've got bone gut, lung skin
gut break. Obviously there was a a study that it kind of
looked at the gut brain axis, but I don't think it looked at it
sort of it's hard to look at. I think. Yeah. I mean, for those people
that don't really know what it refers to, it's four pathways
connect the dots and the brain. So there's a hormonal pathway
where we can use the example of cortisol, but there are plenty of other hormones
obviously as well.

There's a metabolic. So metabolites from microbiome
like short chain fatty acids and butyrate, which is a products
of the fermentation of fibers. Butyrate has immunomodulatory,
anti-inflammatory, cognitive, neurological benefits. There's a neurological pathways
to the vagus nerve, for example. So metabolites are able to influence
the vagus nerve and kind of travel up into the central nervous system
and there's an immune pathway. So this takes us
to kind of pro-inflammatory or anti inflammatory cytokines
and other immune modulating compounds. So we've got four pathways or four
highways that kind of innervate the two. And interestingly, the vast majority of information is going to brain,
like 90% is going to brain, 10% is going brain to gut,
which in itself is kind of mind boggling. Yeah, but because the microbiome
and the metabolites, the microbiome which are influenced by coffee
and the polyphenols, that's one of the ways that could possibly impact
the gut brain axis Chlorogenic acid
has anti-anxiety properties.

So a lot of the feedback that Exhale get
is people who haven't been able to tolerate coffee, caffeinated coffee
seem to be able to tolerate it better. But Chlorogenic acid
has also been shown to improve sleep. So having maybe a decaf exhale
in the evening to actually support your sleep would be an interesting thing
to track with your brain, baby. Mm. Yeah. Um, obviously
we've already mentioned a study showing that in healthy, regular coffee
drinkers, cortisol was an influence. So called is a hormone
that is discussed within the brain axis.

And I guess just thinking about kind of the Alzheimer's,
the fact that coffee reduces depression, that's again, you could tie in really
with the gut brain axis ultimately. And so there is research
and kind of mechanisms we're aware of, but not a huge amount at this point. I think it's probably going to be an area
that explodes just because of the popularity of coffee
and the popularity of the cup for enoxaparin excuse.

Yeah,
yeah, exactly. I always come back to paper or a series of papers
that came out of Cork looking at the impact of the gut
microbiota on the polyphenols that you find berries
and they looked at, they tend to look at subjects
with all the estimates. And so for the use of that's
where you have a stoma which is formic has somebody who's had
a part of their bowel removed and they looked at the metabolites of the polyphenols
that they found in berries and that acted on by the bugs
to create different types of chemicals that all have different properties
that are in line with the similar sort of categories that we just talked about, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant,
etc., etc., which is super interesting. I imagine something similar
with all that density of polyphenols is happening with coffee as well. On the subject of decaf,
I do want to ask about the different methods of decaffeinated
because alum am I right in thinking that there is some caffeine left in it
and there are there are there are different ways of decaffeinated,
some good, some bad.

What is your take on that? Yeah,
so they're kind of traditional methods of decaffeinated,
decaffeinated coffee use chemicals. And so there's some
there's a few types of chemicals which are quite nasty that we used
methylene chloride was used once upon a time and formaldehyde
the byproducts of this. So decaf got bit of a bad rep over the years. But then more recently there's been
so few of the methods that have emerged. This wastewater
method is the kind of the most famous one which is chemical free and uses only water
and but they're not. Coffee is decaffeinated by another one,
which is also relatively new and called the mountain water process. And it uses nothing
but the the pure spring water from the highest mountain in Mexico,
the pico to resolve nothing else.

And the beans are the best
because caffeine's water soluble, the beans are soaked in this spring water. And then the caffeine leaves the beans
and then it enters the water and then the wash is filtered
to remove the caffeine from it. And then I think
the beans are so sparkling, the water does somehow reabsorb
the other that are lost as well. So, um, but then it takes apparently 99.9% of the caffeine
from the coffee, the mountain water process
and I'm not too sure about the other methods,
but yeah, and also as well as that. So it takes away
a lot more of the caffeine, but also the process leaves
more of the polyphenols top, whereas the chemical processes leach out to 16% of the chlorogenic acid
from the coffee. So lots of level on lots of levels. You know what the chemical processes. Yeah, I guess like 60% of the time,
not that much, but that's just at the start of the process.

And then you've got
all the other processes that will just gradually degrade
your polyphenol content as well. Exactly. So yeah, and we were just really lucky
with this particular plantation in Mexico that and that one
that that was the best of the 45 that actually they had a decaf nation
plant near them and they decaffeinated it. So our regular coffee is exactly the same
as our decaf coffee. They're all the same coffee. So for people who are slightly more sensitive to caffeine,
going back to an earlier topic, what we've started doing house doing in
our house is designed a slow metabolize of coffee,
caffeine in the afternoon. If I really need a coffee, I might have a half cup,
I might mix half caffeinated and half to get a little bit of effect
from the caffeine, but not enough. So it will keep me up at night.

So and it worked really well together
because that same coffee basically that's that's a good little trick. I will I will experiment with that myself,
actually, for sure. Having a half caf. I like that. I use the. Do you use a cup of tea. Is that is that your method. So first thing every morning we start the day of the double stress
though a lot of it's become a ritual. I love the espresso machine. I got one about the same time
as you and it's become a real ritual. And that kind of almost the double espresso signifies
it's an early start to the day. Generally. This one, I was up a five double expresso
and that kind of signals. Let's get going, let's get ready, let's
go for a road, let's get some work done. Let's kind of make make stuff happen. And then after
that I'll have some coffee, tea as or an aeropress and just kind of yeah,
that's the fun bit about coffee is a variety
of all the different brewing methods and we have about
15 different brewing methods.

So we just have a play around. Really? Yeah. That's epic. Alex I was going to ask you actually about this is great for me because I'm having all my questions
answered about coffee. This I favorite episode you have so I have my coffee an hour and a half
after I awake. So I wake up fairly early
and usually after about 20 minutes I've done my meditation, my morning
hygiene, all that kind of stuff. I feel kind of awake. Anyway, I have this spring of energy
and I guess that correlates with the dawn of variation of different hormones
that cortisol get. You start for the day and then I choose
to have my coffee an hour and a half later because I understand
it has an impact on you. So levels. Do you recommend that
as a way of consuming coffee or is it okay to have your coffee first
thing in the morning like my fiancee does? As soon as she wakes up she tells me I need a coffee
maker, the coffee and whatever, whatever.

But yes. Do you have any thoughts on that as it pertains
to the sympathetic nervous system? I'm so I know that there is a study that looked
at sleep deprivation like one nights of sleep deprivation and not up
poor night, but disturbed sleep. And if you have a coffee
first thing in the morning before breakfast,
compared to having after breakfast from a blood sugar perspective,
you're going to be on more of the roller coaster rides so the quality of your sleep
may impact the timing or the optimal
timing of your coffee in the morning. So arguably and again,
this is the paradox, because coffee consumers
have a reduced risk of diabetes where there's kind of like the short term, the long term,
and they don't always match up, obviously.

So I think sensibly,
if you want to have your best productivity cognitively, physically, and you haven't had the best night's
sleep, maybe have it pace breakfast and I might preference to my training, I pray me just left
heavy stuff off the floor a few times. Let it run 100 miles is first thing in the morning
I it if right now with a ten month old but that's like my
if I could get up, go to the gym, I would have my coffee in the morning
beforehand so I'd get up, shower and have a coffee, get to the gym. And I did. 724 seven blood glucose monitoring and
it didn't impact my blood sugar at all.

I was really surprised. I was expecting it to both impact
blood sugar, but also with the exercise potentially
just creating a stress response and influencing
blood sugar levels. But it really did it. So there is, I think, some personal responses here as well. But I think most importantly
with my experience, coffee in the first thing in the morning
is just so much nicer in the day.

So it really is just for me, I love it. So even if it was having
a suboptimal impact, I'm still going to choose it
for my a preferential perspective. Yeah, I think that's really important
to keep in mind of as well. And I don't know what it is. It is it. It might be because your palate has been
exposed to a number of different products for the first three or 4 hours of your day
if you choose to have breakfast, then. But my first coffee,
the morning tastes so much better, like at least like 30, 40% better
than my one at 1130. And I'm really I'm glad
I haven't said this out loud, so I'm glad someone else is having this experience as well,
because I just thought it was me. Know I would say is what you can do
if you prefer to drink your coffee kind of first thing before eating is
what I do is I do have that double espresso thing,
but I'll have a glass of water before. So try and have like half an hour
before the espresso, a half pint of water
with some kind of pinch of Himalayan sea salt and a few other bits
that I put in it.

And then that kind of water
is hydrating me already. And then I'll have the double espresso
a little bit lighter. And I still get that effects from the kind of the coffee
on an empty stomach, basically. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I always drink a good half
an issue of water, like first thing in the morning
with all my supplements and stuff. Although a lot of people
can have supplements and empty stomach, but I can
I tend to feel okay with that. And I think we've done a lot of it
talked about every element of coffee that I tend to get asked
about the caffeinated with decaf is to say the polyphenol content,
all that kind of stuff.

Tell us about when to talk about
was really brainstorming ideas for a healthy coffee future
and what that looks like actually for for the brand
and actually you know, one thing that I think a lot of people will notice is when you go to a coffee store, it's not a particularly
healthy experience, despite the presence of coffee
in coffee stores. So you're usually offered something
very sweet next to it.

You know, you have these like energy bars
which are basically pure sugar. You know, it's it's
not a very well-rounded experience. So if you were to to really reimagine the experience of coffee
as a pure as as a as a healthier one. What would that look like with a cafe or, you know, something like grind like
a restaurant was maintaining
sort of like the pleasurable flavor aspect that obviously you take
very seriously too, I have to say, I think I think the specialty coffee
industry is most of the way there already. If you go in any specialty coffee shop across the country, really,
they've already gone through the process of swapping out most of that foods there
and everything is kind of like no sugar free gluten free
got this extra in it. And the really healthy ranges of salads
they're selling for their lunch. They kind of like the gone are the days of
like a bog standard sandwich in a cafe.

So like specialty coffee, Well,
is there almost already the only thing left to change
is the coffee. So I think that's the only thing that
Health food Cafe doesn't have, it seems, is a healthy coffee life or one that's
been kind of like prioritized for health. So so that's why
I guess that's the future of cafes is to adult for more
than to adopt the specialty cafe model. But with with a
focus on the coffee as well, which is that bread and butter really. So yeah no definitely, definitely. And what would like effects elsewhere
to do a cafe as well I'm thinking for here what what would that look like to you? I mean what other elements do
you think you should adopt? I mean you've already got,
you know, the different flavors of coffee, the decaffeinated one.

Like what else is sort of in your
in your list of things? Yeah. I mean, look, I think the obvious choice
for the kind of the kitchen side of the cafe
would obviously be the doctor's kitchen. I mean, this case is actually basically what I pitched is
the idea is a few months ago where you actually based out
of a bouldering center in Walthamstow. So we have a couple of private offices
and this is bouldering center climbing center,
and they have a cafe there. And the cafe is just it's the stunning,
stunningly designed cafes overlooking the climbing walls. And it's a really healthy,
active kind of vibe in there. And for me, the ideal there would have been like a kind of
healthy coffee, but they'd also like a kitchen serving the kind of doctors
kitchen type food as well.

And it just the environment,
the food, coffee, like all of that would be a kind of a dream,
whether it's now or in the future. But that's the perfect outcome of me
for this. Yeah, yeah. No, I see it. And would love to do something like that. I think I've been asked so many times
to do some form of cafe and I would love to do that
and actually create food that is optimized from the quantity of vegetables
to the different type of research benefits
that we've put into the app as well. So all that kind of stuff. But flowing through the different options
that you have. So you have a, a beautiful, balanced,
flavorful meal that you know, is is doing good for you
and then great coffee as well. You can pretty much get some
you can give the chef your app and just say, there
you go, just just cook.

And you know, that would be like the
ideal kitchen side of things, but not yet. One day in the future maybe. Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, that'll be amazing. The guys we've tried for well over an hour about coffee, I think. I think we've done it with coffee,
but this is great. Honestly, this is amazing. If anyone has any up questions,
I'll just direct them to you and your socials and and where you can get
the products and stuff.

But this has been brilliant. I just want to say thank you. Amazing..

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