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by hinkley 1206 days ago
Black coffee has negligible calories, not zero. Espresso it turns out has about twenty.

Coffee comes from a bean. It’s going to pick up a couple calories.

1 comments

>Coffee comes from a bean.

Colloquially known as a bean, but it's really a seed similar to a cherry pit. The fruit is actually known as "coffee cherry" and is edible.

https://coffeechronicler.com/coffee-cherry-taste/

Seeds are full of carbs, minerals and proteins. Malting makes most of the calories water soluble which is why you malt grain to make alcohol. But even without it a little bit will make it into the broth.

What surprised me is the ratio of calories in black coffee versus espresso. I wonder if it’s solubility or the fact that fines make it through a screen but not a filter.

Your comment led me down an interesting path: apparently it is possible to malt green coffee beans!

https://old.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/8em8ed/malted_...

Seeds store calories as complex carbs to avoid rotting and I think predation. When the seed decides to sprout, it converts the carbs to sugars so it can put on a growth spurt. In a way, microgreens are tapping into a knowledge that brewers have had for ten thousand years or more. They don't call it 'liquid bread' for nothing.

I wonder what coffee beer tastes like. I've had espresso beer (when I could still eat wheat), but that's the sizzle, not the steak.