Alan posted some data on CoffeeGeek regarding this on the Aeropress thread and on a French Press and Cholesterol thread that might be worth reviewing.

It should be noted that Alan no longer participates on CoffeeGeek.

Thank you Chris for posting the link to Alan Adler's review (see his Word document with urls) of definitive studies of the negative effects of unfiltered or metal filtered coffee on cholesterol and liver function! He cites a study of AeroPress with paper filters having similar ability to paper drip method to almost eliminate the harmful substances.

I need to take care with this issue but respect those of you who choose ultimate flavor.

I think I'll try an AeroPress and will keep experimenting with espresso preparation that can yield good flavor even if filtered. I'm now trying some dark roasts and would love suggestions from any of you who might recommend an intensely flavored selection from any of the better roasters recommended on this site.

I don't expect to get the kind of complex flavors and mouth feel you can get with some of the best unfiltered espresso preparations consumed as straight shots, of course, and may need to limit myself to capps and lattes.

Since writing the above I've tried two non boutique dark roasts with a good result for one of them especially for milk drinks. The first was Peet's French Roast. They do date their roasts if you ask, and this was three through seven days old when I experimented with it. I had to do a slight overextraction to accentuate some bitterness and get more pronounced flavor after filtering for my latte. The result was ok. I got a much better result with Peerless brand French roast bought in a sealed bag at the local Safeway supermarket. Three days after opening it (and I assume it was vacuum sealed for freshness, probably without degassing the beans, and it was of course undated), I was able to dial it in and get a result that certainly doesn't have the complexity of a straight shot that you get with a lovely roast like Blue Bottle Hayes Valley. This time I didn't need to overextract to accentuate bitterness. Enough of an "edge" came through to give more intensity and slightly bitter overtone to the latte, not unlike the intensity that comes from Blue Bottle's unfiltered espresso with the bitters residing in the crema. This Peerless French roast has lots of oils on the surface and is substantially darker than the next one I'm about to experiment with, which is Blue Bottle's Roma espresso. Their Roma doesn't have oil on the surface. The surface oils of the two French roasts, by the way, are enough to cause some clumping that causes problems with the hopper in my Lelit PL53 grinder. I may remove the small cap at the bottom of the hopper to eliminate that problem.

Adrian (drdna who started this thread) has suggested that a single origin bean may work for what I'm trying to do. It would be great to be able to enjoy a shot without the milk!

Also since writing the above, I've ordered an AeroPress. I've written to them and they're interested in whether there might be less extraction of cafestol and kahweol if I don't press all the way through the puck, a possibility that someone mentioned in another thread. I wrote back today asking if they would study that difference and haven't received an answer yet.

Well, i can't say much here. But what I found on myself, I drink for 2 cup of cappas everyday religiously. And there is nothing wrong with my cholesterol level. It stays around 170 - 180 level and never higher (I believe this is lower than before I start drinking coffee ).

for comparison, my friends is a strict veggie, never had coffee, but his cholesterol level is above 230 . Where the hell he got it

I believe, each person has its own digestion system which differ on how they process such kind of substance. If you think coffee is evil, then don't drink it. Done. Don't ask anyone to have the same thought. Believe me, this discussion will never end. The same reason applies when research shows strict veggies has less stamina compared to non veggies, but still people do it.

I know I haven't been involved in this one, but I have to say that I am pretty much with Jon on this one. The sample size is simply going to be too small, and any unknown change in diets, which could be much more numerous than most people realize, could be the actual cause in any observed changes. Or, for that matter, the cause for any unobserved changes.

If you had an enormous data sample then I think some kind of meaning could be derived from this experiement, but without that its nothing more than a fun game. Nothing wrong with that, but it should at least be recognized for what it is.

This is a little late in this thread, but I'll throw my $.02 in here for one more data point. In the theme of:

Psyd wrote:..."Ohh, your cholesterol gets any higher, we're gonna have to put you on statins!"
...I kinda laughed when she suggested that I try changing my diet and exercise program. When she asked me why, I told her that I'd been changing it all along, and with every change I made, my cholesterol level went higher.

At my annual check-ups my doc always said "your cholesterol is kinda high". Then I got a call from my insurance company telling me I had to go on their special diet or my premiums would go up, my co-pays would go up, I would die soon, etc. So I took their diet seriously for seven months... lots of salmon (some specific variant), expensive cooking oils, etc. At my next check-up, my doc, unaware of my new diet, told me "whoa, your cholesterol is way up, I've got to put you on a statin".

So I'm back to my normal diet (which includes red meat, cheese, etc.) spending $4 per month on statin pills, and my last two cholesterol checks were "very nice" according to my doc. I drink 2 or 3 non-de-caf doubles per day, and de-cafs after 4pm.
So in my case I have no evidence that low-fat diets affect cholesterol levels in the way some dietitians/doctors claim, but statins could have a huge effect.
-Ed

Ed,

This just goes to show how different bodies react to different regimens. For some people, I've read that a very low-fat diet can send triglycerides incredibly high, for others like me, it's just the thing that's needed. When I went very low fat in my diet, my total cholesterol went from 209 to 147 with the aid of statins too.

I'm not a physician (some of the other participants here are), but if you're concerned you may ask a cardiologist which are the cutting edge resources for having cholesterol and other risk factors checked beyond the usual HDL, LDL, triglycerides.

Gary

workinghard wrote:I know I haven't been involved in this one, but I have to say that I am pretty much with Jon on this one. The sample size is simply going to be too small, and any unknown change in diets, which could be much more numerous than most people realize, could be the actual cause in any observed changes. Or, for that matter, the cause for any unobserved changes.

If you had an enormous data sample then I think some kind of meaning could be derived from this experiement, but without that its nothing more than a fun game. Nothing wrong with that, but it should at least be recognized for what it is.

So what sample size would you recommend, and why? Do you know anything about the expected effect sizes in the analysis of these types of relationships to be able to say anything real or meaningful about sample size? I noticed a study out recently on the effect of eating chocolate on stroke by getting 45,000 people to eat a piece of chocolate a week; this study is getting serious attention in its research area. One of the main criticisms pointed out? The sample size is so large that the effect might be spurious.

Good field research is practical, parsimonious with available resources, and is often creative. I had hoped that someone with some actual knowledge from this area of research was around to fill in necessary pieces such as expected effect sizes, typical research designs and controls, etc.

To glibly dispose of the idea is more a reflection of a lack of research skill, understanding, or ingenuity than anything else.

Mark

p.s. workinghard - I think this horse died a while ago.

Sorry if I dragged up a dead horse, Im more having fun than anything else. Afterall, what is someone supposed to do with all of this Espresso studying? And I agree that my selection of of the word "enormous" was poorly made.


To bring the discussion back to life for another moment...it seems to me that there is a big difference between 45,000 people eating one piece of chocolate a week (which was probably already at or below the average)

and having 10 or even 20 people do an experiement where a few of them take in 4 filtered espressos vs unfiltered.

The problems with each are very different, I think, but just as significant.

In the former you are clearly introducing a minute change, if any, in the daily lives of the norm, and allowing for other discrepencies between individuals to completely overshadow the effects of the introduction of chocolate. Not to mention the inherent limitations in monitoring necessary variables. Whereas in the latter you have such a small sample that uncontrolled variables would play a significant role (note that by doing this online it woudl be impossible to monitor the numerous variables involved in any meaningful way), and that even one individual reporting bad information, even unwittingly, could totally ruin the whole experiment.


I am not a professional in the field of research, but the basics in regards to the faulty logic behind both of those tests seem fairly apparent to me. Good research, surely, begins with a reasonable data sample size, a reasonable means of controlling variables and having prerequisite knowledge of conditions prior to beginning the experiement.

The fact that one experiement was crappy does not mean that another experiement with one or two polar methods is a good experiement, you know?

Also, to decaf ed...if you read this far...maybe I misunderstood what you meant? But the issue on cholestrol is not about caffeine, it is about the oils on the beans. So taking unfiltered decaf in the evening would contribute equally to your cholesterol as unfiltered regular. From everything I have read over 4 cups of unfiltered will have a noticable impact on cholesterol-some say more, some say less, up to 12%-but having over 5 or 6 doubles a day (perhaps equaling the oilds in around 10 or more cups of unfiltered brewed coffee?) Would certainly impact your cholesterol. I dont think any tests out there would suggest otherwise.

The impact of one double a day, that is what I want to know. With 2 doubles a few times a week of course

and having 10 or even 20 people do an experiement where a few of them take in 4 filtered espressos vs unfiltered.

Where did this come from? These are your words, not mine. If this is what you thought I was talking about doing, then of course I agree that it would be meaningless.

Mark

A filtered "reference shot" is pretty good!

To follow up on my earlier question on whether you can create good espresso that's filtered, I went to Blue Bottle this morning and they pulled a double ristretto into a filter paper inserted in the cup.

Any thick espresso shot will clog the filter paper, so I squeezed the remaining half through with my fingers. You can't argue taste, but I liked the result more! It had much less bitterness but very full and nuanced flavor. I don't quite trust my tastebuds on this so will go back and try tasting filtered versus unfiltered side by side.

One of the Blue Bottle baristas had put me onto a thread by a champion barista who questions the taste benefits of crema. When I have more time I'll put a link to that here.

Okay, found it! This won't be new to many of you but some may not have seen it. It's a video by James Hoffman called (sorry) "Crema is Rubbish!" http://www.jimseven.com/2009/07/06/video-1-crema/ . Many of you have already weighed in on this topic, here: "Crema is Rubbish" .

I'm new to this and have thought at times that I like the complexity of the bitters of the crema combined with the other constituents of a great shot. Certainly if you take out the crema you remove the mouth feel most of us are accustomed to. And the bitterness can add a nice overtone to milk drinks. That said, the filtered shot I had at Blue Bottle this morning was less bitter. In the past (and this may be sacrilege to some of you), I've added sugar to the shot to counteract the bitterness, something I learned years ago drinking Cuban coffee. The shot today was sweet by itself, with a gentler bitter overtone and didn't tempt me to add sugar. It did restore my faith that I can still drink and enjoy espresso and like it more than other ways of preparing coffee.

Unlike most of you I don't yet have sufficient starter equipment to make a quality shot at home to try this but wonder what results you may find. Just like we may not need crema, do we need cafestol or kahweol for an espresso to taste rich and wonderful?