The discovery may explain why dark roasted brews are gentler on the stomach than their lighter peers, and could lead to a new generation of tummy-friendly coffees. Roasting coffee beans doesn’t just impart bold, rich flavor. It also creates a compound that helps dial down production of stomach acid, according to research presented on March 21.
To explore the science behind these gentler brews, researchers used water and three other solvents to extract compounds from regular commercial coffee blends. Each solvent extracted a different profile of compounds, including caffeine and N-methylpyridinium (NMP), a ringed compound that doesn’t appear in green coffee beans but is created in the roasting process. Stomach cells exposed to each suite of compounds upped their acid secretion, except for the cells exposed to the extract containing NMP. The team then compared the chemical profiles of a dark roasted and light roasted brew made with regular roasted and steam-treated beans. Both versions of the dark roasted coffee had more than 30 milligrams per liter of NMP, as compared with the lighter roast, which had 22 mg/l. The light roast that was subjected to steam treatment, a technique thought to weaken coffee’s stomach-provoking powers, had a mere 5 mg/l of NMP.
How NMP acts on the gastric system isn’t well understood. Acid secretion didn’t change noticeably in stomach cells treated with NMP alone. The friendlier darker brews also had less caffeine than their lighter-brewed counterparts. This lower caffeine may also contribute to the darker roasts’ antacid powers.
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