Green Coffee Bean Extract

A coffee bean is a seed of the coffee plant, and is the source for coffee. It is the pit inside the red or purple fruit often referred to as a cherry. Even though they are seeds, they are incorrectly referred to as ‘beans’ because of their resemblance to true beans. The fruits -coffee cherries or coffee berries – most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. A small percentage of cherries contain a single seed, instead of the usual two. This is called a peaberry. Like Brazil nuts(a seed) and white rice, coffee seeds consist mostly of endosperm.

“Green coffee seed” refers to unroasted matureor immature coffee seeds. These have been processed by wet or dry methods forremoving the outer pulp and mucilage, and have an intact wax layer on the outersurface. When immature, they are green. When mature, they have a brown to yellow or reddish color, and typically weigh 300 to 330 mg per dried coffee seed. Nonvolatile and volatile compounds in green coffee seeds, such as caffeine, deter many insects and animals from eating them. Further, both nonvolatile and volatile compounds contribute to the flavor of the coffee seed when it is roasted. Nonvolatile nitrogenous compounds (including alkaloids,trigonelline, proteins and free amino acids) and carbohydrates are of major importance in producing the full aroma of roasted coffee, and for its biological action. Since the mid 2000s green coffee extract has been sold as anutritional supplement, and has been clinically studied for its chlorogenic acid content and for its lipolytic and weight-loss properties.