Coffee

Bean · 2 kcal per 100 ml brewed

Per 100 g

2 kcal Energy

0.1 g Protein

0 g Carbs

0 g Fat

0 g Fibre

Gluten-free

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They give the character. Same technique, same ingredient, a different trio of spices — and the dish moves to another cuisine entirely. Most of their aroma molecules are volatile.

Where it catches you out

Volatile ones go in last, sturdy ones first. Mint and basil after the heat; bay and cinnamon right at the start.

The knack

Coffee is not brewed with boiling water: at 100 °C the same solvent that lifts the aromatic oils lifts the bitter phenols too. The band is 92–96 °C, which is where boiling water lands after thirty seconds off the heat. Turkish coffee is not the exception but the opposite: it starts cold and is never boiled, and the foam builds around 70 °C.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

Whole beans keep two to four weeks in an airtight container with a one-way valve; ground, one week in the same container. The freezer preserves aroma but draws moisture every time it is opened, so freeze it in single portions.

Gluten-free

The bean contains no gluten; check blended products for barley.

Glycaemic index

This ingredient carries no meaningful carbohydrate, so it has no glycaemic index. On its own it will not move blood sugar; what you eat alongside it decides that.