Coffee is an important part of many people’s daily routine. But it is the number one contributor to the high acid diet of the average American. That is why people are switching to a low acid coffee - find out why are you missing out!

Why You Should Drink Low Acid Coffee Now.

If you don't know what a low acid coffee is, you have come to the right place. Currently, there is no federal standard on how to define a low acid coffee. From a scientific perspective, it is any coffee that can achieve a PH above 5.5. Remember a High PH = Low Acid. You see any beverage with a PH below 5.5 can erode your teeth and has been known to cause acid reflux, GERD, heartburn, weight gain, muscle fatigue, etc. They call 5.5 the Critical PH. Unfortunately, coffee sits well below the critical PH line at 4.8-5.2, and because we consume so much - coffee with high acid can be a primary cause for bad gut health.

Low Acid Coffee Science

There are historical reasons for why coffee has high acid, which we will discuss later. It turns out coffee was not always this acidic. But the fact is, if you are buying coffee in the US, you can bet your bottom dollar that it is a high acid coffee.

Technically speaking, to drink the best low acid coffee, the PH should be above 5.5 (again, high PH means low acid). The first published paper on commercial low acid coffee was in 2009 by Dr. Taka Shibamoto. Before this, the concept of low acid coffee in the US did not exist, or in other words, there was no such thing as a natural low acid coffee. Dr. Shibamoto's research recognized only one coffee brand as a true low acid coffee, Puroast Coffee. To this day, No Other Coffee Company has published research confirming the low acidity of their coffee. Even so, this was a bigger discovery in the world of coffee science than it was in the commercial coffee industry. You see, high acidity was not a concern for coffee drinkers at the time. Dr. Shibamoto, on the other hand, was so surprised to discover a true low acid coffee, he published 3 more papers on it. Eventually, he presented the low acid coffee research results to the American Chemical Society .

How Do You Make Low Acid Coffee?

The question the scientific world had after confirming Dr. Shibamoto's results was, how? How did this commercial brand produce an actual low acid coffee without adding any chemicals?  Well to better understand how Puroast Coffee was able to create a true low acid coffee, we have to go back to the beginning

Zero-Energy and Sustainability

Before Puroast Coffee began, the founder and owner of Puroast Coffee invented a furnace that ran off biomass at a 99%+ combustion efficiency. To this day, it is still an unparalleled feat of engineering in the renewable energy technology industry. In 1980, he decided to travel to Venezuela where he felt there would be better opportunity for this renewable energy. He eventually was to meet with the coffee farmers in the Andes.  They were immediately enthusiastic about using coffee waste as a fuel for drying their coffee beans. They harvested their coffee, then instead of throwing the waste shells away, they were able to dry their coffee using the coffee beans shells as fuel inside the renewable energy furnace. It was a completely sustainable cycle, zero-waste.

The Traditions of Coffee

At the same time, the founder of Puroast coffee, Kerry Sachs, fell in love with their coffee. He started drinking the same coffee the farmers brewed - he and the tech team spent a lot of time on plantations installing equipment, so naturally they would drink and eat with the farmers.  For the first time in his life, he realized he loved the taste of coffee.

In the United States, he could never have said that - coffee was a bitter, black pill you drank for the caffeine. But in the Andes, with the coffee farmers, coffee was a magical drink that tasted great and made you feel amazing. He had to know the secret, why was it so good, and so different from the coffee he had in the US? He asked them, and the coffee farmers told him it is an ancient roasting style and technique that goes back when they first started growing coffee in the mountains. Kerry knew he needed to learn this secret.

The Ancient Secret of Coffee Roasting

He asked the farmers if they would teach him this ancient art of roasting. They told him as long as his renewable energy technology kept working, they will teach him whatever he wants to know. The only trouble was he had to learn Spanish!  He stayed with them on the farms for a year learning everything there is to know about coffee. In the process of living with the coffee farmers, he learned the true values of coffee roasting. This changed everything for him.

A few years later he would return to the United States and realized he wanted to roast coffee the way he learned to roast in the Andes Mountains. He couldn't imagine why anyone would roast coffee any other way but quickly realized it was because of the profit margins generated by the US Coffee market. It was cheaper to make bad coffee! So, no one was willing to roast coffee the traditional and tasteful way. And even if they were willing, they had the trouble of not knowing how to do it!

To learn why coffee roasting fundamentally changed from the traditional styles during the 1950's, look out for the new blog coming soon on the history of coffee - it is very enlightening.

But back to Low Acid Coffee!

Low Acid Coffee and the United States

Kerry and the tech team came back to the US on a mission to roast coffee the right way and bring some traditional coffee culture into the US. But the question was how? The market was so competitive with price since current roasters are able to cut corners and effectively burn the coffee bean while the traditional method required an emphasis on quality. Then he realized he could use his renewable energy technology to compete with costs, roast coffee in a completely sustainable way, and still make that absolutely amazing coffee he had on the veranda in the Andes. He realized with the renewable energy; he could produce the quality without sacrificing quantity.

Planting the Low Acid Coffee Seed

So, you must be asking, what does any of this have to do with low acid coffee? If you made it this far, you are about to find out. Kerry began roasting coffee in the US and co-founded Puroast Coffee with his brother James in the late 1990's. But Dr. Taka Shibamoto did not discover the low acidity in Puroast's commercially sold coffee until 2009. So, what did low acid coffee mean before this discovery? Absolutely nothing. Puroast Coffee simply grew slowly as a small company selling a premium quality coffee that people began to fall in love with mostly because of its unique and exquisite flavor.

But slowly... letters were trickling in of people absolutely amazed of what was happening with them. They told of stories where they could never drink coffee anymore because of their stomach issues with ulcers, acid reflux and other gut health problems. But suddenly, after drinking Puroast, they could drink coffee again without any problems!  This was a revelation to them.

Puroast Coffee Discovers Low Acid Coffee

And after a while, Puroast began to think there was something going on. Beyond just a great coffee, maybe there was something deeper?

These letters inspired Puroast Coffee to talk to Dr. Taka Shibamoto, a world-renown coffee scientist. After persistent and (not so) gentle urging, Dr. Shibamoto decided to entertain Puroast’s request to test the coffee. This is the moment Dr. Taka Shibamoto discovered the first commercial low acid coffee. Even to this day, Dr. Shibamoto still marvels at how Puroast Coffee invented the first low acid coffee in the US. But, in fact, this is not true. Low acid coffee was not invented by Puroast Coffee, and it was not really discovered by Dr. Taka Shibamoto. Low Acid Coffee is the original history of coffee. It was discovered by the Coffee growers themselves. It goes back to the beginning of coffee.

A Brief History of Low Acid Coffee

The Coffee bean journey starts as a green bean in the jungle of certain regions in the world, and begins with a low acidity (around 6.0 PH). After roasting, traditionally, the PH ends between 5.6-5.8 on average. During the 1950's, commercial roasting took over, and speed/quantity were prioritized over quality. The PH of coffee began to drop, and therefore the acid levels went way up, significantly. Today, the average PH of brewed coffee sits between 4.8-5.2. These are the PH levels that Dr. Taka Shibamoto was expecting to see when he tested Puroast Coffee. Not so, instead he found a PH of 5.9. To achieve this result without adding chemicals, was unheard of and unprecedented in the commercial world of coffee. This caused Dr. Shibamoto to investigate further.

What Happens to the Acid?

One of his colleagues, when presented the results, asked what turned about to be an extremely important question. Where did all the acid go? They tested the chemistry of Puroast Coffee even further. Lo' and behold - Puroast Coffee also had more than 5x the antioxidants of all other commercial coffees. This now started to piece together a startling puzzle. They discovered that Puroast Coffee's unique style of roasting, converted the acid into an antioxidant called flavenol. No wonder Puroast Coffee had such great flavor, it was the flavenols! So, they were right, the coffee had something deeper to it. There was a chemistry behind the experience Kerry had on the veranda, drinking coffee the way coffee farmers roasted it. An explanation behind the mystery of coffee Kerry had first uncovered in the Andes. There was a science to it!

This is why I had to explain to you the history of low acid coffee. You had to read this to understand what Low Acid Coffee really means. Low Acid Coffee means roasting coffee the way it used to be roasted. Roasting Coffee the way coffee was meant to be roasted. Low Acid Coffee means, everyone in South America drinks an espresso after dinner because it makes them feel better. Low Acid Coffee means everyone drinks coffee without milk or sugar. It means, real coffee, flavorful coffee, the original coffee. Low Acid Coffee is what you should be drinking.

The other coffee you have been drinking is a High Acid Coffee. A bitter coffee that needs to be doused with milk and sugar. This is what American Coffee Culture has indoctrinated you with. They used caffeine to get you addicted to an acidic drink that was produced because of profiteering. An obsession with mass production.

True Low Acid Coffee

Low Acid Coffee is so much more than Low Acid. It is a return to Quality and a scientifically measurable way to say, this coffee is better. Therefore, when you see other low acid coffee brands say they have a low acid coffee, be weary. We are not saying they are wrong. We are saying they would have published their results if they were telling the truth. Because the truth is, producing less acidic Coffee is an old traditional secret, not a trade secret.

There is one other verifiable low acid coffee company, Kava. They admit to adding potassium hydroxide to their instant coffee in order to reduce the acid. There is nothing wrong with adding chemicals to your coffee if you disclose it. But it also is not the same as producing a low acid coffee through roasting chemistry. Puroast Coffee is the only published and proven Coffee company to produce an all natural low acid coffee. If another company comes your way and tells you they have low acid coffee, then you better ask for proof! I have, so has Dr. Taka Shibamoto. So has every grocery store that continues to deny other low acid coffee brands from selling in their stores. Why else do other low acid coffee companies only sell online, and none of them publish results proving their claims?

There is a reason why Puroast Coffee is the only low acid coffee in grocery stores. Puroast Coffee is not only the best low acid coffee, but it is the only low acid coffee. Puroast sells low acid coffee in Publix, in Kroger, and at your local natural grocery store. Why? Because Puroast proudly posts their published research. It's on their website. Puroast did the hard work of discovering a Better Coffee In The world, For The World.

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