Brandeis Magazine

By David Levin

Java lovers everywhere will be buzzed to learn a newly commercialized technology from Brandeis can unlock powerful health benefits from coffee beans.

Raw green coffee beans contain antioxidant molecular compounds that can help regulate metabolism, and limit oxidative and inflammatory stress. Yet the high temperatures needed to roast coffee beans for drinking destroy these molecules. To obtain any health benefits from the compounds, organic solvents had to be used to release them.

Then, over the past several years, senior research scientist Dan Perlman created a way to consume raw coffee beans by turning them into a fine flour that could be added to baked goods.

“My logic was, why throw all these extraction solvents at coffee beans, which increases the cost and complexity of getting those antioxidants?” he says. “If you could just grind them up finely, you’d get all the benefits by simply eating the flour prepared from the beans.”

The solution seemed simple. However, green coffee beans proved difficult to grind into a fine, fluffy powder, and the resulting flour tasted unpleasantly bitter and grassy.

So Perlman developed a method for parbaking the beans at a low temperature, which dries them and mellows their flavor without destroying their antioxidants. Then the beans can be milled into a fine flour using specialized high-velocity machinery.

Brandeis’ Office of Technology Licensing recently commercially licensed the technology to Greenwood Innovation, a startup that has exclusive rights to sell the product under the name JavaPower.

By adding small amounts of coffee flour to baked goods, consumers can easily obtain the benefits of its antioxidants. Coffee flour could also provide a novel way to get a morning energy boost: a 5-10% substitution of wheat flour with JavaPower gives a single muffin the equivalent caffeine of up to one cup of coffee.

The licensing deal reflects Brandeis’ commitment to fostering innovation and promoting healthier food alternatives on a global scale, says Rebecca Menapace, executive director of the university’s Office of Technology Licensing and associate provost for innovation.

“The introduction of JavaPower coffee bean flour to the commercial food industry is a testament to Brandeis University’s ongoing efforts to bridge the gap between nutrition, health, and innovation,” she says.

For Perlman, coffee flour is one more success story in a career filled with unique inventions. Most notably, he co-developed Smart Balance, a nondairy spread that helps lower blood cholesterol, with professor emeritus of biology K.C. Hayes in 1995.

“My goal has always been to create ingredients that not only enhance the nutritional profile of foods but also contribute to the global demand for sustainable and health-promoting ingredients,” Perlman says.