Is Drinking Instant Coffee Healthier Than Decaf Coffee?!!

Caffeinated coffee can be a genuinely good thing — in moderation!

Coffee is more accepted and loved today than ever, and yet plenty of people still believe it's unhealthy. Their reasoning: caffeine stimulates the central nervous system, triggering sympathetic nerve excitement, which in turn stimulates heart contraction — raising heart rate and producing palpitations and similar symptoms.

Hence the familiar advice from family and friends: "All that caffeine is doing you no good!" Many who've taken the advice but can't quit coffee have switched to decaffeinated coffee instead.

Does decaf actually prevent the racing heart and palpitations? Honestly, the effect is not dramatic. Decaf is low in caffeine, not caffeine-free — if your body is sensitive to caffeine, low-caffeine coffee can still make you feel unwell.

Research on Coffee and Heart Health

Here's the better news. At the 71st Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology held in March this year, Dr. Peter M. Kistler, head of arrhythmia research at Alfred University and professor of medicine, reported that drinking coffee in moderation daily actually reduces the risk of heart disease and arrhythmias.

Dr. Kistler explained that the research drew on the large prospective UK BioBank database. The team examined coffee's effects on heart rhythms using the questionnaires patients completed at registration, comparing data from 382,500 adults without cardiovascular disease (average age 57) against 34,279 adults with some form of cardiovascular disease.

The key finding: among those without cardiovascular disease, subjects who drank 2–3 cups of coffee daily had the lowest risk of developing heart disease — and also the lowest risk of stroke or death from vascular disease.

Among patients who already had cardiovascular disease, those who drank 2–3 cups daily had a lower risk of death than those who drank none. The team also found no increased risk of heart rate problems at any level of consumption, including atrial fibrillation/flutter.

Combined Benefits of Coffee and Tea

Beyond caffeine's cardiac benefits, another medical study suggests that drinking coffee and tea together provides double protection against stroke and dementia — cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases both.

That study was published in PLoS Medicine (Public Library of Science Medicine) in 2021. Beginning in 2006, the research team followed 365,682 participants aged 50–74 from the UK Biobank through 2020.

The researchers used COX proportional hazards models to estimate the association between coffee/tea consumption and stroke and dementia, adjusting for participant weight, physical activity, alcohol status, smoking status, dietary patterns, sugary beverage intake, and other pre-existing disease risk factors.

Over the 11.4-year study period, 5,079 participants developed dementia and 10,053 suffered strokes. The analysis showed that compared with participants drinking neither coffee nor tea, those who drank 2–3 cups of coffee/tea daily had a 32% lower risk of stroke and a 28% lower risk of dementia. (This result applies to drinking only coffee or only tea.)

Combining the two was even better: compared with those drinking neither, participants who drank 0.5–1 cup of coffee plus 2–3 cups of tea daily cut the risk of post-stroke dementia by 50%, while those drinking 0.5–1 cup of coffee plus more than 4 cups of tea daily cut dementia risk by 30%. (This result applies to drinking both coffee and tea.)

After excluding other factors, the researchers found that compared with participants who drank only coffee or only tea, those who drank both had an 11% lower risk of ischemic stroke and an 18% lower risk of vascular dementia (excluding dementia caused by Alzheimer's disease).

Coffee Types and Health Benefits

The same research report ranked coffee types for dementia risk:

Compared to instant coffee, drinking ground coffee reduced the risk of vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease by 18% and 23%, respectively.

Compared to decaffeinated coffee, drinking instant coffee reduced those risks by 16% and 19%, respectively.

Compared to decaffeinated coffee, drinking ground coffee reduced them by 26% and 33%, respectively.

So the ranking, at least for brain health, is clear: ground coffee beats instant coffee, and instant coffee beats decaf.

Research on cardiovascular disease tells a similar story. Compared with non-caffeinated (or low-caffeinated) coffee, moderate daily consumption of caffeinated ground coffee and caffeinated instant coffee effectively reduces the risk of arrhythmias, cardiac artery blockage, stroke, and heart failure. Decaffeinated coffee shows no positive effect on preventing arrhythmias, though it can reduce cardiovascular diseases other than heart failure.

The Truth About Coffee's Health Impact

A crucial footnote: all the coffee in these studies refers to pure coffee itself — no sugar, no milk, no add-ins. Whatever the bean variety, coffee contains more than 100 biologically active compounds that help reduce oxidative stress and various inflammation in the body.

Coffee itself is healthy; what's unhealthy is the milk/creamer and sugar that ride along with it. Excessive intake of foods containing these two substances raises the risk of obesity and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease.

So it isn't coffee that's unhealthy — and what makes your body uncomfortable may not be caffeine at all. That said, true caffeine sensitivity does exist. If your discomfort is genuinely caused by caffeine, all coffee is off the table; switch to tea instead (milk tea doesn't count!). Tea brings its own antioxidant, anti-aging, and anti-inflammatory benefits.

Image source: Internet

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FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Lower-Caffeine Pour-Over Picks: Choose Your Beans Wisely

If you'd rather reduce caffeine than eliminate coffee, the simplest move is to skip Robusta entirely and stick with Arabica. As the world's dominant coffee species, Arabica grows at 800–2,200 meters in frost-free highlands; the higher the altitude, the greater the temperature swings, the slower the coffee cherries mature, and the more flavor compounds the beans accumulate — with more solidly developed aromas. Each region's unique microclimate adds its own terroir character on top.

For Indonesia, FrontStreet recommends the PWN Golden Mandheling. Indonesia's wet-hulled processing is a product of local necessity, but it's exactly what gives Mandheling its signature herbal, spicy, woody character — a classic among coffees. Triple hand-sorted plus machine-sorted to remove defective beans, the Golden Mandheling develops superior body, sweetness, and aroma. It suits moka pot, SOE, pour-over, drip bags, and Americano or latte. For Ethiopia, the natural-processed FrontStreet Guizi offers delicate florals with standout fruit — creamy strawberry, mango, jackfruit, citrus, blueberry — the lush berry fragrance that won first place in that year's TOH green bean competition, at a price as attractive as the cup. Suits pour-over, cold brew, moka pot, and SOE.

The washed FrontStreet Yirgacheffe Guodingding Cooperative — Ethiopia's top G1 grade, fully washed through selection, depulping, fermentation, washing, and drying — shows elegant white florals, citrus, orange, and green tea at a medium-light roast, ideal for pour-over, drip bags, and cold brew. China's FrontStreet Yunnan Small Beans (medium roast: nuts, herbs, chocolate, caramel, with a light fruity finish) and Colombia's washed FrontStreet Huila — from the country's most famous region at over 1,800 meters, with dark chocolate, cream, hazelnut, and toffee — round out a list that lets you drink less caffeine without drinking less flavor.