Wait, mold-free coffee? Unless you’re a java aficionado (or a toxicologist), you probably had no idea that there was ever even a possibility of mold lurking in your morning mud. But Asprey’s right: Coffee beans can harbor a type of toxic mold called ochratoxin A (OTA). It’s no secret that mold loves warm, moist environments, which pretty much sums up the climate of most coffee-growing regions. So when fresh green coffee beans aren’t properly dried—usually due to cheap, low-quality processing where manufacturers neglect to clean their equipment or are careless about storage—the gross fungi could start to grow, says Andrew Hetzel, who leads training courses for the Coffee Quality Institute. And since the roasting process doesn’t totally kill OTA, the mold could still be living on beans sitting on store shelves. MORE: Four Must-Know Secrets to Cold-Brew Coffee Before you start losing sleep over whether or how much fungi there is in your trusty pick-me-up, a few facts, first: Yes, in high doses, OTA is bad for you, because it’s toxic to your kidneys and is probably a carcinogen. The only thing is, you’d probably die from caffeine overload before you were able to consume enough mold from coffee to cause any real problems. “This goes back to the principle that it’s the dose that makes the poison. And the levels [of OTA] that are detected in coffee are very, very low,” says Norbert Kaminski, PhD, director of the Center for Integrative Toxicology at Michigan State University. In fact, one Spanish study found that drinking four cups of coffee a day exposed people to a level of mold that was still 98% lower than the safe limit established by the FAO and WHO. And then again, your coffee might not have any OTA in it to begin with. “It’s highly unlikely that anyone in the United States would encounter such a thing,” Hetzel says. “The moldy coffee would be first rejected by export quality control in the country of origin, second by the import company if it slips through or is damaged in transit, and then by the purchasing coffee roaster.” MORE: How Science is Messing with Your Morning Coffee Still, if you aren’t ready to blindly trust government entities to keep your edibles safe (we hear ya), shop smart. Buy your beans from a local roaster who is proud to let you know exactly where they get their stuff. And if you do somehow come home with a freak bad batch, you’ll know. The dry grounds will smell funky, not fresh. And the taste of the brewed stuff? “As you may expect…like an old shower curtain that needs cleaning,” Hetzel says. Delicious.
