Monday Morning Coffee News

Happy Monday! Some interesting coffee-related news from last week (also, Hey Guys! Haven’t seen you for awhile! 😀 ): A recently presented study looked further into the possible link between coffee consumption and a lowered risk of developing endometrial cancer, Keurig promised to start rolling out recyclable K-cups by the end of this year, and Starbucks had a busy week bringing back the S’mores Frappuccino, opening it’s first store in South Africa, and even launching their own line of emojis.

You may remember last year when I mentioned a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention which looked at the dietary habits of more than 2,800 women diagnosed with endometrial cancer (cancer in the lining of the uterus) and found a lowered risk of approximately 18% for developing endometrial cancer in women who drank upwards of 4 cups of coffee a day. A more recent study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting looked at 19 previous studies, using data from around 40,000 women (12,000 diagnosed with endometrial cancer and 28,000 who hadn’t) and found a similar correlation, with women who consumed upwards of 4 cups of coffee a day having a lowed risk of about 22% (when compared with non-coffee drinkers) and those who consumed around 2-3 cups having a lowered risk of around 7%. Some new information came out of the study as well: these results only seemed to hold true for women who’s BMI indicated they were overweight or obese, women’s whose BMI indicated their weight was in the normal range showed no increased benefit from drinking coffee (the head researcher, Marta Crous-Bou, a research fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, did note that “a higher BMI is a strong risk factor for endometrial cancer”). Another interesting note is that according to the study, while caffeinated coffee produces a statistically significant decrease in risk, neither tea nor decaf coffee seem to have the same effect. Further studies are still needed, but according to Crous-Bou researchers think the mechanism for why consuming coffee may lead to a lower risk of developing endometrial cancer has to do with certain compounds in coffee that may decrease levels of estrogen and insulin, which have been shown to play a role in the development of endometrial cancer.

Since 2014 Keurig has been promising to make K-Cups recyclable – and in 2016 they’re starting to make good on that promise by rolling out select recyclable K-Cup pods later this year. They hope to increase the percentage of recyclable K-Cups produced until they reach 100% – by 2020. The New York Times has an interesting article about why Keurig began using 100% not recyclable plastic for their K-Cups to begin with (it has to do with using containers meant for salad dressing) and just why it’s taken so long for them to make the transition to recyclable (apparently it’s a pretty tough job to be a K-Cup – who knew?). Anyway, it’s worth a read: Keurig’s New K-Cup Coffee Is Recyclable, but Hardly Green

Starting April 23rd and continuing until the end of summer, the much loved S’mores Frappuccino can once again be purchased at participating Starbucks® stores in the U.S. and Canada (YES!). In case you’ve forgotten (but, really, how could you have?), the S’mores Frappuccino has marshmallow-infused whipped cream and milk chocolate sauce on the bottom of the cup with a blend of coffee, milk and ice on top and then covered in more marshmallow-infused whipped cream and sprinkled with graham cracker crumbles. Last week Starbucks also opened up their first store in South Africa on April 21st in Johannesburg, South Africa. You can see a video of the grand opening below:

In other Starbucks news, they just released their own line of emojis which I suddenly realized I’d been missing from my life. Of course I ran to immediately download said emojis and couldn’t find them in the app store! When I did finally locate the app, I was disappointed to see the not-so-good reviews for it which say the app crashes, is difficult to use, and misleading (a few said the “emojis” are actually just pictures that come out huge). I guess I’ll have wait a little longer for all the little bugs to get worked out before I download this.