The Healthy Bean

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Eight years ago I reviewed a West Hollywood restaurant that featured an oxygen bar. How times have changed. Now WeHo has an antioxidant coffee shop.

The Healthy Bean says that many of coffee’s antioxidant properties are lost during roasting, so it infuses its beans with a low-lactose whey protein and antioxidant compounds (in a process that’s patented!). The result? According to the company’s website, a 12-ounce serving of Healthy Bean coffee contains the antioxidant properties of a cup of green tea, a cup of grape juice, a cup of pomegranate juice and two tablespoons of wild blueberries, plus the protein of a hard-boiled egg. So it’s practically a whole meal, except for having no fiber.

The company says it infuses organic, Fair Trade-certified beans from Ethiopia, Sumatra and South America with all this nutrition. Also comes in decaf and vanilla.

You order downstairs from the usual sort of coffeehouse menu -- a single cappuccino is $3.25. If you want, you can take it up an iron staircase to a pleasant loft fitted out with comfortable leather chairs and New Age-y modern art of a soothing stripe. The shop’s front window continues up to the second floor, offering a nice view of the Hollywood Hills.

The coffee? Despite all that nutrition, it tastes pretty much like coffee, perhaps a little less bitter. And I do feel vibrant health coursing through my veins. Or maybe that’s just the caffeine talking.

The Healthy Bean, 8470 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; (323) 848-9401.

-- Charles Perry