Every country likes to think their coffee is the best, but it turns out the Singapore blend of coffee might have something to it after all. According to a recent study, drinking two cups of strong locally brewed coffee a day may protect habitual cigarette smokers from developing advanced colon cancer.

But before you go dowse the health nuts in coffee dregs and cigarette butts, the study cautions that it doesn't mean people can continue smoking tobacco and avoid disease if they drink coffee. 

The study was funded by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota on over 60,000 Singaporean men and women, aged 45–74 years, who lived in HDB housing estates and were either of the Hokkien or Cantonese dialect groups. "Singapore Chinese prepare coffee in a way that likely preserves the putative chemoprotectants, cafestol and kahweol, that have been the primary focus of basic science investigations of coffee and cancer prevention," said Sabrina Peterson from University of Minnesota. We don't have the faintest idea what cafestol and kahweol are, but they sound very important.

Peterson explained that Singaporeans primarily drank coffee made by boiling ground dark roasted coffee beans with water in a pot, letting the grounds settle, and then pouring the liquid through muslin cloth filters to strain. Due to significant trapping of cafestol and kahweol found in the cloth filters, Peterson’s team assumed that these two compounds are present in significant amounts in common Singapore coffee, and may protect frequent coffee drinkers against the development of advanced colorectal cancer.

In other words, kopitiam kopi (coffeeshop coffee) is potentially good if you smoke. Just don't overdo it -- smoking can cause a lot of other lethal things besides colorectal cancer. My 20-a-day buddy's breath is just deadly.