coffee health pt 2

Academics such as Professor Roland Griffiths warn against abusing caffeine’s benefits.  A Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, Griffiths told Time Magazine that for coffee binge-drinking students especially, “the stress of the deadline can be exaggerated by the caffeine.”  Research conducted at Duke University suggests that your morning dose does its work to keep you awake for 12-16 hours before needing a revival (Time Magazine, “The Newest Addicts on Campus”).  At this point, you feel groggy and go to bed.  During sleep, the body is deprived of caffeine, making mornings especially difficult, only to be remedied by the much-needed morning dose of caffeine. 

This never-ending cycle is maintained by the body’s constant craving for caffeine and the ups and downs of withdrawal.  Drinking coffee, then, according to Jim Lane at Duke University, is necessary to “restore normal functioning rather than to feel more alert than usual” (Time Magazine, “The Newest Addicts on Campus”).

 A study by the Journal of American Diabetic Association revealed that 90 percent of adults consume caffeine every day.  Caffeinated beverages are clearly no longer simply symbols of upper-middle class leisure; we have become a culture desperately dependent on the coffee bean as a commodity, self-consciously perpetuating the cycle of withdrawal and temporary relief.

Whether you are hitting the books, procrastinating, or catching up with other sleep deprived friends, just remember: that cup of coffee connects you to a network of global trade and centuries worth of beans ground and consumed by fellow idlers across the globe.

get your fix

Coffee culture remains strong in Europe and the US.  A Reuters report in May 2011 by Nigel Hunt maintains the leader board of coffee consumers in favor of the US and Brazil—although Scandinavian countries hold the record in terms of consumption per capita.  With Starbucks Coffee International looking to expand its base in China from 450 to 1,500 outlets by 2015, as president John Culver told Reuters, China may well be the world’s next top consumer. 

(image: Financial Times)

In fact, on June 1st, 2011, Starbucks signed an agreement with Hong Kong’s Maxim’s Caterers Ltd.  This contract gives Starbucks “full control of more than half of the Starbucks retail stores in Mainland China as it looks to accelerate growth in the future.”  For Culver, this take over is “part of our broader strategy to build China as our second home market outside of the U.S."

According to data compiled by the International Coffee Organization, the total consumption of 60-kg bags of coffee beans in 2009 by the US alone, totaled to 21,435,967 bags.  Importing over 2,772 million pounds of coffee beans in 2009 alone, the US remains one of the top two consumers in the world.  

Brazil is both a top producer and consumer: in the ICO 2009 study, Brazil’s domestic consumption amounted to 18,390,000 bags, totaling 2,376 million pounds of coffee beans. 

Americans consume 25 percent of the world’s coffee market. According to the National Coffee Association, 167 million American coffee consumers downed 6.3 billion gallons of coffee last year.  As demonstrated by the International Coffee Organization’s 2009 data, the American per capita rate of consumption averages to 3.14 kg.  This is relatively low compared to Norway’s 8.92 kg per capita.  The world’s leader, in terms of per capita consumption, was Finland with 11.92 kg.  

back in the day

By the early-sixteenth century, coffee had necessitated the creation of its own institution: the coffeehouse.  With the spread of such novel public places throughout the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, a distinct culture of urban leisure began to take shape.  

For Ralph S. Hattox, author of Coffee and Coffeehouses, the coffeehouses of Istanbul were the new secular centers where the exclusively male cliental could exchanging ideas.  These medieval café dwellers were seen as “young idlers” and “professional loungers” participating in the unrespectable trend of ‘utlah, or ‘doing nothing.’  The scholar Kâtib Çelebi linked the coffeehouse culture of Istanbul with the city’s clandestine world of “loose living” (Hattox).  Despite the negative associations with the drink, coffee was and remains to this day, a public affair. 

European centers of commerce followed suit in the seventeenth century as coffee culture spread to London and Paris via Venice, then over to the American colonies. In his book Tastes of Paradise, Wolfgang Schivelbusch uses London as case study.  By 1700, the city boasted about 3,000 coffeehouses for its population of 600,000.

Lloyds of London, now a major insurance company, started out as a coffeehouse in the eighteenth century.

Coffee and tea were already international commodities by the seventeenth century, stimulating colonial investments and trade to cater to the emerging European culture of leisure.  Middle class intellectual culture was kept satisfied with goods from the colonies in a system much akin to the modern importation of coffee beans.

“black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love”

The best part of finals week: half priced coffee at the CoHo.

While the library is the prime study spot, the Coffee House is equipped with more than silent cubicles—with finals creeping up, the CoHo will be your best study buddy.

Walking into the UC Davis Coffee House you can feel the buzz--the music, the chatter, and the frantic flipping of pages.  Students with their noses in books fight through mental anguish amidst the distinct aroma of freshly-ground coffee.  

Every so often, a drink is made ready at the counter—calls to claim a “double mocha for Tom” or a “soy latte for Sophie” ring out through this oasis for students on their way to and from class, seeking that extra boost to get them through the day.  For some, myself included, a visit to the CoHo is part of the daily grind.  With a cup of coffee in hand, you can take on the day, fully caffeinated and ready for anything.

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Everyday in every country, coffee is consumed by the gallons.  Coffee has fostered its own culture sparked by its mythical discovery in the ninth century.  Since then, the beans have become a commodity with a complex system of varieties, growers and distributers as complex as the wine industry.  Today, Americans are the world’s most avid consumers of what has become an essential beverage. 

You can’t get more eloquent than CharlesMaurice de Tallyrand-Périgord when he described coffee in the early nineteenth century: “black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” From the sixteenth century coffeehouses of the Ottoman Empire, coffee culture has evolved into the present day’s grab-and-go caffeine dealers like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.  With ninety-percent of Americans getting their caffeine fix satisfied daily, you have to wonder at the lengths we will go to for that extra kick—often at the expense of the environment and our own peace of mind.