Missing the regular coffee posts? Don’t forget thebeanstalker.com – where you’ll also see this video posted. Amongst other coffee related gems.
The video claims, rightly or not, that the Enlightenment was fuelled by caffeine. Don’t believe it? Check out this further video.
The other day I tracked down ten health benefits of caffeine for a post I wrote on thebeanstalker.com – 10 majestic pieces of scientific proof that drinking coffee is good for your health. Caffeine is good for you. And that article proves it.
So, here’s a shirt to go with it, a nice play on the Rick James sketches from the Chappelle Show.
You can get it here.
Harvard’s med school put together a bit of an infographic about the health benefits of caffeine. You should totally start drinking it (though there are downsides).
Some people think caffeine gives them a boost. And it does. Back to your normal baseline.
Apparently your daily pick me up is more “pick me back up” than a boost to your performance.
Peter Rogers, from the University of Bristol’s Department of Experimental Psychology and one of the lead authors of the study, said: “Our study shows that we don’t gain an advantage from consuming caffeine — although we feel alerted by it, this is caffeine just bringing us back to normal. On the other hand, while caffeine can increase anxiety, tolerance means that for most caffeine consumers this effect is negligible.”
Approximately half of the participants were non/low caffeine consumers and the other half were medium/high caffeine consumers. All were asked to rate their personal levels of anxiety, alertness and headache before and after being given either the caffeine or the placebo. They were also asked to carry out a series of computer tasks to test for their levels of memory, attentiveness and vigilance.
Like all drug addicts I drink caffeine for the taste, and not for the effect… and to get rid of my nasty withdrawal headaches without resorting to nurofen (panadol doesn’t work).
Caffeine. Check.
Bacon. Check.
Maple Syrup. Check.
Lollipop. Check.
All in one delicious morsel. Check, check, check, check this out…
Caffeinated bacon and maple flavoured lollipops. For sale. For real.
You’ll never catch me drinking decaf. But it’s not because I drink coffee for the caffeine hit. You can get caffeine from so many other places that it’s just not worth the effort of drinking a less than optimal coffee.
If you’ve been reading for a while you would have caught this infographic about how healthy different drinks are for you based on sugar content.
Wired has a fascinating look at the chemicals at play in your daily espresso.
Here’s my favourite part of the chemical equation (if you thought caffeine you were wrong):
Trigonelline
Chemically, it’s a molecule of niacin with a methyl group attached. It breaks down into pyridines, which give coffee its sweet, earthy taste and also prevent the tooth-eating bacterium Streptococcus mutans from attaching to your teeth. Coffee fights the Cavity Creeps.
Coffee withdrawal headaches hurt. Mikey reports that ibuprofen will fix them…
But you’ve got to wonder – if you’re getting coffee headaches are you at the stage where your addiction is harmful? Possibly. So just how much coffee can you drink before it kills you? This site can answer your query. And it’s not limited to coffee, any caffeinated beverage will do.
Ever wondered just how much caffeine is in your morning cuppa? No? Well, I have, so this article was interesting to me.
Apparently Robusta has twice the caffeine content of the much nicer Arabica. It also produces a better crema – but tastes like burnt rubber (kudos to Coffee Dominion for that description). I wonder if there’s a link between caffeine content and crema?
Anyway. Here are some figures from the article by Jerry Baldwin – one of the cofounders of Starbucks (he sold his share in 1987).
“In a couple of studies testing 90 different Arabica cultivars, the caffeine content varied between 0.42 and 2.9%. My morning cup would then vary between 84 and 580 milligrams, depending on which of these varieties was in my cup.”
“If your morning cup came from a commercial roaster who included Robusta in the blend, we have another level of complexity. Caffeine content in these coffees, in one study, varied between 1.16 and 4.0%. A straight 12 oz. cup, using 20 grams of the 4% coffee, probably wouldn’t taste very good, but would definitely provide more buzz: 800 milligrams of caffeine.”
“An espresso made from 100% Arabica, on average, has about 70 milligrams of caffeine per shot; a 12 oz. cup of drip coffee made my way in a press pot, using two scoops of coffee per 12-ounce cup — would have 200 milligrams.”
Also awesome, also from ThinkGeek. This one’s $7.99.
This new printer is going to give caffeine addicts a new quick fix. Struggling through the onset of a caffeine headache? Just eat that document you’ve just printed.
That’s right. This technology uses used coffee grounds as ink. That’s a printer that would be pretty sustainable in our household. Currently we put our coffee grounds in the garden. It’s a labour intensive printing process – but ink is pretty expensive and apparently bad for the environment.
Cool shirt from Digital Militia – a website that offers a range of your favourite products in molecular form. That’s caffeine in the image above.
I’m home sick today with a particularly nasty head cold complete with dizziness and all the usual symptoms. Bleh.
Does anyone have any particularly potent remedies I should try? I’m not sure that coffee does anything for a head cold so I’m open to suggestions outside my normal method of dealing with aches and pains (they’re usually induced by caffeine withdrawal).
I read somewhere, and have observed personally, that coffee tastes suspiciously like vegemite when taken with particular strains head cold. I also think Hahn Light tastes like vegemite but that’s entirely another matter.