Culinary, Health, Science And Society

Coffee

44 Comments

I had started choking it down every morning because I thought that there were health benefits. But the evidence isn’t really that compelling. Patricia kicked her habit in April, so I wasn’t making it every morning any more, and I rarely wanted to go to the trouble of making a couple cups just for me. So I guess I’m off it for now.

[Late-afternoon update]

Note: I am not criticizing anyone whose body chemistry enables them to enjoy drinking the stuff; to each his own. I’m simply amused by people who think that I’m a terrible person because I never have, and continue to not do so, no matter how much I drink, or how it is prepared. I will say, though, that at a hotel in Vienna, I had (included in the price of the room) lattes that were less than terrible, but still not worth drinking absent any potential health benefits.

44 thoughts on “Coffee”

  1. What a non-story.

    I love coffee, and take it like I like my women – without cream and/or sugar.

    My younger son recently turned me on to something that makes a huger difference than I would have thought possible: a burr grinder. Unlike the inexpensive blade grinders, burr grinders provide a more uniform grind, with far less heating on the beans. The improvement in flavor is astonishing.

  3. IMHO, coffee is a matter of taste – some people like it, some do not. Not everyone is the same.

    I like coffee (if it’s good coffee), and drink it for that reason. I don’t like hot tea (also claimed to have a few health benefits, and also rather sparse on proof, like coffee). I don’t drink hot tea. (I love iced tea, though).

    1. I will note that some coffee lovers, even some commenters at this benighted website, cannot grok that it is in fact possible to not like it, and get upset when I describe the swill by its correct name. I won’t name names, but the guilty know whom they are. 🙂

  4. A few years back I worked in one of those open offices where various dissimilar groups get crammed together into a large room. Several of the people there were really into their fresh ground coffee. Which would stink the place up. One day one of them was declaiming on how no one doesn’t like the smell of coffee. I finally spoke up and said, “I think it smells like cow shit.” And it does. Maybe it’s genetic, like the people who dislike cilantro, but the stuff does have a vague barnyard aroma. The stinks remained, but at least he shut up for the rest of the day.

    1. My theory is the evolutionary adaptation to cringe at food and drink associated with being sick, especially as a young person.

      As a child whenever I felt sick to my stomach, which can happen a lot until you build up immunity to various viral strains, I was given a coffee can. Feeling nauseous, I would plant my face in front of the open can and breathe in the aroma of rancid coffee residue.

      Unlike Rand, I cannot even choke the stuff down.

        1. Soup?

          Those things make soup?

          If I ever return to my office, I am going to get me one of those puppies. There is no law I have to make coffee in it.

  7. It’s all in the preparation. I roast my own beans, give them an espresso grind, then place the powder on a mirror and arrange it into lines.

  8. Told you years ago that if you hate the taste, that’s probably your body’s way of telling you it doesn’t benefit from it. So now you finally believe some acadweeb from U Singapore where you wouldn’t believe me? Gee, thanks.

    Well, at least maybe you’ll stop wasting people’s time now baiting them into trying to change your mind when it was never gonna change.

    No problem. More for the rest of us.

    1. I was never trying to “bait anyone into trying to change my mind.” I never had a goal to have my mind changed. I was just expressing my thoughts on my blog, which is the closest thing I have to a diary. You have always seemed much more obsessed about the subject than I have ever been (though I will admit to trolling coffee fanatics, not that you’re necessarily one). I’ve always just found it amusing that “I can’t do this until I’ve had my coffee.” I’ve never understood either that concept, or actually enjoying coffee.

      Since you like it, and I like you, I’m very happy that you’ll get more coffee, if that actually happens, and you actually need more coffee, though I highly doubt that my consumption level, or lack thereof, has ever driven the market, or ever will. Even with the enormous world-changing influence of this blog. 🙂

  9. I abide by the rather old fashioned idea that what you drink or don’t drink is really none of my business. I happen to like coffee, a lot. Others don’t. That doesn’t mean those people are horrible, worthless human beings. It just means coffee isn’t their thing. As long as none of us tries to use the power of the state in enforce our tastes on others, we can all live in harmony.

  10. I made it well into my thirties hating coffee.

    Then, one winter’s day, inspired by a Larry Niven story, I tried Irish Coffee.

    It was, apparently, the reason Darwin gave me taste buds. It lit up circuits I didn’t know I had, in a very good way.

    When I tried non-Irish coffee, (but with cream & sugar) it was still delicious, but not the peak experience of coffee. And I started drinking it routinely.

    Now, I just have one cuppa on waking, and occasional Irish, which is still delicious–but not fabulous.

    It does not help me wake up, though any caffeine can keep me uselessly awake when I nned to sleep, taken within six hours of bedtime.

    I can make no comment whatsoever on anyone else’s tastes. My own seem decidedly odd.

  11. I never developed a taste for it, but it smells great. I do drink lots of tea. On the body chemistry issue; I can’t handle caffeine. Just a small soda with caffeine at 8am will keep me up for the next 20 hours, and then I’ll have some withdrawal symptoms. So even the tea I drink is decaffeinated. I know that will upset a few. I see “check light” above has a somewhat similar issue with caffeine, and I agree, the awake part is useless because my ability to concentrate is less.

    1. My morning routine included a large travel mug of coffee that went to work with me each morning. On the day I retired, I retired my travel mug. Haven’t had a coffee for almost 2 years now. And haven’t missed it. However I occasionally will wander past and take a deep wiff of my wife’s steaming hot cup. I do sometimes miss the smell of that cup of hot coffee.

  12. Rand I knwo some peopel who love grapefruit and others who can’t stand the taste. IT’s a personal/body chemistry thing. No worries.

    And we don’t think yo are terrible because you don’t like it:

    We just think you are disadvantaged, and deserve reparations 😉

  13. I drink coffee with sugar and heavy cream, Bushmills optional.

    The underlying smell and taste of coffee is determined by species (robusta or arabica), regional soil, roast (I prefer light, to avoid the ashtray smell), and grind (burr). The barnyard aroma comes from coffees grown in South America. I prefer native Ethiopian coffees, which tend to be sourish.

    That said, my favorite caffinated beverage is chocolate, also with sugar and heavy cream. (For the guy who prefers his women bitter and black, to each a zone. I like mine sweet and vaguely intoxicating.)

    1. “I drink coffee with sugar and heavy cream, Bushmills optional.”

      “That effer drank his coffee with a Big Old shot of Weed”
      Jeremiah Weed, Dos Gringos

      2. I had to think about that for a minute. I never really liked blended whiskies, so it’s Bushmills single malts (when I can get them) over Jamesons. I come from a boozy family, so when Grandpa died (from cirrhosis, of course) Dad and I drank the unopened bottle of orginal (pre-1954) Tullamore Distant-Early-Warning we found in his cabinet. Of course at 12, I mainly experienced “whiskeyness,” but I’m still glad for the memory. Dad told me the “D’you mind if I pass it through me kidneys first?” quip that day, before we went out and planted to old man.

  14. After I became allergic to coffee (which is rare but a real thing that happens to people) I had to switch to tea. Last week I had mild headaches and yesterday I noticed that I’d accidentally been drinking decaffeinated tea and had probably been having mild caffeine withdrawals.

    1. Some sizeable percentage of coffeine addicts get their fix from colas. I’ve known a number of (to me) lunatics who drink a 16oz Diet Pepsi first thing. Gah!

  15. “”There’s been so much back-and-forth over the years about whether caffeine is good or bad,” said Wright, who was not involved in the review. “So it’s good to come back to the evidence.””

    But this time…

  16. There is only one good reason to drink coffee – caffeine.

    Everything else is just fluff dressing up why you do it – to get caffeine. Man, when you can feel the fire coursing through your veins after a half-dozen espressos, whoa nelly, that’s when you know you’re alive (but maybe for not too much longer if you keep it up…).

    As John Belushi noted: “Coffee and cigarettes – the breakfast of champions”

      1. I used to have a girl friend who drank pureed wheat grass because she thought it was good for her and no other reason. It tasted much worse than coffee.

  17. “There is only one good reason to drink coffee – caffeine.’

    I love the taste. Strong and black (no cream or sugar) unless it’s an Irish Coffee, which I will have on occasion. But when it’s an Irish coffee you aren’t drinking coffee, you are drinking a coffee-flavored cocktail.

  19. I very much enjoy my morning cup of coffee and, occasionally, a cup after a nice meal in a fine restaurant. My wife enjoys the aroma of coffee, but can’t stand the taste. De gustibus non disputandem est. That said, you are obviously a Communist. 😉

  21. Okay, so, we’ve established that Rand does not like coffee. I think it’s time, in the spirit of the current demented age, to focus on what the means. It means, of course, that he’s raaacist, because coffee is black.

    And then there’s the whole adding cream or milk thing… very clearly, that’s whitening, and thus racist. (Almost as bad as wearing blackface – unless you’re a lefty like the Canadian PM, the VA governor, etc, for whom blackface is just fine….).

    Of course, if Rand liked coffee, no one would call him racist for not liking coffee. They’d call him racist for liking it instead.

    🙂

  22. I’ve been living with a non-coffee drinker for over a quarter of a century. Except for the two years or so that her mother lived with us before cancer took her, I’ve been the only coffee drinker in the house.

    More for me, except in the summer months when I too become essentially a non-drinker…

    On the bright side, she also doesn’t like beer, wine, or spirits — so, again, more for me.

  23. I used to drink two Mr. Coffee pots a day, starting in graduate school (1978) and ending when I was in the middle of running my own companies (2000). My consumption went way, way down after that. Now I just drink it for pleasure, but I understand that it isn’t for everyone. In fact, my older son can’t eat broccoli, as 50% of the population can’t. It’s an enzymatic thing, where taste is either fine or horrific.

    In the past, I drank it for pleasure AND stimulation. The stimulation part went away after about 2005, even though I was working in a higher energy environment (the XPRIZE Foundation). Red Bull became my substitute. Now I drink it just because I enjoy it (a lot), but never for stimulation. And I drink only a couple of cups a day.

    I never did drink it for any health benefits, because I never had any proof that any existed (except to cure migraine headaches, which it definitely does). However, I was never dissuaded by arguments of negative health effects, because all were refuted very quickly.

    As I wrote above, this is a non-story. Either you like coffee or you don’t. There’s no objective reason for either that anyone currently knows, nor does it matter. And now there’s no objective harm or benefit, despite decades of attempts to prove harm. And I can’t argue with your characterization of coffee. I’ve been turned off of certain foods which were improperly prepared (zucchini and Brussels sprouts, both of which I love when properly prepared). Today, there’s almost no food or beverage I find repugnant. But I also realize that that is just me, and it wasn’t “me” of 60 years ago.

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