That aside, some gems:
“…Among certain weak natures, coffee produces only a kind of harmless congestion of the mind; instead of feeling animated, these people feel drowsy, and they say that coffee makes them sleep. Such individuals may have the legs of serfs and the stomachs of os- triches, but they are badly equipped for the work of thought.”
“If the experience of the English is typical, heavy tea-drinking will produce English moral philosophy, a tendency toward a pale complexion, hypocrisy and backbiting.”
Sounds like ADHD to me
I digress, but you will never convince me otherwise, that the wide spread promotion of amphetamines in children/young adults is anything but an experiment of Empire. I attribute the somewhat significant economic edge US society has over the rest of the world is due to its addiction to amphetamines, and the ruling classes project to push them onto working class people to make them more effective workers.
Its no different than how the Nazi's used amphetamines to simulate their population or how imperialist Japan did the same. Lets stop spreading this BS lie that stimulants calm people with ADHD down.
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mod...
The part about coffee is halfway down the page under the heading §III — du café.
Middle ages, things are a bit sleepy, dopey. Everybody is drinking beer all the time. progress runs at a slow pace.
Then there is this popular new tea sweeping the scene and boy howdy does it get you up and going. Now people are waking up and doing things.
Caffeine, It's a hell of a drug.
Definitely a lot of modern ideas and institutions had their origins in coffee shops, though.
There are accounts of discussions between Robert Hooke, Edmund Halley, and Isaac Newton in a London coffee house. It's a wine bar now and not notably highbrow :)
> In 1979, Graham bet Erdös $500 that he couldn't stop taking amphetamines for a month. Erdös accepted the challenge, and went cold turkey for thirty days. After Graham paid up--and wrote the $500 off as a business expense--Erdös said, "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." He promptly resumed taking pills, and mathematics was the better for it.
I think about this a lot. I drink a lot of coffee and I feel reasonably productive. But hey, maybe I should try something a bit stronger... :
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3872.A_History_of_the_Wo...
Don't forget the concentrated wealth created during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade through the use and selling of slaves by the Portuguese between Africa and South America
I've been drinking coffee for 20 years and had always assumed that I was just an anxious, paranoid person. Quitting made me realize that I really wasn't.
Quitting/reducing has also cured my itchy skin problem.
I also highly recommend the subreddit r/decaf as a great source of information.
Saving for later.
One day, I decided that I would quit, and what followed was around 8 days of the worst headache I have had in a long time.
Now, I wake full of energy and feeling sharp.
The smell of coffee makes me want one, but the dullness and headache are good deterrents.
In this instance I would honestly say that this choice of coffee, with so much caffeine, is a large contributor for why you had such a withdrawal. Your body probably ended up with a dependence to some degree because that's so much caffeine that it can't sorta just ignore it or manage around it.
More moderate consumption is more tolerable and often doesn't produce the same negative effects after you stop, though for some people it still does.
It's probably fine to have a coffee when you're craving it, couple times a week. Perhaps stick to a typical bean rather than nuclear-grade like you're used to? :P
Caffeine does benefit people with certain forms of brain chemistry, and for folks like me, it definitely helps. I used to have double or triple espressos several times a day, and on other days, I would go for cold brews and similar drinks. I've spent years doing it. While it helped me immensely focus and get work done, it also put me on a fast track, I guess. It's probably not a good thing to keep going with. Somewhere it felt like it was putting extra mental load on me than usual.
Again, this doesn't apply to everybody. Recently, I stumbled upon matcha. It's not the entry-level matcha or matcha mixed with a lot of additives like sugar or cream; it's just matcha with milk or an alternative milk like oat milk or almond milk, etc. It has a surprisingly nice effect.
It's almost like the same effect as caffeine, but without making me feel jittery. At the same time, I'm also able to achieve the focus I used to get with coffee. I recommend that you folks start out and try it out and see if matcha helps you as well. Just make sure you buy ceremonial grade, which is available at a decent price on Amazon. It's ridiculously, crazily overpriced in stores like Safeway and Whole Foods, though.
It is the L-theanine that works its magic in matcha. Too much can cause some nausea or diarrhea, but consuming it two or three times a day in moderate amounts can go a long way for many people. It also doesn't have any other side effects and is a good drink in general. Beyond that, there are other alternatives like chamomile tea, passionflower tea, etc. Some of them work for some people, while others don’t. It's up to you to keep trying and cycling between these wonderful gifts that nature has provided.
I can't imagine drinking bad coffee only for the caffeine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_English_Opiu...
There is a trickling, a grating, a stutter of cinders or light.
It catches my lungs, a breath of cinnamon.
I cough, as though I have swallowed coffee grounds.
The tea bag blessed with warm water lies there glistening
like birdseed in gauze in the colorless round of the pond.
It was as if someone had dropped a stone in a pond,
how your pupils used to expand. Or did the irises
shrink and expand, much as the flaming ring
on the stove does when I turn it down, then up?
Memory (I have poured the tea) blows on her hands.
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0035.002/15?...
https://web.archive.org/web/20121008201138/https://www.nytim...
The first thing that came to mind was to become a coffee grower, farmer, producer or something with coffee.
Now I cant shake that thought!
No one who touches beans makes money. Only the largest multinational traders and cafes. The money from the specialty coffee chain goes to landlords, shipping companies, and equipment manufacturers.
Of course you'll need to live in the tropics too.
For learning about coffee production, the podcast "Making Coffees" by Lucia Solis is excellent (and industry award winning).
