The World of Caffeine (37 page)

“Caffeine—After 3,500 Years: Still the Most Popular Drug,” cartoon by Robert Therrien, Jr., a.k.a., BADBOB. In this fanciful version of caffeine history, hieroglyphs depict Egyptians attending an oversized espresso machine, even though, of course, there is no evidence that either the Egyptians or any other people knew of coffee or caffeine as early as 3,500 years ago. (By permission of the artist)

At the end of 1994 Celestial Seasonings, famous as the United States’ largest manufacturer of herbal teas, which have no caffeine, began marketing six flavors of caffeine-rich black teas, the market category which accounts for 90 percent of retail tea sales. The real innovation, demonstrating an increase in awareness of caffeine among consumers, was the simultaneous addition of “caffeine meters,” displayed on the side of each box of black tea, showing shoppers the caffeine content of the tea in milligrams as compared with the caffeine in coffee, cola, and chocolate.

For the first time, we hear people saying, “I need some caffeine to wake up,” instead of “I need some coffee.” Courses in preparing coffee, tea, and chocolate, and about their history as comestibles have been offered for years. Today, courses at adult extension schools are being offered in “Caffeine Culture.” There is little question that caffeine has finally caught the full attention of many of the people who have been using it so relentlessly. It is interesting to explore some of the signs of this new awareness of caffeine.

Some people may drink coffee for its taste, others for both taste and the caffeine lift, but the targeted consumers for Spike, a brand that touts itself as containing “50 percent more caffeine,” are interested in the drug content only. The ads, which feature
a graphic display of Spike’s relatively greater caffeine content than other sources and a logo of a cup of coffee being injected by a syringe presumably filled with caffeine, fail to mention that the beans containing the most caffeine are of the
robusta
variety, inferior by every measure of taste to the justifiably more coveted and more expensive
arabica
beans.

Perhaps one the most dramatic tributes to the rising interest in caffeine is the introduction of the drink Water Joe by Johnny Beverage Inc. in 1996. Touted as “the leading caffeine-enhanced water,” Water Joe is a no-frills product for people who don’t want any chlorine, calories, sugar, or artificial flavorings, but do want pure artesian well water laced with a generous dose of caffeine. Among Water Joe’s promotional suggestions: Make your morning coffee with Water Joe for an extra boost. One large group of potential Water Joe drinkers comprises athletes or dieters who want the boost of caffeine but know they must be careful to compensate for the dehydration that it can induce. But perhaps Water Joe’s biggest market is among those who don’t like coffee but still crave the lift it provides. David Marcheschi, president of Chicago-based Johnny Beverage, was among their number. Explaining that he thought up the idea for caffeinated water while in college, he recalls, “I didn’t like coffee or colas, but I still needed to study.”

How much caffeine does a bottle of Water Joe contain? The advertising says as much as one cup of coffee. This specification doesn’t really tell us very much, and the product label doesn’t add any information. The dose claimed by some of the press coverage is 70 mg of caffeine added to a half-liter, 16.9-ounce, bottle. There is no question that Water Joe lives up to its claims not to contain any calories, sugars, or preservatives and not to stain teeth, but does it “taste just like water,” as the company’s promotional literature suggests? Johnny Beverage claims that it relies on a method developed by a flavor chemist to mask caffeine’s usually bitter taste. However, company officials refused to discuss this claim with us in any way. Our informal taste test found people about evenly divided among those who tasted only pure spring water and those who detected a faint flavor, which we attribute to the presence of caffeine.

In 1995 Starbucks Coffee Company, with more than 650 retail operations, joined forces with Redhook Ale Brewery to create Double Black Stout, dark roasted malt beer targeted at specialty coffee and beer drinkers alike. Redhook president and CEO Paul Shipman says that the idea for the new brew came up in an impromptu conversation over a cup of coffee. The final product is the result of diligent testing and blend-ing of test brews. According to the companies’ public relations people, the brewers and coffee specialists experienced an amazing synergy, because “the similarities of brewing fine beer and roasting fine coffee were an inspiration to the whole group and resulted in a brew that showcases the best of both products.” After primary fermentation of the stout, Redhook adds brewed Starbucks coffee to the beer. The resulting mix is supposed to combine the full, roasted flavor of stout with the aroma and flavor of arabica coffee. Starbucks coffee specialists have chosen a blend of Central American coffees for the beer, which is said to deliver “remarkable rich, roasted coffee notes to Double Black Stout.”

North American Coffee Partnership, the joint venture formed in August 1995 by Pepsi-Cola and Starbucks, test marketed a new product: Mazagran, a lightly carbonated beverage made with Starbucks coffee. Touted as a new version of a 150year-old beverage supposedly once popular with the French Foreign Legion, it will be sold at Starbucks fountains and in bottles in grocery stores.

Another similar product, also by PepsiCo, hit U.S. grocers’ shelves in mid-1996: Pepsi-Kona, a coffee-flavored carbonated cola drink, so soda and coffee lovers can finally have it both ways. A new mixed drink called a “Turbo Coke” seems in line with this product: a tall glass of Coke with ice and a shot of espresso.

Holland is one of the few European countries that never experienced a movement to ban coffee or tea. Carrying on this tradition of tolerance, today in the Netherlands, where the use and possession of small amounts of marijuana is not customarily subjected to legal sanctions, young and old flock to establishments euphemistically known as “coffee shops” to buy and smoke marijuana while they sit around sipping their favorite caffeinated drink. There are examples of small communities where the civic leaders have applied for and received funding from the national government to support the establishment of such coffee shops intended to provide teenagers with a salubrious place to hang out and get high.

In 1996, reports began circulating in the press about a new enthusiasm for specialty teas, following the success of the specialty coffee trend, although, in one reporter’s words, it “hasn’t taken off with the fervor of a caffeine buzz.” In Seattle and Portland, two of the cities to initiate the coffeehouse revival in the United States, the use of tea is on the rise. Even the British tea garden and Japanese teahouse are undergoing new incarnations, as teahouses open for business in markets heavily saturated with more traditionally American cafés.

What is the motivation for the switch from coffee to tea? Partly it’s the social connotations. The partisans of tea associate it with leisurely conversation and relaxation as opposed to their more frenetic associations with coffee. Partly it’s a matter of the taste. Some people like caffeine but just don’t like the taste of coffee. Steve Smith, founder of Tazo Teas, produces bottles of what he calls “microbrewed” teas. He also runs several tea bars in specialty supermarkets and at universities such as Harvard and Portland State.

Is the tea trend here to stay? We can’t say for sure, but one sign of the times is the fact that even Starbucks now sells a half-dozen varieties of tea.

If you think that Jamaica Blue Mountain is the scarcest and costliest coffee, you are unfamiliar with Kopi Luak.

Coffee’s propagation in Africa, India, and Indonesia and the harvesting of the world’s rarest and most expensive beans are intimately linked with the dietary and excretory habits of a certain curious animal called the civet cat. In Krapf ‘s nineteenthcentury account of his missionary work in Africa, he states, without elaboration, that the civet cat may have been responsible for introducing the coffee plant into the Ethiopian highlands from central Africa:

Supposedly, the beans emerge still covered with their original mucilage or silver skin. In 1740 Spanish Jesuits brought coffee seedlings from Java to the Philippines, where the plant proliferated dramatically, largely as a result of the dietary preferences of the native civet cat, which, like the African civet cat spoken of by Krapf, enjoyed the fruit and spread the indigestible seeds in its droppings.
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The animal in question is one of the three species of palm civets in the genus
Paradoxurus,
the family Viverridae. Its relatives include mongooses, civets, and genets. Two of the three species are confined to India and Sri Lanka, while the third,
Paradoxurus hermaphroditus,
is found throughout Southeast Asia, the East Indies, the Philippines, and Africa. Other names for the animal include “musang,” and “toddy cat.”

Despite some of its many aliases, however,
Paradoxurus
is not a true cat. These cute animals, with catlike faces, have long gray-brown fur with dorsal stripes and lateral spots and a long tail. They live five or more years, are about one and a half to two and a half feet long, and weigh six or seven pounds. Although they feed on small animals they also eat bulbs, nuts, and fruits, which is how they enter the history of coffee.

Other animals play a part in spreading coffee as well. In 1922, William Ukers reported that in some regions of India, birds and monkeys enjoy eating the ripe coffee berries because of their tasty pulp. The beans, however, pass undigested through their alimentary canals. Gathered by the natives, these beans are recycled to make so-called monkey coffee.
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In
Coffee Botany,
Cultivation, and Utilization
(1961), Frederick L. Wellman offers an account of varied relationships between animals and the proliferation of the coffee plant, giving birds the credit of spreading coffee within Africa, from Ethiopia into the Sudan, and the civet cat for doing so in Hawaii.
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In 1994, after a thirteen-year search, Mark Montanous, while in Europe, finally found a Dutch coffee broker who had what he claimed were the raw, green Indonesian kopi luak beans. Montanous bought 70 pounds for $7,000 and now is retailing it virtually at cost at $105 a pound, making it easily the most expensive coffee in the world.

Is it worth it? We are told that this coffee is not to everyone’s taste. Even though some people claim it has a delightful heavy, musty, caramel taste and aroma, others find it strong and repellent. So far, Montanous has sold about 45 pounds, with a few repeat (apparently satisfied) customers.

The first detailed intensive study of water quality of the Mississippi River was released in 1996 by the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. Thousands of samples were collected for this study from 1987 through 1992, during ten
separate sampling trips that were timed to show the effects of high water, low water, rising water levels, and falling water levels. Several years of subsequent laboratory analysis produced the results. Geological Survey chief hydrologist Bob Hirsch commented on the significance of the study: “The contaminants we measure in the Mississippi represent a report card on our clean-up efforts on the streams and rivers that drain nearly half the country.”

Not surprisingly, the scientists checked for levels of such contaminants as lead and detergents. They also checked for, and discovered, caffeine. Because in this region caffeine is found only in coffee, tea, chocolate, and soft drinks consumed only by humans, when it is found in domestic sewage it can be used to track the extent to which that sewage is diluted by the Mississippi River. Concentrations of caffeine in the river indicate that domestic sewage may be diluted as much as a thousandfold. Whether this is an acceptable level is a question best left to ecological experts, but it seems clear that caffeine-free river, lake, or spring water is definitely the least hazardous to your health.
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