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The Coffee/Caffeine Thread!

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TaoPhoenix:

Light hearted thread about Coffee and Caffeine.

Inspired by this Slate article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/features/2013/daily_rituals/coffee_from_balzac_to_beethoven_it_has_fueled_artistic_endeavor_for_centuries.html

Previously I'd seen an article on Balzac - kinda sad in a way - that he was immensely talented, but maybe finally pushed a little too far in the wrong direction and burned out. The biographer (whose name I cannot remmber) remarked that Balzac slowly slid into a habit of sending out his books a little unpolished, and finally that habit caught up with him because it damaged his sense of literary balance.

superboyac:
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard "had his own quite peculiar way of having coffee," according to the biographer Joakim Garff. "Delightedly he seized hold of the bag containing the sugar and poured sugar into the coffee cup until it was piled up above the rim. Next came the incredibly strong, black coffee, which slowly dissolved the white pyramid." Then he gulped the whole thing down in one go.
--- End quote ---
:o
Perhaps this explains Kierkegaard's dramatic death.  Holy cow, Soren!

kyrathaba:
I have drunk more coffee since initiating my second marriage, 4.5 years ago, than my entire life previous to that. My wife is a coffee-seur. We go through a lot of it. Fortunately, I don't drink nearly the quantity she does (I don't see how she sleeps at night). I drink in a small coffee cup that I fill to about 3/4 capacity (I don't like drinking the cold dregs of a cup that has sat too long next to my mouse while I'm surfing DC).

TaoPhoenix:
...(I don't see how she sleeps at night).
-kyrathaba (April 19, 2013, 12:54 PM)
--- End quote ---

Jokes aside, for certain people of which I think I am one, Caffeine/etc doesn't produce a caricature "wired-hyper" effect, not in the first X cups. Instead it brings us back to "normal-ish" functioning so that yes, unless you take it after X pm at night, you can sleep just fine. It has to do with that certain brain centers just aren't firing at all, so the caffeine just fixes stuff, without the comedic jokes about being hyper.

kyrathaba:
Yeah, most people, if they reduce/quit caffeine intake by early evening, can get to sleep okay later than night. Most people. I have an uncle who is so sensitive to caffeine that he can't drink any beverage containing it without getting shaky and ill. Biochemically speaking, caffeine binds to specific receptor sites in the brain that are normally receptors for a specific chemical our bodies release after being awake all night. It's a naturally produced chemical which, when it binds with those receptor sites, prompts yawning, weariness, lessening of focus, etc.: all the symptoms we experience and say, "I think it's time to hit the hay..."

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