“Caffeine appears to block several of the disruptive effects of cholesterol that make the blood-brain barrier leaky,” said Dr Jonathan Geiger, who led the study.

“High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps by compromising the protective nature of the blood brain barrier.

“Caffeine is a safe and readily available drug and its ability to stabilise the blood brain barrier means it could have an important part to play in therapies against neurological disorders.”

And while we’re at it:

• Caffeine may help protect memory in women
• Coffee is tied to a lower risk of Parkinson’s
• Coffee is linked to a lower risk of Diabetes
• Coffee drinking is related to a lower risk of Liver Cancer.

Drink up!

Rowling wasn’t the first author to take to the local coffee house — whether for warmth, or inspiration. Voltaire was an early coffee house patron, and he’s said to have tossed back between 50 and 72 cups a day (straying closer than most of us would dare to a lethal dose of caffeine) while writing works such as his fittingly frenzied Candide and Merope and his scathing Letters on the English.

It was a coffee house called Tillyard’s that was the unofficial home of The Royal Society — a clubby bunch who lunched and drank coffee and argued about alchemy — and ultimately published the collected works of their chair, one Isaac Newton. And in Austria you may be hard-pressed to find a coffee house that *doesn’t* boast of an author, poet or playwright who sat at that very table.

Given what passes for coffee house culture today, however, it’s remarkable that Rowling was able to pen a paragraph or two, much less a book empire. For all the lofty talk of the Third Place your chances of finding a Great, Good Place to write the Great American Novel are anything *but* great.¹

John Scalzi skewered most any remaining romantic notions of coffee house writing in his 250-page epic snark — and one of my favorite reads of the year — You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffee Shop. And a clip from an episode of Family Guy making the rounds on YouTube doesn’t offer much hope, either. Still, you can’t keep folks from trying…

Of the countless coffee shops I’ve visited, I could probably count those that offered a viable third place on one hand. Which is a shame… and probably a factor of economics. Hard chairs, small tables and surfaces that echo (echo, echo…) tend to get customers in and out the door quickly. So maybe I’m not going to write my novel in a coffee shop. I can deal with that. But shouldn’t I be able to have a conversation?

What’s coffee house culture like in your corner of the world? Got a Great Good Place to share?

Notes and Links

1. Yeah, I know… the article talks about coffee shops in Scotland, and I reference the Great American Novel. I’m a fan of cognitive dissonance.

“Everybody thinks that caffeine is the main bitter compound in coffee, but that’s definitely not the case,” says study leader Thomas Hofmann, Ph.D., a professor of food chemistry and molecular sensory science at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. Only 15 percent of java’s perceived bitterness is due to caffeine, he estimates, noting that caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee both have similar bitterness qualities.

“Roasting is the key factor driving bitter taste in coffee beans. So the stronger you roast the coffee, the more harsh it tends to get…”

This isn’t news to anyone who’s roasted coffee that they know to be exceptional, and ended up with something that could grow hair on a wildebeest’s chest. (And yes, that includes me. Er… as the roaster, not the wildebeest.)

The bit that leaves me scratching my head, however, is this:

“We’ve known for some time that the chlorogenic acid lactones are present in coffee, but their role as a source of bitterness was not known until now,” Hofmann says.

I have a number of books on coffee — books that have been popular references for years — that, I believe, speak at some length to the links between chlorogenic acids and bitterness. Maybe I’m missing something here. Or maybe there’s more to come still from the research.

“Coffee research centres are in the process of planting seedlings of natural coffee with low caffeine varieties, to enable Ethiopia to supply the world market within the shortest possible time,” said Abera Deressa, State Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Don’t step out line for the processed stuff just yet, decaf fans. It’ll still be four years before this planting is mature enough to offer any potential for commercial sale… and even then, there’s still the matter of whether it will taste good.

Speaking of which, Agriculture Minister Deressa further used the occasion to urge researchers to develop coffees with higher yields:

“Although Ethiopia is home to arabica coffee with high generic diversity, the national average yield has not exceeded five to six quintals per hectare, which is lower than in other coffee producing countries,” he said.

Crap…

Um… Minister? Dude? We’ve been there. Done that. Planting varietals that boost coffee yields has always proved a disaster. Every. Single. Time.

Plant your fancy decaf coffee. We’re totally cool with that. Hey, it might even sell! But leave the heirloom varietals alone, okay? The world wants quality coffee and Ethiopia knows how to deliver.

Don’t mess with it.

Elizabeth Grandberry works in the Loop and visits her Starbucks about five times a week, spending anywhere from $3 to $5 each time.

“It used to be unheard of to spend more than a dollar for coffee,” said Grandberry.

It used to be unheard of to spend more than a nickel for a candy bar (back in the days when we could eat them without guilt) or thirteen cents for a postage stamp. It was similarly unheard of to spend thirty-nine cents on a loaf of bread, or a buck a gallon for gas. Surely, ABC, you can do better than this? Don’t you have, like, a financial expert that could put this all in perspective? Oh, why yes. Yes, you do…

Financial experts say that money spent on multiple coffee runs could turn into a small investment.

“Say you’re spending $4 a day every workday, that’s $80 a month times 12 months a year. That’s almost $1,000 a year,” said Christine Benz, Morningstar.

Why… that’d buy a couple pair of shoes for well-heeled Chicagoans. Maybe three if they’re on sale!

Really, if we’re going to talk about the opportunity cost of our caffeine fix, why don’t we think big? What could you *really* get for your coffee dollar, if you knew how to spend it?

For the price of a cup of coffee, maybe you could discover how to live for 300 years. You could mitigate mercury pollution. Or even achieve enlightenment.

What silly, caffeinated, people we are.

P.S. For a more sobering view (i.e. one that asks questions that matter) see, What’s the Hidden Cost of a £2 Latte?

Two years on and now The New York Times is taking up the cause — and on the reasonable side of the matter. Good on them.

Several good studies have linked regular coffee consumption to a reduced risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer and, in men and in women who have not taken postmenopausal hormones, Parkinson’s disease.

Most studies have not linked a high intake of either coffee or caffeine to heart disease, even though caffeinated coffee raises blood pressure somewhat and boiled unfiltered coffee (French-pressed and espresso) raises harmful LDL and total cholesterol levels.

Caffeine itself is not thought to be a problem for health or water balance in the body, up to 400 milligrams a day (the amount in about 30 ounces of brewed coffee). But pregnant women should limit their intake because more than 300 milligrams a day might increase the risk of miscarriage and low birth weight, the panel said.

Mice prone to an Alzheimer’s-like disease were protected by drinking water spiked with caffeine equivalent to what people get from five cups of coffee a day. And a study of more than 600 men suggested that drinking three cups of coffee a day protects against age-related memory and thinking deficits.

Now that they’ve cleared that up, I understand there’s a little dust-up over at the Justice Department they might want to have a look at…

Still today there remain those with an axe to grind with coffee — more frequently with its chief agent provocateur, caffeine — and who take no small delight in sewing seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt where the health aspects of coffee are concerned. These reports typically offer no sources at all, or perhaps small-scale studies that have been dated for 40 years.

Let’s see if we can’t shed some light on the subject… using multiple, credible and authoritative sources, and send coffee’s naysayers scuttling back under their rocks.

Coffee and Health

Like so many of the beverages we enjoy today, coffee was once prescribed as a tonic for what ails you… and provided that what ails you is a lack of alertness or a sour mood, it’s good on its promise. Let’s leave patent medicines and snake-oil salesmen aside for the moment, though, and ask: is coffee good for you?

The answer is yes!

Coffee has been a frequent subject of scrutiny by the medical community… perhaps because it’s so widely consumed, yet offers no apparent nutritive value. Or, maybe doctors are just looking for a really good cup of coffee.

Despite some 40-50 years of study, the medical field has yet to draw a direct correlation between moderate consumption of coffee and any medical disease or chronic health condition. Studies that have suggested worrisome links between coffee consumption and reproductive health, for example, have been put to rest by subsequent studies — larger, and more thorough — that have exonerated our favorite beverage.

More recent studies by the medical science community are now finding numerous positive benefits of moderate coffee consumption. These studies suggest that drinking coffee may reduce risks of colon cancer and liver cancer; cirrhosis of the liver; may reduce the risk of Parkinson’s Disease and the onset of diabetes. More, brewed coffee has been found to have 3 to 4 times the amount of cancer-fighting anti-oxidants as green tea. Further, coffee can prevent or reduce the likelihood of developing gallstones, even prevent cavities.

Coffee and Caffeine

Coffee contains caffeine, a mild stimulant to the central nervous system. The caffeine in coffee occurs naturally; it’s not added (it is, however, added to many soft drinks.) Coffee — with its stimulating constituent, caffeine — is the worlds most popular mood-altering substance on the planet, and has been for more than 300 years.

Caffeine promotes wakefulness by interfering with adenosine, a chemical in the body that acts as something of an natural sleep-promoting drug. In addition to its wakeful properties, caffeine — in moderate amounts — has been shown to enhance mood and increase alertness.

Caffeine has been shown to decrease muscle pain and augment the pain-relieving capability of other drugs, alleviate asthma symptoms and boost athletic endurance and performance as well as heightening alertness and lifting mood. Heck, it even helps combat jetlag! The key, of course, is the phrase we seem to hear a lot… moderation.

What’s moderate? Most doctors will agree that 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day can be considered moderate consumption. What’s moderate for you, however, is largely a matter of how you respond to caffeine. If you have questions or concerns about your own consumption of caffeine, talk to your doctor.

Coffee and Nutrition

Nutritionally speaking, brewed coffee is pretty much inert. It has virtually no calories or fats, no carbohydrates, no sodium, no cholesterol… if it were required to carry a nutritional product label, that label would consist mostly of a lot of zeros. (In fact, coffee is exempt from federal food label programs precisely because it has zero nutritive value.)

That said, coffee does offer a number of trace minerals (Thiamin, Niacin, Folate, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Manganese) and is a good source of Potassium, Pantothenic Acid and Riboflavin. A 6-ounce cup of brewed coffee may contain 2 to 4 mg of Sodium… mostly from the water used to brew the coffee and not the coffee, itself.

What about the stuff we add to coffee?

While coffee itself has virtually no nutritional impact, the things we add to our coffee will, in turn, dial up those numbers. And, if what we’re really doing is adding a little bit of coffee to a large cup of steamed milk (with a few tablespoons of flavored syrups on top!) the results can be pretty dramatic. Dieters beware the trendy cup!

So is coffee the new health food? Perhaps. What’s increasingly clear, as we continue to learn about coffee and its complex constituent components and compounds, we find far more benefits than risks. For most people — in moderation — coffee is good for you. Abundantly so.