The Coffee Break

I love coffee!!! But not everybody does. So, I've been collecting some other opinions about this magic brew so you can make your own decisions. So, here are some, things, disapproving, loving, and desperate, that people have had to say about coffee over the years.

  • A Broadside Against Coffee: or the Marriage of the Turk
  • Alexander Pope's similarly dim view of coffee, taken from "The Rape of the Lock" (1712-14).
  • Annonymous paen to coffee that pretty much sums it up for me.
  • "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee" by Honore de Balzac.
  • Don Delillo's almost existential take on the need for coffee, among other things, taken from Great Jones Street
  • Coffee facts.
  • Coffee history.
  • Praise for coffee.
  • Coffee trivia
    And in case you still think coffee is bad for you . . .

    Kathy Valladares TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER © 1996 Chicago Tribune Web-posted: Monday May 13, 1996 King Gustav III of Sweden took it upon himself, one day in the otherwise unremarkable 18th century, to finally settle the debate of which was worse for the human to consume in great quantities, coffee or tea. Conscripting the help of two death row inmates, he forwent their regular methods of death to have doctors pump volumes of coffee in one, volumes of tea in the other. (This was back before prisoner's rights and the ACLU.) The first to die, the logic went, would reveal the more unhealthy beverage. To the dismay of 18th century science (but the joy of coffee and tea houses everywhere), both prisoners lived to a ripe (if jittery) old age, outlasting all the doctors assigned to them.

    Which just goes to prove what we already know. Coffee = Good. Caffeine isn't just some addictive drug. It's THE addictive drug of the 90s. It's the Reason America Can Get Up After Last Night. It's also been scientifically proven to temporarily increase alertness, comprehension, memory, reflexes, rate of learning, and clarity of thought. Really. Of course, there's also those studies that mention hand tremors, loss of coordination and/or appetite, insomnia, heart palpitations, etc. But who believes those?


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