The people who say they need 3 cups of black coffee to start their day are just addicts with a high tolerance that experience mild withdrawal symptoms each morning.
If you feel like that, it’s your body crying for you to take a break.
If you like an occasional cup of coffee or energy drink to get through something, then that’s fine. But if you ever feel like one isn’t working like it used to, you should take a break from caffeine to reset your tolerance, not up the dosage like an addict.
James Hoffman has a great video about this with scientific analysis to prove it. Basically the people that claim they’re “coffee addicts” are often drinking something that isn’t caffeinated like one might expect. A good pour over has close to 80mg of caffeine in it, but a weaker Starbucks/gas station/K-cup/instant coffee has only 25-45~mg of caffeine per cup. You effectively need 3 cups a day to equate what you can get from 1 perfectly good quality cup of coffee. Even a Starbucks “double shot” is like drinking 7/8ths of a proper pour over. I have a lot of friends that are “coffee addicts” and drink 2-3 Starbucks a day.
Espresso has less caffeine than large mug of drip coffee especially of morning light or medium roasts. And many coffee makers just make twice more water in double shot, not twice more coffee.
James Hoffman really is the endgame of coffee nerds. I love his stuff.
He does the thing I enjoy seeing most. It’s not just enough to drink coffee. We have to know about it from top-to-bottom. How to pull from it everything we can. His science the shit out of it is one of my favorite things. If you like his sort of “honed” approach to something and you like details like him I’d recommend AmmoNYC for car detailing. He’s like the James Hoffman of car cleaning. It’s not just enough to do something, but to tear it down and figure out how to do the process better with science and perfect it.
I’ve had a few of Ammo’s kids pop up in my recommendations, they’ve been great too.
And yeah, that’s the main reason I love coffee as much as I do. There’s so much to learn about it, so many ways you can tweak things. It’s fun.
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Careful of the car detailing path. It starts with things like learning to not swirl your paint and occasionally decontaminating it. Suddenly you have a $1500 steam extractor and $800 polishers. I’m not sure if drugs are better, but sometimes I feel like they’d be cheaper. The high I get from cleaning my cars, or cleaning others cars though is totally worth it. My biggest hurdle was just getting a polisher and putting polish to paint. I was scared as hell about messing it up, but sometimes you gotta stumble to run.
Coffee actually is an effective medication for my depression. It has similar effects to buproprion on me (which is a amphetamine replacement class drug, though not an amphetamine itself), but to a lesser degree. This is good, because bupropion causes me to have tachycardia and hypomania. This is independent to any addiction, since I’ve gone years without having any. That there are tolerance levels to it, like any drug, doesn’t mean it’s not an effective self medication for some folks. And that correlation has been proven in scientific studies.
I don’t care
Although you are probably right, I resent and dislike your opinion. Take my upvote.
Yeah… This one hurts to agree with. I’m going to go rethink my life now…
I’ll have you know I’m just self medicating my ADHD
It’s a double whammy too because occasionally I’ll just get bored of coffee and drop it, then a few days later I’m wondering why I have a gnarly headache.
That is a whole other problem with the medical care that I’m not ready to cope with.
Do your best not to build a tolerance if you can! Your poor kidneys will thank you.
(But if it’s working it’s probably super hard to take tolerance breaks)
I make sure not to overdo it because too much coffee gives me major heartburn, so I guess I have a built-in dosage limit. And luckily I don’t have terrible withdrawal symptoms if I miss a dose.
But it’s definitely better than the 2 liters of Coke I drank every day in high school.
Your post is idiotic. 2L of coca cola is two cups of coffee so your nonsense tale is meaningless
Your post is super mean. I meant the sugar content.
I’m pretty sure you wildly misinterpreted their point.
Completely unnecessary, and you shouldn’t blame the other person because you didn’t understand their point.
Two cups of coffee is a significantly healthier choice than 2L of coca cola. That was obviously the point they were making. There’s no need to jump down their throat about it, and it’s telling that you jump to that over something relatively innocuous.
Take tolerance breaks for mental disorders? Are you actually insane?
Everything in life is a managed addiction. Balance is needed in all things. Ensuring your addictions are taking you in a direction you find productive is critical. Relationships, entertainment, reading/not reading, eating, social engagement, the internet, pets; everything is ultimately brain chemistry that creates addictions.
N… no?
That’s a complete misunderstanding of chemical additions. Caffeine is a stimulant with chemical withdrawals.
You don’t have chemical side effects for any of those things besides food.
Lol wtf is serotonin?
Humans are literally entirely chemistry at all times. Literally anything that makes you happy/comfortable releases dopamine in your brain. Even dopamine can become addictive if applied too often, the ‘withdrawal’ would be feeling down cause you’re not as happy as usual.
You can be happy or not happy with relationships, which can cause your (misguided) definition of addiction to dopamine, and almost no part of that scenario involves external chemicals.
And all of that is just one example. You really need to attend a high school chemistry and/or biology class.
I would love to see what the withdrawals are for swimming.
Yes, I will probably be bummed. But I won’t get a mood disorder over it unless I’m already unstable, or vomit. I’ll be sad not having something I like, yeah. Withdrawals from a stimulant is different than “I’m feeling sad chemicals because the thing I like is gone”
It’s crazy that people are so determined to say nothing is wrong being addicted to a drug that they are refusing to admit there is a difference. I can also replace anything with other things. If I can’t swim, I can do other things I enjoy.
Who ever said anything about swimming? Are you just trying to deconstruct the points I made that you don’t understand? I mean you clearly have some kind of disorder, disassociative at least. Enjoy being constantly lauded for your understanding of sciences (or lack thereof).
Things I like = won’t make me vomit or cause me physical harm for not doing it
Caffeine = will cause physical harm/vomiting for not doing it.
If you insist you’re right, I can’t make you believe.
Also backfire effect is clearly in effect, me posting proof I’m right will just make stubborn coffee drinkers believe I’m wrong because of weird brain things. So that last post with evidence probably won’t sway anyone.
If you take it as an enema you can handle twice the lethal dose.
I am neutral on coffee itself but “coffee culture” can be pretty obnoxious. All the shopworn dad jokes about it, the impervious entitlement about needing coffee in the same way people need air to live. The highly specific prep and snobby opinions on types of drinks and how they’re made. It all gets very old, very fast IMO.
The Decoder Ring podcast did an interesting episode recently on how all coffee shops are exactly alike, all over the world. It was eye opening for me.
I bet you’d get a lot of upvotes* if you posted this to the community lol
So?
I mean, this opinion isn’t really popular or unpopular. It’s just banal, unsolicited advice.
Yeah, makes sense that non coffee drinkers don’t care. I added the last bit cause I didn’t want people going “WELL I NEED IT BECAUSE I’M A TRUCKER AND DO 36 HOUR DRIVES!”, but instead I got people bringing up using it to self medicate medical conditions.
I have been called a puritanical joy hater by some coffee drinkers though, so clearly some people wildly dislike this opinion.
So I guess this was more of a “Opinion you probably don’t care about, unless you are defensive about being a coffee drinker”
It’s not that. I’d be happy to upvote an unpopular opinion like “Coffee should have the same ad restrictions as tobacco” or “Coffee should be scheduled alongside cocaine.”
Your post reads as a criticism disguised as an opinion.
It comes off as smarmy.
There’s a reason that the major sobriety programs have a tradition of not expressing opinions about what other people do with their lives, avoiding any opinion on temperance, or anything political, for that matter. It would be counterproductive and make them easier to dismiss as fringe wackos.
Ummm you do know trucking is regulated and you can’t drive for more than 11 hours a day.
I walk into work holding 2 tallboys of sugarfree energy drinks every day and every day someone with their gut hanging 4 inches over their belt tells me how unhealthy they are… like I fucking asked.
Yeah, Im a caffeine junky… and?
I think people often confuse “unpopular” with “uncommon”
Nah see…
I’m a coffee person and an addict.
I don’t resent my addiction like you seem to, there is no animosity in my relationship with coffee. I embrace my addiction and love it, and it loves me back by giving me just what I need. The high, the robust flavor, the aftertaste, the smell, the experience, everything. And 3 cups of black coffee? Bruh, more like a pot or two to get started (8 cup pots) before 7AM, then maybe a french press or an espresso , followed by perhaps a cup of instant or maybe I’ll put some coffee sprinkles in my protein shake. All of that before 11AM. Then if I’m going out in the evening, at least a double espresso and or if I’m out and about maybe an Americano or just a latte. Maybe hit a vending machine or grocery store and get an can of iced Mr Brown or a double shot.
When I was a smoker, there was nothing I loved more in the world than a nice cup of black coffee, something thick like motor oil, and a nice cigarette. I stopped smoking for the health impacts which are material, but I didn’t resent it when I was smoking. I enjoyed every minute of it. Its the same with coffee. This puritanical approach to self-hating anything that brings you joy. Its a bit silly and not for me. I have no shame in the things that bring me pleasure. Its a far deeper shame to avoid pleasure because of some intrinsic guilt about it.
That’s a lot of words to say “I’m addicted to a stimulant and spend a lot of time making how I take said stimulant taste good”
You could have had a fun back and forth discussion here, not come across like a douche nozzle
That’s a lot of words to say you have no pleasure in your life and think no one else should either.
Caffeine is a stimulant that has withdrawals. I prefer my joys to not threaten to harm me if I stop using them.
Good food doesn’t kick you in the stomach if you eat it every day for a week, then don’t for a week.
You sound like a puritanical bore.
I’m puritanical because I prefer the things I consume to not harm me if I stop taking them? Like today I went to an indoor water park and had some lovely shrimp salad.
Those two are wonderful because if I choose not to go swimming tomorrow (hard to go every day during the winter) I will not have a variety of physical negative side effects. I also don’t have to eat more shrimp or risk a mental break down.
When I was a smoker, there was nothing I loved more in the world than a nice cup of black coffee, something thick like motor oil, and a nice cigarette.>
Fuuuck yeah, talk dirty to me, Daddy. God, I miss that, and I haven’t touched a cigarette in 13 years. Still drink coffee every day though.
I would contend that if you’re making American style drip coffee you don’t like coffee that much.
How is drip coffee differently scientifically from your snob version ? Espresso machine? Temp, water ratio? Please explain?
If your drip comes out tasting not amazing, that’s on you. Drip is a perfectly acceptable way to make coffee. Its just a matter of grind, roast, and filter parameters. Its not like I don’t also have about 15 other ways to make coffee. The biggest factor in drip (imo) is actually the hot-plate most american coffee makers come with. This absolutely ruins the coffee very quickly. Turn that off and just accept that you’ll need to finish the whole pot in about 40 minutes (longer if you use a vacuum urn). I have no problem finishing a pot of coffee in 30-50 minutes.
The cooler coffee is, the longer it stays tasting good. Making an extra cup or two and letting it sit at room temp for an hour or two and then heating it up in the microwave works for me. Too large a quantity may not cool down fast enough, and if you heat it back up to scalding that can have an negative effect.
Yeah, depending on the design, though, those hotplates can really damage the flavor. Technology Connections does a great in-depth breakdown of how they do this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp9H0MO-qS8
They are just way way way too hot. The pretty much start ruining the coffee right away.
Sorry if I was unclear. I’m in agreement with you that hot plates degrade coffee. I was recommending the let it cool down and heat it back up later approach.
Not only that, but coffee made well will taste fine cold/room temp.
Yeah, I prefer it hot, but my cold coffee is perfectly drinkable.
The amount of people that think all drip coffee is the same is wild. Yeah what you get out of a keurig cup is probably going to be shit, because they use shit coffee. Some people are perfectly fine with that, and that’s just as valid as those of us that put way the fuck too much effort into it.
Sometimes I take the time to use my mocha pot. Sometimes I’ll make cold brew. Sometimes I just want a good cup of coffee with minimal effort. With the right settings and coffee, drip coffee is going to come out a helluva lot better than anything you’re gonna get at a chain place.
I would contend that there’s 501 ways to make coffee and telling others their way is “wrong” is a douche move.
I would contend that using coffee as a douche is something you should discuss with your doctor before doing.
Can we still buttchug it though?
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I LIKE COFFEE
There is plenty of drip coffee that is perfectly good.
I’m both. I’m addicted to caffeine, but I’m also a coffee snob that appreciates a good coffee blend prepared by a skilled barista.
I’d rather go without caffeine than drink bad coffee or hyper sweet energy drinks, yet at the same time I take yerba mate to work every day, because I appreciate both its taste and its caffeine.
So yeah, both…
Oh I’m definitely an addict. Sometimes the first sip is way too good to just be about the taste. Its a bit annoying during the summer, coffee makes me sweat too much, but if I haven’t had a cup by 1pm or so, then I get a bad headache.
There’s quite a dissonance between this post’s title and body
Yes and no.
Yes I’m a caffeine addict. But I’m also a coffee snob (for myself. I dont care what other people drink, those that do suck). If i just wanted the caffeine, I’d go back to slamming monsters like I did in college. I wouldn’t be spending the amount of time I do to get the best cup of coffee I can.
Think of it this way. Sure, I could just eat microwaved meals or other pre-prepared meals all day every day, but there’s a reason I will often to take the time to make a nice home-cooked meals (beyond budget reasons). Same reason people bother making cocktails instead of just throwing back shots
E: just to add, this isn’t new information to 95% of us. We’re all well aware we’re addicts.
