COFFEE HOUSE CULTURE IN 18TH CENTURY ENGLAND

Coffee houses transformed British society in the 17th and 18th centuries. But who visited coffee houses, and why?

The French writer Maximilien Misson enjoyed visited London’s coffee houses in the late 17th century. “You have all manner of news there,” Misson reported. “You have a good fire, which you may sit by as long as you please. You have a dish of coffee; you meet your friends for the transaction of business, and all for a penny.”

Coffee houses exploded in 17th century England and transformed society in the 18th century. Why did England go crazy for coffee, and how did coffee houses change history?



A London coffee house, c. 1700. © Trustees of the British Museum

THE RISE OF THE COFFEE HOUSE

In 1652, Pasqua Rosée opened the first coffee house in London. Rosée, who came to England as a servant, brought a lifetime of experience drinking coffee in Turkey.

Londoners flocked to the coffee house. They ordered drinks “black as soot, and tasting not much unlike it,” according to trader William Bidulph. By 1675, England boasted over 3,000 coffee houses.

The link between students and coffee began early. Cambridge and Oxford hosted multiple competing coffee houses. Visitors tossed back cups of coffee while debating academic matters. Outsiders even called the coffee houses “penny universities.” For the price of a penny, patrons indulged in their academic interests.

For years, coffee houses were associated with educated men and well-off traders. But soon, London’s coffee houses found an even broader clientele

COFFEE AS MEDICINE

Was coffee harmful––or did it cure? In the 17th century, the English debated the properties of the strange beverage.

Francis Bacon performed experiments on coffee even before coffee houses sold the beverage. According to coffee supporters, the beverage cured “head-melancholy” and drunkenness. Coffee supposedly treated gout, survey, and even smallpox.

Yet in excess, coffee could also harm. The drink caused tremors in high doses and potentially contributed to heart conditions. One experimentalist worried the beverage could cause paralysis.


A still life by Christian Berentz, c. 1700. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica


The ills caused by coffee went beyond physical ailments, according to an anonymous pamphlet published in 1674. The Women’s Petition Against Coffee attached the “newfangled, abominable, heathenish liquor called coffee.”

COFFEE HOUSES AS MEETING PLACES

As coffee houses opened across England, they catered to different interests.

Some coffee houses had a reputation for scholarly discussions. Others offered Latin lessons or poetry recitals. Natural philosophers hashed out disagreements on astronomical principles over a cup of coffee.

But not every coffee house focused on learning. Moll King’s coffee house in Covent Garden earned a reputation for welcoming the neighborhood’s prostitutes.


A painting showing an early modern coffee house.


The diarist Samuel Pepys enjoyed visiting London’s coffee houses in the 1660s. Pepys praised the coffee houses as an excellent place to transact business––and hear gossip.

Businessmen turned coffee houses into workplaces. Many established predictable hours at their favorite coffee houses, where clients would pop in to discuss the latest business. Businessmen even received mail at coffee houses.

Tom’s Coffee House, located in the City of London, welcomed bankers. Stockbrokers flocked to Garraways Coffee House and Jonathan’s Coffee House. The Latin Coffee-House by St. Paul’s welcomed book publishers.




A list of rules and orders for visitors at an English coffee house.


Lloyd’s Coffee House became the merchant and sailor destination. Edward Lloyd, the founder, shared news on shipping. Clients bought and sold so many maritime insurance policies that the coffee house eventually evolved into Lloyd’s of London, still a major insurer today.

Other coffee houses welcomed nonconformists. Religious and political dissidents found homes at coffee houses – after the Restoration, King Charles II tried to shut down coffee houses.

According to the monarch, coffee houses “have produced very evil and dangerous effects.” Men plotted against the king over coffee, Charles suspected, leading him to declare coffee houses a “disturbance of the peace and quiet of the realm.”

The proclamation stirred an instant backlash. The king backed down two weeks later.

PRINT CULTURE AND THE COFFEE HOUSE

Coffee houses shared news and distributed pamphlets. London’s first daily newspaper began printing in 1702. Between editions of the London Courant, runners visited coffee houses to share breaking news.

The “Wet Paper Club” at the Chapter Coffee House bragged that their news was so fresh, the pages were still wet with ink.




A pamphlet arguing against coffee and coffee houses from 1674.


Politics and trade dominated coffee house news. But patrons also wanted gossip, satire, and moralizing tales. Many coffee houses offered newspapers and pamphlets for free with the cost of admission. Some read the news out loud to encourage debate.

Coffee houses were more than a place to meet or conduct business. They became libraries with everything from the latest news from the colonies to scandalous broadsheets.

 
WOMEN AND COFFEE HOUSES

Although coffee houses claimed to admit anyone, in practice women were largely excluded.

Rather than an outright ban on women, coffee houses positioned themselves as a space for men to discuss politics, debate ideas, and transact business––topics that did not involve respectable women.

Some women worked in coffee houses as servers, and others even owned coffee houses. Moll King's coffee house became known for its clientele of traders, criminals, and prostitutes.

Women did drink coffee in private. And tea offered a respectable, affordable alternative. By the late 18th century, tea eclipsed coffee as England’s drink of choice. Yet tea shops never rivaled coffee houses as public meeting spaces.



Louis-Marin Bonnet, “The Woman Taking Coffee,” 1774.


Although coffee house culture dwindled in the 19th century, today cafes have taken over London. The number of independent coffee shops skyrocketed 700% in the past decade and Brits can choose from over 25,000 coffee shops.

London’s coffee house culture inspired several scenes in Engaged to an Earl. Elinor Barrett’s pamphlet causes a scandal in London’s coffee houses, triggering a pamphlet war. But when Elinor tries to visit a coffee house, she finds herself in hot water. Check out Engaged to an Earl for even more about 18th century coffee house culture.

SYLVIA PRINCE

July 21, 2021

Forgotten for half a century, this rare bean could save Sierra Leone's coffee industry

By Rebecca Cairns, CNN  

29/4/2021

About 200 miles southeast of Sierra Leone's capital, agricultural researcher Daniel Sarmu made the discovery of a lifetime in the steep and humid Kambui Hills.

© E. Couturon/IRD/Reuters The coffee species Coffea stenophylla, which bears black fruit rather than the red fruit typical of the two coffee species that are widely grown commercially, is seen in Ivory Coast in this undated photograph. E. Couturon, IRD/Handout via REUTERS

© Courtesy Jeremy Haggar The stenophylla coffee plant was rediscovered by Daniel Sarmu (right) and researchers Aaron Davis (left) and Jeremy Haggar in 2018.

In 2018, Sarmu and two researchers from Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK were on a mission to find the long-lost stenophylla coffee of Sierra Leone. The rare West African coffee plant hadn't been seen in the wild there since 1954, although it had been spotted sporadically in Guinea and the Ivory Coast over the years.

© Michael Duff/CNN Despite producing coffee, Sierra Leone isn't known for its local coffee culture. Many people opt instead for instant coffee from brands like Nescafe.

The rediscovery of Sierra Leone's highland coffee has renewed hopes that the uncommon crop could be cultivated and produced commercially -- and help to revive the country's floundering coffee industry, which was decimated by 11 years of civil war.

"Coffee could change the narrative for our farmers," Sarmu tells CNN.

A rediscovered plant

After discovering a wild garden of around 15 stenophylla plants growing in the hills, the research team gathered samples for testing.

In their new study published this month, it was confirmed that stenophylla coffee is of high quality and excellent flavor, comparable to the best Arabica beans.

"Coffee markets are very interested in anything that's different -- particularly if it has good flavor attributes," says Jeremy Haggar, an agro-ecologist at the University of Greenwich in the UK and one of the researchers who rediscovered the stenophylla coffee with Sarmu. "It's highly likely that the specialty coffee market will be interested in it, and they may pay very high prices."

Stenophylla coffee also grows in warmer temperatures, which means it could help the industry in its battle with climate change. Stenophylla can comfortably grow at temperatures up to 6.8⁰C higher than Arabica, which Haggar says could offer the industry a potential lifeline in a warming world.

© Michael Duff/CNN More local coffee producers are entering the domestic market, including Coffee Courier, Aromatic Coffee and Nina's Coffee.

This is good news for Sierra Leone, which is at the forefront of stenophylla's revival. But there's still a long road ahead before this rare bean makes its way into our coffee cups. The wild plant needs to be domesticated and further studied to develop better growth and management strategies.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, so adding a high-value market could be a boon for its agricultural sector, which employs 75% of the population. One of the biggest challenges is funding, Sarmu says, but he's committed to seeing stenophylla in Sierra Leone's coffee farms once more.

A coveted coffee

"Coffea stenophylla" wasn't always a rare commodity.

While researchers say 99% of the coffee we consume today comprises of Arabica and robusta, there are actually 124 species of coffee. There used to be much more diversity in coffee types, and Sierra Leone's highland coffee was highly coveted.

"In the 1890s, it was stenophylla coffee that dominated the market," says Sarmu. It was the preferred coffee of the French, and traded frequently into the 1920s.

But in the 1950s, robusta coffee was introduced to Sierra Leone by the British. Robusta is a more productive plant but is generally considered lower quality. As both coffees sold for the same price, farmers started replacing the old native crop. Over time, stenophylla was forgotten.

At this point, coffee was more important to Sierra Leone's economy than cocoa (now one of the country's top exports). Until 1991, Sierra Leone was exporting up to 25,000 tons of coffee annually.

But in that year, conflict in the neighboring country of Liberia, led by Charles Taylor, spread to Sierra Leone, triggering an 11-year civil war. Farmers abandoned the fields, says Sarmu -- and the coffee industry disappeared.


A new coffee culture

When the civil war officially ended in 2002, many of Sierra Leone's agricultural industries had to start over. The coffee sector never recovered, with annual exports falling to around 2,000 metric tons -- while Ethiopia, the continent's top producer, exported 234,000 metric tons last year.

Perhaps because of this, Sierra Leone has not developed its own unique coffee culture like some other coffee-producing countries. Rather than drinking homegrown products, locals can be seen drinking instant coffee from imported brands like Nescafe in the street market on their morning commutes.

However, that culture is starting to change, says Hannah Tarawally, founder of Coffee Courier, a coffee producer and cafe in the country's capital, Freetown.

"Before, my friends don't drink coffee, but because I introduced it to them, they can see and taste the difference," she says. "So I think it will change for Sierra Leoneans, to start using our own local products."

Tarawally began hand-roasting her own beans in 2015, and says she was one of the first in the country to do so. Her brand, Salone Coffee, now exports to Liberia and she hopes to enter the European market soon. In 2020, Coffee Courier opened its first cafe in Freetown -- one of the country's first dedicated coffee shops, an indication of the changing attitudes to homegrown products.

Tarawally isn't the only one creating a domestic market for artisanal brews. Aromatic Coffee, a stall in a Freetown market, was one of the first in the city, and Nina's Coffee, another Freetown coffee shop, hand-roasts its beans in-house.

When it becomes commercially available, the rediscovered stenophylla coffee could strengthen this burgeoning coffee scene -- one that Tarawally hopes all Sierra Leoneans will take part in.

"We are not only targeting an international market, but we need to target our country," says Tarawally. "We need to target the layman in Sierra Leone who can drink coffee, and make it a part of us all."

Why Uganda Doesn’t Drink Its Own Coffee

In Uganda, people grow coffee to export but rarely consume it themselves. Now a push to dispel myths about the beverage and introduce new ways to use the beans is changing that.

Olivia Musoke prunes dead leaves from her coffee plants in Mukono, Uganda.

Beatrice Lamwaka/GPJ Uganda

GLOBAL PRESS JOURNAL

Beatrice Lamwaka

December 26, 2022

WAKISO — There are many reasons Ugandans give for not drinking coffee. Olivia Musoke heard it causes vaginal dryness. When she was breastfeeding her children, people also told her it would dry up her breast milk.

Musoke grows coffee, bananas and cassava. The mother of five from Mukono, in central Uganda, has been a coffee farmer for more than 42 years. Although the cassava and bananas she plants are for her own consumption, she has tasted only a handful of coffee beans after a friend said they would keep her alert in her old age. She sells most of the coffee she harvests.

“When it’s ready, men come in trucks and take all,” she says.

Although coffee is one of Uganda’s main agricultural products, making up about 15% of the country’s total exports, locals like Musoke consume very little of it. There are various reasons for this, including myths and misconceptions about coffee

A cash crop 

Solomon Kapere, a coffee farmer from Kamuli, in eastern Uganda, says he has always thought of coffee as a cash crop. When he was younger, his grandfather had 10 acres of coffee plantation, but he does not remember ever drinking it.

The public and private sectors in Uganda are working to dispel myths by raising awareness and diversifying coffee products. In the process, they are broadening the market and increasing local consumption.

Uganda’s coffee owes its genesis to Malawi and the Ethiopian highlands. It was introduced in 1900 to provide the British colonial government with revenue. For this reason, some Ugandans associate coffee with forced colonial labor, hence the name kiboko, which means to whip or to cane in Kiswahili, says Daniel Karibwije, export trade specialist at Green Forest Safaris & Export Consulting, which promotes Uganda’s coffee exports abroad.

“This is ingrained in some people’s mind to this day,” Karibwije says. “Coffee is grown for others.”

Grown to be exported 

Since its introduction, production has grown. In 1925, coffee accounted for only 1% of the country’s exports, but by 1958, it had become the country’s chief export crop, overtaking cotton. In the 1970s, during Idi Amin’s regime, which was characterized by civil strife, the industry experienced setbacks, and coffee production decreased almost by half between 1972 and 1977.

In 2018, Ugandans consumed only 3% to 4% of the coffee produced in the country.

But the 1980s came with a liberalization process, leading to an increase in exports and payouts to farmers.Currently, Uganda exports a significant amount of coffee within the continent and worldwide. In 2020, it exported 26% of the continent’s coffee and 1.75% of the world’s coffee, an amount worth $539 million, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, an online visualization platform under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Despite this global contribution, in February, Uganda announced a two-year suspension of its membership in the International Coffee Organization, an intergovernmental group, out of concerns that the organization didn’t favor the country’s farmers and other players. Uganda plans to use this time to focus more on increasing its domestic consumption.

In 2018, Ugandans consumed only 3% to 4% of the coffee produced in the country, according to a parliamentary committee report.

“Most people are more inclined to drinking tea. Coffee from way back has been a cash crop — grown to be sold, exported, while people kept tea close to their hearts,” says Karibwije.

Sonya Hadija Nali scrubs a client’s body using a coffee scrub.

Beatrice Lamwaka/GPJ Uganda

Coffee as a beauty product 

Sonya Hadija Nali, who makes beauty products from coffee, hopes diversifying its utilization will help shift people’s attitudes and increase local consumption.

The mother of two has been experimenting with coffee. When her skin became dry and developed black spots, she turned to something she loved — coffee. Nali says she mixed coffee with coconut oil and added a little bit of honey and lemon. The concoction helped remove black spots from her skin and left it glowing. She started making the product, a body scrub, and selling it.

Now, Nali makes about 70 bottles of her body scrub a week. She markets on social media platforms, where she has hundreds of followers. Her product sells for 30,000 Ugandan shillings (about $8) a bottle.

Julius Nyanzi, a professor and bio-entrepreneur, makes coffee oil which is high in antioxidants that help the skin retain moisture. He has also created a coffee aroma dispenser that he sells to restaurants “so that they smell what they sell” to attract customers. Nyanzi, who studied pharmacology, has sold more than 2,000 oil-making machines to farmers.

The National Coffee Research Institute, a government agency, has been conducting research on how local ingredients like coffee can be used to make skin lotion, says Evans Atwijukire, technology developer at the Institute. The formulas are given to Ugandans who create products to sell both in Uganda and abroad.

Promoting coffee consumption 

The Uganda Coffee Development Authority, a government body that oversees the coffee industry, is promoting domestic coffee consumption by raising awareness about the benefits of the drink in hospitals and universities, says Doreen Rweihangwe, principal quality controller. It installed billboards on major roads in Kampala, the capital, and the city of Entebbe to promote coffee consumption. And it has been training baristas to prepare and serve quality coffee and encouraging them to participate in the Uganda National Barista Championship, part of the annual global barista competition that promotes excellence in coffee.

“The championship helps baristas to make good-quality coffee,” she says.

As a result of these coordinated efforts, local consumption is picking up. Rweihangwe cites indicators such as the increasing brands of coffee on the market and new cafes that are opening across the country.

We need a well-grown industry.

Yasir Ahmed, manager of Café Javas, one of Uganda’s major cafes with 13 branches, says Ugandans are now drinking more coffee than before, which he attributes to the efforts.

Ernest Bazanye, a writer, says he started appreciating coffee around 2010. He drinks his first cup after lunch “to beat postprandial depression” and get more work done, he says.

To Bazanye, Ugandans have always had a relationship with coffee, but what’s changing is how they consume it. While traditionally some people chewed the coffee beans, more people, especially older and middle-aged Ugandans, are beginning to brew and drink it.

There are benefits to improving local consumption, says Karibwije, the export specialist. “The economy would grow much faster with increased domestic consumption,” he says.

Rweihangwe agrees: “Ethiopia consumes most of its coffee and exports less. We need a well-grown industry.” She sees it as an opening to provide Ugandans with more jobs.

Coffee production hurts the planet. Scientists think they may have another way

Charmaine Jacob 


Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world — but the surge in demand is threatening the environment.

In the last 30 years, growing demand for coffee has led to a 60% increase in production, and has posed a myriad of threats to the environment, according to the International Coffee Organization.

Scientists in Finland are trying to come up with a sustainable, lab-grown alternative for the next cup of coffee — but the technology for producing it is still very costly.

© Provided by CNBC A worker separates coffee cherries during a harvest on a farm in Guaxupe, located in the southwest of the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil, on Wednesday, June 2, 2021.

Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world — but the surge in demand is threatening the planet, prompting environmentalists and scientists to look for sustainable ways to produce coffee.

"Most coffee goes through a wet-milling process that uses significant amounts of freshwater to de-pulp and wash the coffee. Then the coffee is dried, roasted, shipped and brewed — each of which uses energy," said Bambi Semroc, senior vice president of the Center for Sustainable Lands and Waters at Conservation International.

In the last 30 years, growing demand for coffee has led to a 60% increase in production, according to the International Coffee Organization.

From deforestation to a high usage of water and energy resources, research shows that increased coffee production is destroying the planet.

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Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, saw deforestation of its Amazon rainforest reach a 15-year high, according to a report published by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research.

An estimated 13,235 square kilometers — equivalent to 2,429 football fields — was lost between August 2020 and July 2021, representing a 22% increase from the previous year.

Coffee production also leaves a large water and energy footprint, with 140 liters of water needed to produce just 125 millimeters of coffee, according to the Water Footprint Network.

But at the same time, the coffee industry is also vulnerable to climate change.

Just this year, Brazil experienced waves of frost and drought in June, which pushed Arabica coffee prices to hit a seven-year high.

Commodity experts predict that prices will continue to rise "given the current instability of global markets as well as uncertainties around next year's outputs of dominant coffee producers — Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia," said Semroc, from the Center for Sustainable Lands and Waters at Conservation International.
Lab-grown coffee, anyone?

Scientists in Finland are trying to come up with a sustainable, lab-grown alternative for the next cup of coffee — but the technology for producing it is still very costly.

The VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland successfully produced coffee cells in a bioreactor through cellular agriculture, in a bid to make coffee production more environmentally friendly.

The research center's lab-grown coffee eliminates the need for deforestation and the process has a much lower water footprint as scientists are able to use recycled water to generate their bioreactors.

Another advantage is that coffee can be produced at all times under controlled temperature, light and oxygen conditions, removing the supply volatility in the industry.

"We're not a coffee producer but would want to collaborate and work with parties that have the expertise and vision to bring something like this to the market," said Heiko Rischer, head of plant biotechnology at the research institute.

"It also requires significant investment because the whole approval process... doesn't only need time, but it's of course also a costly exercise," he added.

The innovation also removes the long transportation process of coffee from the country of origin to the consumer country, and "has an impact on traceability and transparency of the process... this is often also a big problem in the coffee supply chain," Rischer said.

© Provided by CNBC Coffee cell cultures (right) and roasted coffee produced by VTT's cellular agriculture method.

"We are not working with coffee beans as a starting material, but instead with a freeze dried powder that we produce in the lab," he told CNBC.

Once the powder is roasted, it can be brewed the same way as a conventional cup of coffee.

Although Heiko forecasted it could take a minimum of four years before VTT's lab-grown coffee receives regulatory approval, there has already been a strong interest surrounding the product in Finland, the world's largest coffee consumer.

"In the past, we used to see a big resistance against genetically modified food, so we were positively surprised when people showed an interest to buy and taste the product... Coffee is a luxury product and people want to be able to purchase it with a good conscience," Heiko said.
Lack of investments

Programs such as those by World Coffee Research and Conservation International also aim to help meet growing global demand for coffee by increasing production of small-scale farmers and improving increasing investments on existing farms.

"Coffee research is a distant priority when you have more pressing humanitarian priorities ... Many low-income countries are responsible for delivering coffee to the world but haven't been able to invest in ways that would enable their farmers to reduce risks," said Jennifer Long, CEO of World Coffee Research.

More than 100 world leaders at Cop26, the United Nations global climate summit, pledged in November to collectively end deforestation by 2030. They are also seeking to redesign agricultural policies to incentivize sustainable farming.

However, a lack of investment in agricultural research and development could lead to more volatile prices ahead, experts warned.

Coffee production makes up a large share of export revenues for many developing countries — if investments in research and innovation are not made, "the consequence of the volatility in the coffee market can be very pronounced for farmers," she added.

Of the 12.5 million smallholder coffee farmers, at least 5.5 million people live below the international poverty line of $3.20 a day, according to Enveritas, a non-profit that helps small-scale coffee farmers find sustainable solutions.

"Investments in agricultural development, with a focused dedication to agricultural research and technology, are the most important singular investments you can make," said Long, pointing out that agricultural-specific challenges often leave small-scale farmers vulnerable.

Agricultural investments are important to ensure food security goals can be achieved despite global challenges impeding production today, Long said.

"Trees are a wonderful place to start because they absorb and hold so much carbon," she added, implying that agricultural production systems need to be modified to integrate more trees through agroforestry.

Is coffee good or bad for you? That may depend on your genes

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Some of us metabolize caffeine more quickly than others

 White Coat, Black Art·The Dose

Isabelle Gallant · CBC Radio · Posted: May 06, 2023

Victoria Bohay, the manager at the Naked Bean Café in Regina, holds an oat milk latte. Researchers say the way your body metabolizes coffee can affect how you feel when you drink it. (Matt Howard/CBC)

Latte, pour-over or double double: no matter how you grind or brew it, many Canadians start their day with a cup of coffee. 

Coffee — more specifically, caffeine — can be a great way to feel more alert and awake. But what else is that cup of coffee doing to our health? 

According to experts, it depends. 

"In popular press, one day coffee is good for you, another day it's bad for you, another day it doesn't do anything," said Sara Mahdavi, a clinical scientist at the University of Toronto.

But whether a certain level of caffeine has health benefits, is neutral or harmful depends on how our bodies respond to coffee, which happens through a genetic pathway — something many studies don't take into account, she said.

"For the most part, people are not looking at the genetics of a population who is consuming these coffees," said Mahdavi, who has done research into caffeine and genetics. 

LISTEN | What impact does coffee have on our health? 

The Dose24:47How does drinking coffee affect my health?

For many of us, coffee is an essential part of our day. So what impact is it having on us, beyond just waking us up in the morning? To try to answer that question, we speak to Thomas Merritt, a geneticist and professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/the-dose-transcripts-listen-1.6732281

Thomas Merritt, a geneticist and professor in the school of natural sciences at Laurentian University, agrees that much of it comes down to our genes.

"There's some people that can pound back pot after pot with no adverse effects. And there's some people, they have a sip of coffee and they get really amped up and over-jittery," Merritt told The Dose's host Dr. Brian Goldman.

"So there's a lot of variation in how individuals respond to that cup of coffee." 

So how much coffee should we be drinking? 

Mahdavi recommends limiting your caffeine intake to 200 milligrams per day, which she said her research shows is safe for everyone. 

How much coffee is that? According to Health Canada's caffeine guidelines, an eight-ounce cup of coffee can contain between 118 to 179 milligrams of caffeine, depending on how it's brewed.

A double shot of espresso — which is more concentrated than regular brewed coffee — has about 150 milligrams of caffeine. 

Health Canada's guidelines recommend up to 400 milligrams of caffeine per day for adults who aren't pregnant or breastfeeding. 

In general, most people can tolerate one to four cups of coffee a day before they start to get jittery, said Merritt. 

But the important thing, he says, is to pay attention to how coffee makes you feel. 

"Do you feel uncomfortable after a cup of coffee? Well, you should probably scale it back or think about something like a decaf coffee. And if you feel like you're waking up and you're still comfortable with the coffee after a couple of cups, that's great," he said. 

People generally drink as much coffee as their bodies can tolerate and no more than that, says Marilyn Cornelis, an associate professor of medicine at Northwestern University, who has researched the genetics of coffee consumption. (Shutterstock)

How does coffee wake us up? 

The caffeine molecules in coffee look a lot like a naturally-occurring neurotransmitter in our bodies called adenosine.

"Adenosine is involved with keeping us drowsy, keeping us asleep," said Merritt. 

The caffeine binds to our adenosine receptors, but because it looks slightly different, it turns off the sleep pathway and turns on a wake-up pathway instead. 

"It breaks that normal sleep cascade and breaks that cycle, and it actually fires off a different cascade that leads to a series of things, one of which is waking us up," said Merritt. 

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And it's not just alertness. He said drinking coffee can also provide a hit of dopamine, a chemical neurotransmitter that sends messages of pleasure to the brain. 

"So to drink a cup of coffee does wake you up, but it has this euphoric effect to it, in addition to just that buzz of a cup of coffee." 

Why our genes are important 

Though the mechanics of the jolt of caffeine will be the same for everyone, experts say the degree to which an individual reacts can vary wildly — because of how quickly or slowly our bodies metabolize caffeine. 

If you're a fast caffeine metabolizer, you can tolerate a lot more coffee, whereas if you're slower to metabolize that caffeine, you're likely more sensitive to coffee, said Marilyn Cornelis, who researches the genetics of coffee consumption.

And those genes often affect how much coffee you naturally drink, said Cornelis, an associate professor in the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. 

"As an example, if I have a genetic variant related to higher caffeine metabolism, I generally will consume more dietary caffeine or coffee," she said. 

"We actually see that the genetics alter our behaviours." 

Earlier this year, Mahdavi published a study suggesting that the genetic variants that affect our caffeine metabolism have a big impact on whether coffee is boosting our health or harming it. 

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For the study, Mahdavi and her co-authors looked at data from more than 1,100 people between the ages of 18 and 45 over a period of 16 years. 

The participants all had stage one hypertension, or high blood pressure. 

"We were able to demonstrate that of course those individuals who are slow metabolizers, the more coffee they consume — particularly more than 300 milligrams equivalent of caffeine per day — there are different health deterrents," said Mahdavi. 

Her study measured three markers of kidney health, including hypertension, and found that the group that metabolized coffee more slowly showed a decline in kidney function. 

When she looked at the results from fast caffeine metabolizers, they told a different story. 

Regardless of the amount of coffee they drank, their kidney function stayed the same instead of decreasing, which suggests the speed of caffeine metabolism makes a big difference. 

"It was really quite miraculous when you looked at their graph over time," said Mahdavi. "There was literally no difference between those who consumed no coffee, some coffee and a lot of coffee, with relation to those three same markers of their kidney [health]."

Mahdavi and Cornelis said research shows that about half of the general population metabolizes caffeine more slowly, while the other half does it more quickly. 

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So how do you know which kind of caffeine metabolizer you are? 

There's a simple genetic test that will tell you, said Mahdavi, although it usually costs hundreds of dollars and isn't covered by insurance. But you may not need to worry about it.

"Based on my research, we generally consume within our tolerability of coffee," said Cornelis. 

That means if you're a slow metabolizer, you can likely feel how coffee affects you and cut back on your own. 

Habtamu Lamu, owner of Awash Ethiopian Restaurant in Edmonton, pours a cup of coffee. A recent study from the University of Toronto suggested that people who metabolize caffeine more quickly often get health benefits from drinking coffee. (Nola Keeler/CBC)

Is coffee doing us any good? 

For those who metabolize coffee more quickly, there are definite health benefits, said Mahdavi. 

"We saw that the more coffee they consumed, actually their rate of heart attack went down," Mahdavi said of the participants in her recent study who were fast caffeine metabolizers. 

More recent research shows that coffee generally is good for us, including reducing the risk of both Type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease, said Cornelis. 

"Twenty years back … coffee and caffeine in general really had a bad rap. But with better research they've actually shown that at least coffee, it's actually showing to have a much more beneficial impact on health generally," she said.

'Extremely volatile': How COVID-19 threatens the global coffee industry

Laura Brehaut

POSTMEDIA

© Provided by National Post Coffee is one of the most widely traded agricultural commodities in the world, supporting the livelihoods of about 100 million people globally, especially in low income countries.


Kevon Rhiney drinks his coffee black, with just a hint of honey. He favours a medium-dark roast, especially from Jamaica’s Blue Mountains — coffee so legendary it has its own day on the Japanese calendar (Jan. 9, when the first large shipment left Kingston for Tokyo in 1967). Half a kilogram of beans from one of his favourite producers sells for more than $60 on eBay. But the author and assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Rutgers-New Brunswick, N.J., doesn’t need to pay a premium. When in Jamaica, he drives through the haze of the aptly named peaks to buy beans directly from the farm.

Like Rhiney, Canadians appreciate a good cup of coffee, though thousands of kilometres away from where it’s grown, most are removed from the realities of what goes into producing a bag of beans. At 6.5 kilograms per capita, Canadians are devoted coffee drinkers. In 2020, Canada rounded out the top 10 coffee-consuming countries , making it the only non-European nation to do so. But there’s a disconnect when it comes to our love for the beverage and an awareness of the challenges facing the people who produce it.

Coffee is under threat from climate change, deforestation and disease, the most devastating of which is coffee leaf rust. While there are 124 species of coffee, we drink only two: arabica, by far the world’s preferred brew, which is highly susceptible to coffee leaf rust; and the hardier (and less desirable) robusta. Sixty per cent of wild coffee species are at risk of extinction, including endangered arabica .

As Rhiney and researchers from the University of Arizona, University of Hawaii at Hilo, CIRAD, Santa Clara University, Purdue University West Lafayette and University of Exeter conclude in a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , COVID-19 is likely to deliver yet another blow to an already precarious industry.

Drawing on recent studies of coffee leaf rust — a fungal disease that destroyed coffee production in Sri Lanka in the late 1800s, and now affects coffee-growing regions the world over — the researchers examined the root causes of past outbreaks. They found that a host of socioeconomic disruptions brought on by COVID-19 will likely result in new epidemics: including rising unemployment, travel and mobility restrictions, and stay-at-home orders.

In turn, they predict that these epidemics will probably cause a coffee production crisis, threatening the livelihoods of the roughly 100 million people who work in the global industry

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© Zack Guido COVID-19’s socio-economic effects will likely cause another severe production crisis in the coffee industry, according to a Rutgers University-led study.

Through his previous work on the impact of coffee leaf rust on Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, lead author Rhiney realized that though much of the scientific focus has been on developing rust-resistant coffee varieties and chemical controls, socioeconomic factors play an important role in major outbreaks.

The “big rust” of 2012-13, for example, which affected coffee-producing countries across Central America and the Caribbean, can be traced back to the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis. The environmental conditions were ripe for coffee leaf rust, the researchers say, but the outbreak was also a function of the way people managed their farms.

“It took years to eventually manifest itself, but it was linked to changes in market prices,” says Rhiney. “Coffee became less viable in the years following the recession; many farmers pulled back from their investments on the farms. And by the time the prices started to get back up, farmers realized that their farms were literally infested with this coffee leaf rust disease.”

Weaker plants are more susceptible to coffee leaf rust, and the authors were concerned that COVID-19 would have a similar effect. Following the 2008 financial crisis, many of the boards established to ensure coffee farmers had access to vital equipment and information were either defunded or disbanded, explains Cathie Aime, a Purdue professor of mycology in the College of Agriculture and co-author of the study.

During her work with coffee farmers in Central and South America over the past decade, she’s seen firsthand the damage a lack of fungicides, spraying equipment and coffee leaf rust information can do.

“It’s a plant disease, yes. But a lot of the disease epidemic — the massive resurgence of disease we’ve seen — can be traced back to socioeconomic factors more than anything else,” says Aime. “It’s all a matter of getting resources and information to farmers. And when you don’t have the infrastructure, you have these catastrophic failures.”

© Zack Guido As a potential driver of coffee leaf rust — the world’s most severe coffee plant disease — COVID-19 poses a threat to the coffee industry, according to a new Rutgers University-led study.

The “big rust” had a knock-on effect throughout the coffee industry, adds Zack Guido, assistant research professor in the Arizona Institutes for Resilience and co-author of the study: “30 to 50 per cent of the plants were impacted; something like $500 million of export value was lost. And that rippled through the owners, to the labourers, to the exporters, to the coffee shops there and to our coffee shops.”

When Rhiney started his work on coffee leaf rust in 2015, three years had passed since the outbreak in Jamaica. Many producers had been forced to start growing other crops or leave farming altogether. Entire households were affected as quality of life changed and supports fell away, which came with its own set of psychological consequences.

“I don’t think many people realize how volatile the coffee industry is. It’s extremely volatile. And anytime there is a crisis, the people who feel the brunt of that are the smallholder farmers, the migrant and seasonal labourers who depend on coffee for a living,” says Rhiney. “And thinking about poverty reduction and all of these issues, even though coffee is considered a high-end product, it is extremely important in sustaining the livelihoods of millions of farmers and farmworkers across the Americas and throughout the world.”

It took several years for the 2008 financial crisis to have a visible effect on coffee production. Similarly, the researchers predict a one-year lag before the full effects of COVID-19 on the coffee industry are seen. When dealing with a fragile production chain such as coffee, says Guido, even when impacts aren’t immediately apparent, they can still be long-lived.

Guido has also worked with Jamaican coffee farmers over the past decade, and has seen the challenges they face bringing the product to market. Volatile prices, climate-related impacts and biological issues such as coffee leaf rust are constant concerns. For the most part, he explains, coffee is grown by smallholder farmers — primarily on parcels of land fewer than five hectares — in countries largely in development.

When we buy a cup of coffee, the vast majority of the profit goes to the end of the supply chain: roasters and retailers, not producers. Consequently, coffee farmers often don’t have the resources to deal with disruptions, such as those caused by economic crises and pandemics, and often operate at a loss.

“COVID is just another thing that is added on top of it, that exacerbates … all of the other issues that they continually deal with,” says Guido. “We can abstract this and think about, ‘Will the coffee cup be more expensive to us?’ But unless we’re thinking about how that coffee is produced and the different challenges that people experience within the context of COVID, I think we’re missing an opportunity to empathize. And really, we’re missing an opportunity to correct what I see as an imbalance.”

The authors draw a parallel between “essential but underrecognized parts of the production process, such as human health, food security and sustainability.” And they hope that a lasting side effect of the pandemic will be a widespread understanding that individual health is tied to collective health. In the case of COVID-19, that’s demonstrated in vaccinations and taking precautions to limit the spread; and in coffee, Guido adds, it means ensuring people earn enough income to continue to farm.

Breeding rust-resistant varieties shouldn’t be seen as a “silver bullet,” says Rhiney. An issue with strong socioeconomic drivers warrants cultural, economic and social solutions. As coffee drinkers, valuing the labour that goes into its production is key, he adds, as is recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of the global coffee system.

“How can we harness the positive elements within that interconnected world that we live in to ensure this idea of one health,” says Rhiney. “Where you’re not just sitting in a coffee shop in Vancouver enjoying this delicious cup of coffee, being far removed from the social and economic realities of the people who produce it. How can we be more aware of the world we live in and the foods that we consume?”

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