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by
bud simpson |
August
16, 2006 |
Coffee-A-Go-Go
The
coffeepot may be a symbol for those in Alcoholics Anonymous,
but caffeine has proven its own addictive qualities, being
related to such chemicals as heroin and cocaine. |
At the
meeting of Coffee-holics Anonymous:
“Hi, um, my name’s Bud, and I’m a caffeine
addict.”
“Hi, Bud!”
“I’ve been clean for nearly two hours.”
“Gasp!”
If there’s a twelve-step program for coffee addicts, I
could be their poster boy.
The first time I tasted any form of coffee other than the garden-
variety, fresh-from-the-can, “Good To The Last Drop”
stuff was at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle a dozen
years ago. I stood there, steaming grande latte in hand, staring
at Elliot Bay, and as I savored the sweet warmth, the world
changed. There was celestial music, the overcast sky turned
a brilliant Cerulean blue, and my hair started to tingle. I
liked it. This wasn’t my father’s coffee, it was
the coffee that launched expeditions, made the American colonists
give up beer for breakfast and that would start me on the road
to a genuine addiction to the evil bean.
I had lived with coffee before, but it was a tenuous and unfulfilling
relationship. My first taste of coffee came from my dad’s
electric percolator, the stuff of jingly 60s commercials –
a jet-age inspired electric chrome table rocket with a little
glass bubble on top, gurgling away happily at the break of day.
My Grandma Patton did it entirely differently, with a mystical,
glass-globed vacuum contraption that was part evil-scientist
lab apparatus, part amusement park ride. It all tasted the same
to me – hot, bitter and boring. Sure, it had some kick
to it, but the adrenaline push wasn’t worth the ordeal
and the oral discomfort that hot coffee represented to me. (Letting
it cool some before gulping it down didn’t occur to me
until a number of years later.) Grandma Simpson didn’t
deal with coffee at all, she may have known of its evils and
steered clear. I should have noticed that Grandma was able to
doze off at the drop of a hat. Definitely not a coffee drinker.
My ongoing love/hate relationship with coffee was fueled in
part by an old friend from high school who opened a coffee house.
I used his place as a work-avoidance venue – the coffee
was a bonus. He used me as a one-man focus group and espresso
guinea pig. He studied beans and roasts, and armed with new
and dangerous blends he tied me to a comfy chair and injected
his brews directly into a vein. That may not be right. Maybe
after a few weeks exposure to The Espresso Machine of Dr. Moreau
I just wanted him to do that. I was hooked. He fed me cappuccinos,
lattés, Americanos, café au lait, Turkish coffee,
and a rare and bizarre coffee, “Kopi Luak,” the
beans for which were once sliding around inside the alimentary
canal of a living polecat. Incredibly good, if you don’t
spend any time pondering the actual process of harvesting the
beans. Weasel scatology and coffee really shouldn’t go
together. Sadly, the coffee house didn’t survive, but
my addiction rages on.
Just as cigarettes are a mere delivery vehicle for nicotine,
coffee is the medium for the transportation of caffeine. Caffeine
in its pure form is a bitter-tasting, white crystalline substance,
and is just as addictive as some other white crystalline products
I’ve heard tell of. Caffeine – Trimethylxanthine
– to be exact, is described chemically as C8H10N4O2 and
is classified as an alkaloid. It stimulates the very same neural
centers as other common alkaloids – cocaine, nicotine
and heroin. A good slug of coffee bumps up the heart rate and
blood pressure and also increases the production of adrenaline,
the “fight or flight” hormone. A side effect is
the constriction of blood vessels and the tensing of muscles.
This sounds like a recipe for road rage and all sorts of twitchy
over-reactions to life, the universe and everything, if you
ask me. I know that when I’m fully caffeinated, I maintain
the calm demeanor of a Yorkshire Terrier gnawing on an extension
cord. I also crash horribly if my fix isn’t delivered
on time. It’s gets pretty ugly, and I’m not all
that pretty to begin with.
Oddly, with the rage for boutique coffees that a certain Seattle-based
company (named for a serious, level-headed character from “Moby
Dick”) started in this country, the caffeine content of
espresso is actually lower than that of plain old drip coffee.
To make up for that, many consumers do double and triple shots
to juice up their pricey cuppa joe. The net effect is that of
a horde of caffeine-enhanced anti-zombies looking for their
next fix. You may count me among their number. Why this stuff
isn’t illegal is still a mystery to me.
The addictive quality of coffee has built empires and sends
many into the street every morning looking for a quick, if not
inexpensive score. Want numbers? If you go to your local java
barista for a foamy morning fix, say at $4 a pop, and you do
this every workday, you’ll spend about a thousand dollars
in a year. Through the magic of compound interest, at this rate,
assuming an annual investment yield rate of 5% (if you’re
lucky) at the end of 10 years, your coffee habit converted to
savings would net you a cool $13,000-plus. Another 10 years
of stashing your mud money in a bank, turns your four-dollar-a-day
habit into $35,000 of pocket change. I could go on and on, but
I can see the bottom of my cup, and panic is starting to set
in.
As drugs go, caffeine seems pretty a pretty innocuous master,
but master all the same. Every time I think that we might all
be better off without our daily jolt, I imagine a world without
coffee, where everyone is lounging happily in the afternoon
sun, maybe taking the occasional catnap or strolling through
the park, and absolutely nothing is getting done. Never mind.
I take mine cream, two sugars, please. I’ve got work to
do.
Bud
Simpson is a member of the infamous Northeast High School Class
of 1968 and a professional photographer. Learn more at www.budzilla.com.
