
The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830) - ptio
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0035.002/10
======
njharman
"This coffee falls into your stomach, which, as you know from Brillat-Savarin,
is a sack whose velvety interior is lined with tapestries of suckers and
papillae. The coffee finds nothing else in the sack, and so it attacks these
delicate and voluptuous linings; it acts like a food and demands digestive
juices; it wrings and twists the stomach for these juices, appealing as a
pythoness appeals to her god; it brutalizes these beautiful stomach linings as
a wagon master abuses ponies; the plexus becomes inflamed; sparks shoot all
the way up to the brain."

That is some damn fine writing there.

~~~
toufka
You left off the better part of the story!

On the drink [finely pulverized, dense coffee, cold and anhydrous, consumed on
an empty stomach] mentioned above.

"I recommended this way of drinking coffee to a friend of mine, who absolutely
wanted to finish a job promised for the next day: he thoughthe’d been poisoned
and took to his bed, which he guarded like a married man. He was tall, blond,
slender and had thinning hair; he apparently had a stomach of papier-mache."

~~~
wazoox
The translation is apparently inaccurate, it would be better as "and took to
his bed, which he guarded like a bride".

~~~
gcb0
both ways, i completely miss the meaning.

~~~
zensavona
A married man's wife resides in a married man's bed

~~~
hueving
However, they may be different married men.

------
xefer
Balzac's galley proofs seem like a testament to a life of dedicated heavy
coffee drinking:

[http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=365](http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=365)

------
hownottowrite
I recommend starting at the top and working your way down piece by piece, over
coffee of course. Lots and lots of coffee.
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31565/31565-h/31565-h.htm](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31565/31565-h/31565-h.htm)

And if you like the translations, I should add that most were completed by
four women. In particular, Ellen Marriage who published under the name James
Waring.

[http://balzacbooks.wordpress.com/translations/](http://balzacbooks.wordpress.com/translations/)

------
mathattack
I think Balzac was on to something. :-) I like how he quotes Brillat-Savarin.
Others are here. [0] My favorite is the one that kicks off Iron Chef, "Tell me
what you eat, and I will tell you who you are."

[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jean_anthelme_br...](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jean_anthelme_brillatsav.html)

~~~
selimthegrim
Allez cuisine!

~~~
gknoy
Allez caffeine!

~~~
sitkack
An entire carafe of 500mg of dark roast in 1L of water.

------
Gobiel
In French:
[http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mode...](http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_modernes)

~~~
guiomie
Thanks. Also worth noting that it contains essays on wine and tobacco.

------
scoot
It was curious to see the reference to cold-brew coffee. I didn't even know it
was a thing until a couple of days ago when I saw this article in a freebie
newspaper:

How to Make cold brew coffee at home
[http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/how-to-
make...](http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/how-to-make-
coldbrew-coffee-at-home-9545505.html)

------
devindotcom
Ah! I think this was recently reprinted in the "Intoxication" issue of
Lapham's. Very interesting essay in a very interesting magazine. That one also
turned me on to the "Coffee Cantata" of Bach:

[http://coldewey.cc/post/49474192760/bach-ei-wie-schmeckt-
der...](http://coldewey.cc/post/49474192760/bach-ei-wie-schmeckt-der-coffee-
susse-bwv-211)

~~~
dang
Lapham's is second to none at what they do. I wish it were more available
online. Some of their web productions are beautiful, but it's so hit and miss
what you can find on their site that I eventually gave up.

~~~
devindotcom
Agree. I just subscribed, damn the expense. A wonderful publication like that
is well worth a bill a year if you ask me.

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tejaswiy
How much of this is pseudo science?

~~~
scythe
Surprisingly, much of it appears to be accurate. Tannins can cause irritation,
though more notably of the bladder (interstitial cystitis) than the stomach,
and brewing finer coffee at lower temperature does indeed result in a lower
tannin content. Ingesting coffee beans does in fact cause some indigestion via
increased production of stomach acid, as well, and in addition to all of this
caffeine works by the following two neural mechanisms:

* it blocks the adenosine receptor type 1, whose primary function is to decrease blood pressure and heart rate in preparation for sleeping

* it blocks the glycine receptor, whose primary purpose is to slow muscle contraction (strychnine also blocks this receptor, albeit far more strongly...)

So the claims about the effects of coffee are, well, surprisingly accurate,
though finding most of this information was hard and I wish I had peer-
reviewed sources:

[http://www.ic-network.com/patient-resources/diet/diet-
introd...](http://www.ic-network.com/patient-resources/diet/diet-
introduction/)

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/11/espresso_why_is_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/02/11/espresso_why_is_this_coffee_drink_so_popular.html)

[http://www.livestrong.com/article/476658-the-effects-of-
eati...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/476658-the-effects-of-eating-
coffee-beans/)

Google Scholar seems to be getting slowly less useful; repeated searches for
information on brewing methods turned up mostly information about roasting
methods.

------
Netcob
"I'm not an addict, I'm a connoisseur!"

"Last night a meth connoisseur took my wallet and my mobile phone!"

------
benatkin
Funny, this is the same year the Mormon church was founded. They abstain from
the consumption of coffee.

------
gregschlom
For French speakers out there, here's the original version:
[http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mode...](http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_modernes)

------
nkozyra
Balzac's story makes me wonder if I'll make it to 50. I'm not quite at his
level, but I'm not far behind.

~~~
araes
Do you have thick black hair and an impregnable constitution? Notably though,
he was pretty focused on the toxic qualities of tannins, but most recent
investigations seem to go the other way (mild antioxidant, mild anticancer
effects). Maybe your zealous drinking will take you well past 50?

------
guiomie
He refers to a french "cafiot" coffee ?? I googled it but couldn't find
anything. Anyone knows what it is ?

~~~
fiatpandas
The text described that term not as a type of French coffee, but as the term
the French used to describe Turkish-style coffee.

[http://www.languefrancaise.net/bob/detail.php?id=5998](http://www.languefrancaise.net/bob/detail.php?id=5998)

First part means: "Bad coffee made ​​with chicory." Turkish coffee is made
with chicory

~~~
js2
Turkish coffee is a method of preparation, but I have never known it to be
made with chicory. Perhaps you meant cardamom?

I've only ever had coffee made with chicory in New Orleans. Somewhat
ironically, supposedly we have the French to thank for that -
[http://www.cafedumonde.com/coffee](http://www.cafedumonde.com/coffee) :-)

~~~
snogglethorpe
... and coffee made with chicory (mix the ground coffee with ground roast
chicory and brew normally) has a very interesting flavor... I find roast
chicory much closer in taste to coffee than other roast grains used as coffee
substitutes—it has a fairly coffee-like bitterness, for example—but it has its
own unique flavor as well, with a nice vegetal/grassy sweetness to offset the
bitterness.

You can mix it in any proportion that suits you; I like straight roast chicory
too...

It's something not everybody likes, but well-worth trying.

[One warning though: I've found that if you let too much chicory go through a
coffee-grinder (e.g. if you mix the beans with the chicory before grinding),
it can gum up the grinding burrs...]

------
calt
Does anyone have a plain text transcription? I'm having trouble reading that
scan.

~~~
ZoF
There's a 'format' option in the top left, you can select text/image/pdf.
Here's it in text form[0]

[0]-[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0035.002/10?v...](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mqrarchive/act2080.0035.002/10?view=text&size=100)

~~~
tomkinstinch
Since even their "text" view is a pain, here is the document in full plaintext
and readability formats (all credit due to Monsieur Balzac):

[http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=RjDr7g8Z](http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=RjDr7g8Z)

[https://www.readability.com/articles/mxgfhgbh](https://www.readability.com/articles/mxgfhgbh)

------
hiphopyo
Do check out the "CAFFEINATED" documentary as well while you're at it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OecTZBjFvw#t=259](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OecTZBjFvw#t=259)

