
The Rise of Coffee - kgthegreat
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-rise-of-coffee
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Merrill
Coffee (and tea) have some antimicrobial action. They made it safer to drink
the water, and did not have the disadvantages of the other alternative,
alcoholic drinks.

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sjg007
That’s because you have to boil the water.

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Merrill
Various compounds, including caffeine, that are present in coffee beans have
antimicrobial properties. Additional Maillard reaction products that have
antimicrobial properties are created by roasting. Coffee is also pretty acidic
- IIRC, dorm cafeteria coffee turned chem lab blue litmus paper a pretty red.

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ruffrey
Article is from 2008

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peterwwillis
On my desktop, approx. 1/5th of the screen is taken up by a giant top banner
for American Scientist, and two paragraphs don't fit on the page. Why do
people design websites like this?

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keyle
Sometimes the designer was paid too much and indulged in make my logo bigger
cream.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgcX0y1Nzhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgcX0y1Nzhs)

/s

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starpilot
I'm so glad I'm not dependent.

~~~
foota
It's pretty easy to break through the physiological symptoms of caffeine
withdrawal, but more difficult to stick to not drinking it, I find.

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sin7
The headaches are pretty bad.

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meej
I used a product called Wean Caffeine to successfully avoid the headaches. It
steps you down by 10mg every three days. For anyone wanting to quit, I highly
recommend.

[https://www.weancaffeine.com/](https://www.weancaffeine.com/)

~~~
mrfusion
It’s a shame they start at 100mg. I think I’d need to start at 200-300mg. I
guess I’d have to buy three packs and then use regular caffeine pills to fill
in. Gets a little pricey though.

Such an awesome idea though.

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deepakb358
The huge variety of unique flavors in coffee from different origins is quite
amazing and even now just beginning to be explored. You can now create
specific flavors in real time by roasting, grinding and brewing every cup
robotically with advanced algorithms at www.sevacoffee.com

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oITAZt
That machine is very interesting! If you own one of them, would you mind
sharing how roast chamber works? I've thought a bit about how that could be
done in a fully-automated fashion, but I'm curious to see what solution they
came up with.

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Stratoscope
Roasting immediately before brewing is not a great idea.

I've been roasting my own beans for 20 years, and one of the first things I
learned is that hardly any beans are at their best right after roasting.
Freshly roasted is OK, but the beans are outgassing for some time after that.
2-3 days rest after roasting improves the flavor of just about any coffee,
especially the fruity dry process Ethiopians I like.

Feel free to email me (address in profile) if you'd like to talk about home
roasting - always happy to kick it around with anyone interested.

Also visit [https://www.sweetmarias.com/](https://www.sweetmarias.com/) for
lots of information about green coffee and roasting, grinding, and brewing
equipment. (I am not affiliated with them at all, just a long time customer.)

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asdff
Any basic budget advice says to cut starbucks out of your life and make your
$5 latte at home, but why stop there?

Caffeine pills work out to $0.05/cup-equivalent, aren't going to make you take
bathroom trips, aren't going to give you bad breath, and aren't going to stain
your teeth. I usually keep a few in my pocket in case I get randomly drowsy in
a meeting or if I'm driving far. I haven't looked back, and I used to pull my
own espresso and roast my beans.

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zepto
How do they not make you take bathroom trips? Caffeine is a diuretic.

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TheSpiceIsLife
This probably affects people differently.

I know people who can have coffee and fall asleep immediately afterwards, and
have little to none urinary symptoms at all; and other people who’ll not sleep
and / or need to pee frequently.

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eyegor
Personally, I find tea to be a much stronger diuretic. Even herbal tea (zero
caffeine). Coffee used to cause diuretic symptoms, until I reached the point
where I drank it every day. I drink tea most days now, but the diuretic
effects never subsided.

/rant. Bodies are weird.

~~~
TheDong
Note that herbal tea also has zero tea in it usually and so shouldn't be
lumped in with tea either.

Perhaps your symptoms are psychosomatic?

