
The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830) - benbreen
http://blissbat.net/balzac.html
======
nappy
Balzac was a wild guy, and prolific. Here's how he worked:

Balzac drove himself relentlessly as a writer, motivated by enormous literary
ambition as well as a never-ending string of creditors and endless cups of
coffee; as Herbert J. Hunt has written, he engaged in “orgies of work
punctuated by orgies of relaxation and pleasure.” When Balzac was working, his
working schedule was brutal: He ate a light dinner at 6:00 P.M., then went to
bed. At 1:00 A.M. he rose and sat down at his writing table for a seven-hour
stretch of work. At 8:00 A.M. he allowed himself a ninety-minute nap; then,
from 9:30 to 4:00, he resumed work, drinking cup after cup of black coffee.
(According to one estimate, he drank as many as fifty cups a day.) At 4:00
P.M. Balzac took a walk, had a bath, and received visitors until 6:00, when
the cycle started all over again. “The days melt in my hands like ice in the
sun,” he wrote in 1830. “I’m not living, I’m wearing myself out in a horrible
fashion–but whether I die of work or something else, it’s all the same.”[1]

[1] [http://meaningring.com/2015/05/06/daily-rituals-balzac-by-
ma...](http://meaningring.com/2015/05/06/daily-rituals-balzac-by-mason-
currey/)

~~~
mcbits
I've also heard "50 cups a day" estimated for Voltaire. If true, it probably
means something more like 50 shots of espresso, but I'm still skeptical in
both cases.

~~~
digi_owl
50 cups is up around the LD50 for caffeine if drinking drip coffee, iirc.

~~~
zeroer
Maybe not if you work up to it.

~~~
M_Grey
Exactly, tolerance is a massive factor in whether you get a headache, or a
seizure.

------
vijucat
I could write similar paens to Matcha, and the harsh truth, coffee lovers, is
that the top feature of green tea is that it is not coffee.

Coffee , as is this piece by Balzac), is like dramatic prose, whereas green
tea is like a haiku. Coffee seeks to kick the door open with it's legs,
applying the full force of the femur (caffeine), sending the imbiber into a
frenzy of activity, while green tea knocks on the door first (L Thanine). And
isn't a polite knock enough to open many a door?

Coffee's influence is like a sugar rush, an exaggerated high followed by an
artificial low, while green tea's influence is like a smooth lift-off.

For some reason, I end up choosing coffee when I'm stressed, and it worsens
matters. I go for matcha when I'm well-rested and want to be productive, and
it always leads to a good work session.

~~~
surement
You can always take l-theanine with coffee, the combination is a common
nootropic.

~~~
extr
Indeed, YMMV but I take 200mg of L-Theanine with my morning coffee and I find
it does a lot for my "caffeine jitters'. Research is mixed, but some trials
suggest it is a real and substantial effect. Supposedly they have a
synergistic effect when taken together, helping focus/attention even more than
caffeine alone. It's not airtight, but L-theanine is cheap enough and the
effect is noticeable enough for me to make it worth it. Probably the only
nootropic I feel that way about. Some of my friends describe it as the closet
thing to "legal adderall" you can get.

~~~
40acres
I've tried coffee / tea with L-Theanine and haven't really noticed a
difference in focus, jitters, or anything like that. Then again I don't really
get coffee 'jitters', or at least I don't notice it.

I was very interested in caffeine / theanine as a nootropic but after a few
days of trying I've given up on the pursuit.

~~~
extr
Yeah it's very YMMV. Although if you've never had caffeine jitters then you
just may not be drinking enough to notice the effect. And supposedly the ratio
matters. I "dose" at a 100mg:200mg caffeine:theanine ratio.

~~~
drvdevd
Also the brand/form of L-theanine seems to matter as well. I've tried several
and the random cheap brand I purchased at the local health food store seems to
have had the most noticable effects.

------
AdmiralAsshat
Pretty impressive from a linguistic standpoint how close an 1830's document
reads like something that could have been written today (with perhaps a touch
of pretentious formality). Try reading the communications of the US Founding
Fathers less than a century before, and the stylistic changes are like night
and day.

~~~
GuiA
Translation from French, as others have pointed out. The original text is
longer, and covers stimulants other than coffee, such as tobacco and sugar:

[http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm](http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm)

The French is slightly dated in some ways, but definitely could have been
written today (albeit by an old school literary type, of which we have
plenty).

~~~
woodrowbarlow
it sounds like you are fluent in french. how closely does the phrase "liver
spots" match the original text?

~~~
ramimac
Here is the relevant French excerpt:

"Enfin, j'ai découvert une horrible et cruelle méthode, que je ne conseille
qu'aux hommes d'une excessive vigueur, à cheveux noir et durs, à peau mélangée
d'ocre et de vermillon, à mains carrées, à jambes en forme de balustres comme
ceux de la place Louis XV."

The original text states "... with mixed/blended ochre and vermillion skin"

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guilhas
I alternate coffe with orzo coffee, barley coffee, or chicory coffee. They
look like coffe, taste like coffe but have no have caffeine. And "natural".
It's good to trick the addiction.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_ss_i_0_11?k=barley...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_ss_i_0_11?k=barley+coffee)

~~~
djrogers
> taste like coffee

For wildly varying values of 'taste'...

~~~
Groxx
Yeah, I'm not sure what coffee they've been drinking, but I've never found
e.g. chicory to be anything even _slightly_ like good coffee.

~~~
guilhas
Try barley then

------
jordanmoconnor
I had an experience the other day that fit the later scenario he describes.
Had to go home and take a nap. It was a throbbing headache and feeling to
vomit, all because of coffee on an empty stomach!

I guess I don't have thick black hair and enough liver spots to handle it. :(

~~~
gukov
I'm not terribly addicted to coffee and actually prefer decaf (hate the
jitters), but for the last few weeks I've been drinking 2-3 cups a day at
work. I got a terrible headache on Saturday, just because there was no longer
a steady supply of caffeine. Caffeine hangover is real.

~~~
awfgylbcxhrey
Did you replace the coffee intake with other liquids? Usually when I see
people experience "caffeine headaches", they tend to be the types who get most
of their liquid intake from caffeinated sources. So, they end up with a
headache from mild dehydration.

~~~
ChoGGi
I was starting my day with a pot of coffee, and water/herbal tea throughout
the day. I figured a pot a day wasn't good, so I went cold turkey after I ran
out; had a horrid dull throbbing headache for the next few days (thought I was
coming down with something till I realised).

------
ranko
It's pleasing that a great French writer expounds on coffee, and (a century
later) a great British one treats us to the requirements for a nice cup of
tea: [https://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/the-orwell-
prize/orwell/ess...](https://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/the-orwell-
prize/orwell/essays-and-other-works/a-nice-cup-of-tea/)

------
Scarbutt
Is coffee a zero sum game? for me, I noticed that with time you have to keep
increasing the dose to keep the same level of effect.

~~~
ValentineC
Supposedly, the number of adenosine receptors in your brain increases over
time with caffeine consumption, creating a tolerance to caffeine.

I've read articles [1] which suggest that cycling off caffeine for 7-12 days
helps reset the number of adenosine receptors to the baseline.

[1] [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-is-how-
you...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-is-how-your-brain-
becomes-addicted-to-caffeine-26861037/)

~~~
coldcode
There is a limit to how many receptors you can have, which limits how much
"wakeup" coffee can produce. Once you hit the limit and fill them up, the only
affect you get from more coffee are the negative problems. I vaguely remember
it being like 400mg of caffeine or something like that.

~~~
xeromal
400mg is about 3-5 cups of coffee a day depending on the roast.

~~~
montecarl
Except at Starbucks, where their coffees are large and strong!

Tall 260mg Grande 330mg Venti 415mg

~~~
djrogers
Venti=20oz, a 'cup' of coffee is typically considered to be 5-6 oz, so the
numbers still line up.

~~~
OJFord
It's also three shots (by default) making the lining up even clearer.

------
pabb
Is drinking coffee on an empty stomach actually considered harmful? I do it
daily every day of the week. My first meal of the day is lunch a few hours
after I've had either an Americano with 2-3 shots of espresso, or a regular
coffee with 1-2 espresso shots in it. Almost always black.

On a low carb diet, I get GI distress generally after eating lunch, but
outside of dieting I haven't noticed any adverse effects related to it. I've
been doing this every weekday for over 2 years now.

~~~
OJFord
"Doctor, doctor! I haven't any symptoms!"

------
artursapek
I remember reading this on HN like 4 years ago and have been trying to find it
again ever since! Thanks for posting.

~~~
neogodless
Ah yes - previous discussion, 37 comments. 108/125 points depending on who you
ask ;)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921691)

------
niftich
That's eloquent and evocative, and resonates just as well today, 200 years
later. I was going to comment on how such a mundane observation from long ago
makes for an interesting read in and of itself, but it's clear from the
content that this wasn't a condition oft-encountered by common folk; there was
significant social stratification that made coffee (and coffeehouses) a
pastime or performance-enhancing substance of the _haute_ and _petite_
_bourgeoisie_ and not of everyday wage-earners, while the same is hardly true
today.

From nightshift millennials to busy gen-X professionals, from the purpose-
oriented to the traditionalists, from the pines of the Nordics to the pampas
of South America, the populace of lots of countries is quite caffeinated
throughout.

------
bjourne
Reading that essay, I kept thinking if his next step would be inserting the
coffee rectally. I'm surprised he never got to that point.

------
pmoriarty
There's also Bach's _Coffee Cantata_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweigt_stille,_plaudert_nich...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweigt_stille,_plaudert_nicht,_BWV_211)

------
acallan
Relevant

[http://video.newyorker.com/watch/exclusive-clip-of-le-
cafe-d...](http://video.newyorker.com/watch/exclusive-clip-of-le-cafe-de-
balzac-from-the-new-yorker-presents)

------
Kinnard
Would love to find the original french.

~~~
defen
It was linked elsewhere in this thread:
[http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm](http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm)

