Caffeine

Michael Pollan

📚 GENRE: Miscellaneous

📃 PAGES: 2 Hours, 2 Minutes

✅ COMPLETED: February 7, 2020

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

In a very interesting profile, Michael Pollan takes readers through the history of caffeine, a drug that was first discovered in a small part of East Africa and within a century became an addiction affecting most of the human species. Pollan explains how caffeine works in the brain and why it is so addictive.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Caffeine is a Drug — Caffeine is the most widely-used drug in the world and the only one we give to kids (soda). Its effects are fairly subtle compared to other psycho-active drugs, but your state of consciousness is altered when you consume caffeine. Over 90% of the population consumes caffeine in some form or fashion and over 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed daily.

2️⃣ Caffeine & Adenosine — Caffeine is not a pure energy booster; it instead blocks adenosine from reaching its receptor in the brain. Adenosine’s job is to make you progressively sleepier as the day goes on. Caffeine blocks it, temporarily preventing adenosine from doing its thing.

3️⃣ Caffeine Changed the World — Caffeine’s discovery, and the rapid rise of coffee that followed, was a major boost to individual productivity and performance. Caffeine improved focus and energy and allowed people to get more things done. Coffee was a big part of the Industrial Revolution. 

Favorite Quote

"It’s amazing that we’ve institutionalized a drug for the express purpose of improving productivity and quality control, but so we have."

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • Caffeine is a “Psycho-Active Drug.” It’s a chemical.
    • Caffeine alters your state of consciousness. It’s so widely used that it has become normal. 
    • 90% of humans use caffeine, making it the most used “Psycho-Active Drug” in the world.
      • And the only one we give to children (soda).
      • Over 2 billion cups of coffee are consumed daily.
  • Caffeine withdrawal symptoms — headache, fatigue, laziness, difficulty concentrating, irritability, and lack of motivation.
  • 1,3,7 – Trimethylxanthine
    • This is the technical molecule name for caffeine. 

Chapter 1

  • The first cup of coffee or tea in the morning feels the best because it is suppressing the early stages of caffeine withdrawal.
    • The caffeine withdrawal process begins overnight.
  • Caffeine is a destructive cycle.
    • Today’s cup of coffee is alleviating the effects and mental distress of yesterday‘s cup of coffee.
      • In this way, daily caffeine is the optimal solution to the problem it created the day before.
  • When you stop having caffeine after a while, things slow down. You feel slightly off without it in your system.

Chapter 2

  • Caffeine comes from two plants:
    1.  Coffea
    2. Camellia Sinensis (Tea)
    • These two plants create the chemical caffeine. 
  • The two plants weren’t thought of as anything special until it was discovered how addicting the molecule they produce — caffeine — is to the human brain.
    • Now these plants are all over the world because people want to produce caffeine. 
    • Coffea — At first only really seen in East Africa and Southern Arabia. Now it is seen in tropical areas like Africa, East Asia, Hawaii, Central in South America. 
      • It now covers 27 million acres
    • Camellia Sinensis — Originated in Southwest China. Now seen in India, Japan. Colonized in over 10 million acres.
  • These plants are sent all over the world. They are then soaked in hot water to get the caffeine from the leaves and the seeds. Then they are then discarded.
  • The plants create caffeine as self-defense against insects. Caffeine is lethal in high doses to insects, who try to chew on the plants. 
    • Caffeine disarms animals because of its psychoactive properties. 
    • Caffeine ruins an insect’s appetite. Plant doesn’t necessarily want to kill it, just disorient it.
      • The caffeine intoxicates them, making them do stupid things that might get them killed by a bird or something else.

Chapter 3

  • 1990 — A German study found that coffee and tea plants produce caffeine in their nectar to attract pollinators like bees.
    • Caffeine was found to make bees remember the same plant and flower in return to it often.

Chapter 4

  • Western civilization did not encounter caffeine until the 1600s in chocolate, coffee, and tea.
  • Caffeine arrived in England in the 1650s and completely changed the culture there. 
    • At the time, most people in England drank nothing but alcohol. The arrival of tea and coffee was big. 

Chapter 5

  • 850 A.D. in Ethiopia — Caffeine was first discovered.
    • A goat herder noticed how his goats would not sleep and acted erratically all night after eating the berries of the coffee plant. He told a friend, who produced a drink with the berries and discovered the stimulating properties of coffee. 
      • By the 15th century, coffee was being produced and traded in East Africa.
  • At first, coffee was used by Buddhists and others to prevent dozing off.
  • In Islam, coffee was used as an alternative to alcohol, which was banned by the Koran.
  • You must boil water to make coffee and tea. Back then, drinking hot liquid was unheard of.

Chapter 6

  • 1629 — The first coffee houses in Europe arrive.
  • 1650 — First coffee house in England arrives. Located in Oxford.
    • Coffee soon found its way to London. Eventually, there were thousands of coffee houses in London.
  • Coffee flourished in England before tea, which overtook coffee in England in the 18th century.
    • This was because the British empire had trouble making and growing coffee. It was easier and cheaper to produce tea.
  • Coffee houses became great places for people to gather and talk about current events.
    • Coffee houses had free access to books and magazines after buying your coffee. 
  • Different coffee houses became popular meeting spots for different groups of people.
  • Coffee houses became popular places for free-speech, which eventually concerned the government.
    • 1675 — King Charles II worried that rebellions were being plotted in coffee houses. He later closed coffee houses for this reason.
  • Too much caffeine makes people cranky and impatient.

Chapter 7

  • Many people are addicted to caffeine.

Chapter 8

  • Studies have shown that caffeine improves performance in many cognitive measures.
    • Memory, focus, alertness, attention, and learning.
  • 1930s — A study revealed that chess players on caffeine did better than those not on caffeine.
  • Caffeine has been shown to improve driving skills.
  • Caffeine has been shown to improve physical metrics, like muscle strength, and endurance.
  • Caffeine doesn’t seem to improve creativity, however.

Chapter 9

  • 1616 — Dutch guy smuggled live coffee plants out of Mocha, a city in Yemin. 
    • He took them to the botanical garden in Amsterdam, where they were grown under glass and additional plants were eventually grown.
  • Planting the branch in soil allowed them to clone the plant.
  • One of the clones ended up in Dutch controlled city, Java. Dutch East India Company successfully cloned it even more, until they had enough to form a plantation.
    • This was called Mocha-Java coffee
  • By the 17th Century, when coffee hit Europe, the area was addicted to alcohol. Alcohol was the primary drink for everyone.
    • Coffee proved to be a good competitor to alcohol.
  • Coffee was important as Europe transitioned from physical jobs to more mental jobs.
    • It allowed people to work later into the night.
  • By the 1800s, tea took over as the drink of choice.

Chapter 11

  • The Union Army in the Civil War gave each soldier 36 pounds of coffee per year.
    • Troops were told to caffeinate before battle.
    • Ever since, the American military has made caffeine readily available to soldiers.
  • 1950 — The ‘coffee break’ was born.
  • Quote: “It’s amazing that we’ve institutionalized a drug for the express purpose of improving productivity and quality control, but so we have.”

Chapter 12

  • Caffeine is a tiny molecule that fits snuggly into an important receptor in the central nervous system. It occupies the receptor, thus blocking the neuromodulator that would normally bind to that receptor and activate it. 
    • The neuromodulator is called adenosine, which, when bonded to its receptor, makes you sleepy.
    • When caffeine beats adenosine to its receptor, it prevents you from getting too sleepy.
  • Adenosine still builds up. The caffeine essentially temporarily blocks the adenosine from reaching its receptor. 
  • Indirect effects of caffeine include adrenaline serotonin, and dopamine increases.
    • The dopamine release explains the good mood that coffee delivers.
    • Caffeine Temporarily raises blood pressure as well.
  • Caffeine doesn’t really hurt us, as long as it is not abused.
    • It can help prevent some types of cancer and type two diabetes. 
  • Caffeine really isn’t an energy booster. That’s a myth. What it does is it blocks the effects of adenosine. 
    • When the liver discards the caffeine, the built-up adenosine hits you all at once, causing you to crash. 
      • The crash is something all caffeine users talk about and complain about.
      • In response, most people will grab another cup of coffee to remedy this crash. That’s the bad cycle of caffeine.

Chapter 13

  • Because tea is bitter, sugar was needed to sweeten it. This drove up the demand and price of sugar. 

Chapter 14

  • Farmers who grow coffee beans aren’t well compensated.
    • Because there are so many people who do it, but only a small group of large corporations that buy the beans.

Chapter 15

  • A cup of tea typically has half the caffeine of a cup of coffee.
  • Caffeine is found naturally in tea and coffee. It is added to soda.
    • It is added for taste reasons. Soda makers like to add it to add some bitterness. 
    • Caffeine is also addictive, which is another reason it is added to soda.