When I think caffeine I always think coffee, I barely stand still to the fact that cola and tea amongst others also contain it. I never drank coffee, did not like it at all. It was thanks to having dinner at an Italian bistro which served good cappuccino’s that I started liking coffee. And when Starbucks opened at the train station that I frequent I really got into coffee.
Not that I am a coffee expert, but I guess having never drank coffee before it’s nice to have a new drink and new taste. A warm drink to relax at times. I now understand the appeal of hanging out in a coffeehouse everyday drinking coffee.
I never knew that caffeine works in the same parts of the brain as cocaine and heroine. So I guess it’s no wonder that caffeine is banned at the Olympics due that it increases endurance amongst other effects.
In November last year I quit caffeine cold turkey. No more iced tea, I drink decaf coffee and I drink decaf cola. And the few times I drink tea I drink tea without caffeine. And now thanks to this infographic I find out to my amazement that decaf is not really 100% decaf…..great.
Coffee lovers tell me that decaf coffee does not taste as good as regular coffee but to be honest I don’t see how the lack or not of caffeine affects the taste.
And finally that piece over Hitler getting caffeine and glucose injections sounds really far fetched, although considering all the craziness of that man, maybe not.
It’s not the loss of caffeine that makes decaffeinated coffee taste not as good. First the process to decaffeinate coffee costs money, so often a lesser quality bean is used to keep the costs down. Second, depending on the process used, in addition to removing the caffeine, some of the chemical compounds that produce the coffee flavor are also lost. The processes that retain the most flavor are generally the most expensive to use. So the next time you see regular and decaffeinated coffee right next to each other and notice the prices are pretty much the same, ask yourself why it is when there is more money involved in making decaffeinated coffee with the same quality of flavor as regular coffee.