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The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)
- artursapek 10y agoI remember reading this on HN like 4 years ago and have been trying to find it again ever since! Thanks for posting.
- neogodless 10y agoAh 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
- jordanmoconnor 10y agoI 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. :(
- jonwachob91 10y agopoor poor man. That sounds terrible. To not be able to consume coffee because of an empty stomach!? But it does happen. I typically see it in individuals that aren't used to drinking coffee. Are you in that category or is there maybe another reason you had an adverse reaction? Was your coffee black?
- jordanmoconnor 10y agoI drink coffee often, but I think I was also dehydrated. It just all caught up to me at once!
- pm90 10y agoI recently had to undergo an appendectomy after drinking 5 cups of black coffee straight (no cream or sugar) on an empty stomach followed by a very spicy (and questionable?) burrito. Would not recommend; I have made it a point not to drink so much coffee on an empty stomach again.
- djrogers 10y agoThat's not how appendicitis works - it's not brought on by a single event of binging...
- gukov 10y agoI'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 10y agoDid 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.
- gukov 10y agoI'm typically not a coffee drinker but do have "binges" that last a few weeks at a time. I've actually been making sure to drink at least two liters of water a day, so that's puzzling.
- ChoGGi 10y agoI 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).
- niftich 10y agoThat'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.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y agoPretty 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.
- QGuLL 10y agoIt has been translated from french, maybe the translator has taken some liberties.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rudolf0 10y agoThis is a translation of the original French. The translation was done within the past 50 years, I think.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y agoWell, that would explain it.
- ranko 10y agoWe're reading this in a modern (1990s) translation - Balzac wrote in French.
- GuiA 10y agoTranslation 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 10y ago
- nappy 10y agoBalzac 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-mason-currey/ http://meaningring.com/2015/05/06/daily-rituals-balzac-by-ma...
- yosyp 10y agoAnd wear himself out he did, dying barely into his fifty-first year.
- knightofmars 10y agoNot that far off from the life expectancy of the age, 60.
- gydfi 10y agoIs that a life expectancy including infant mortality, though? The life expectancy of someone who survived to 20 would be much higher.
- mrkgnao 10y agoYou just reminded me of something I've learned about in school: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_curve
- ranko 10y agoIt'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/essays-and-other-works/a-nice-cup-of-tea/ https://www.theorwellprize.co.uk/the-orwell-prize/orwell/ess...
- Scarbutt 10y agoIs 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 10y agoSupposedly, 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-your-brain-becomes-addicted-to-caffeine-26861037/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/this-is-how-you...
- xenihn 10y agoI've always thought that changes to receptors are how tolerance to any stimulant works.
- coldcode 10y agoThere 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.
- acallan 10y agoRelevant http://video.newyorker.com/watch/exclusive-clip-of-le-cafe-de-balzac-from-the-new-yorker-presents http://video.newyorker.com/watch/exclusive-clip-of-le-cafe-d...
- vijucat 10y agoI 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 10y agoYou can always take l-theanine with coffee, the combination is a common nootropic.
- extr 10y agoIndeed, 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 10y agoI'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.
- guilhas 10y agoI 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+coffee https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/s/ref=is_s_ss_i_0_11?k=barley...
- djrogers 10y ago> taste like coffee For wildly varying values of 'taste'...
- Groxx 10y agoYeah, 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 10y agoTry barley then
- guilhas 10y ago> For wildly varying values of 'taste'... Well there are a lot of coffee flavours and a infinity of opinions on them. So this will not be different. For me there is more to it than the taste of a "good coffee", which I obviously also can't replace. Like coffee, these hot drinks, provide me a comfort, that no hot chocolate or tea can achieve.
- david-given 10y agoIn the UK, a traditional 'favourite' dating back to the British India times is Camp Coffee, which is caffeine free and mostly made out of chicory: http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/opinion/73374815/sad-story-brews-in-a-camp-cup-of-coffee http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/opinion/73374815/sad-st... It comes as a black treacley syrup in a jar, which you mix with hot milk. I'll admit to never having been brave enough to try it; these days you mostly find it in the cooking section of the supermarkets, as it has a following in cake-making. Disturbingly, I think Camp Coffee might be less frightening than another old UK 'favourite', Mellow Birds: http://www.ciao.co.uk/Mellow_Birds_Instant_Coffee_Powder__Review_5498847 http://www.ciao.co.uk/Mellow_Birds_Instant_Coffee_Powder__Re... (which does have caffeine in it, but not much)
- Kinnard 10y agoWould love to find the original french.
- defen 10y agoIt was linked elsewhere in this thread: http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm http://www.bmlisieux.com/curiosa/excitant.htm
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pmoriarty 10y agoThere's also Bach's Coffee Cantata. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweigt_stille,_plaudert_nicht,_BWV_211 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweigt_stille,_plaudert_nich...
- bjourne 10y agoReading that essay, I kept thinking if his next step would be inserting the coffee rectally. I'm surprised he never got to that point.
- pabb 10y agoIs 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 10y ago"Doctor, doctor! I haven't any symptoms!"