caffeine and gullibility

A recent posting on the Art of Manliness blog prompted me to write this piece. Brewing the perfect cup of coffee is described as something that every man should know how to do and advice is proffered on:

• buying the right beans
• the importance of freshness
• pressing
• brewing

It is an interesting essay but sadly it is all complete twaddle.

I am not a pharmacist or a psychologist. Treat the next two paragraphs as a layman's explanation.

Caffeine is a drug, it is a psychoactive stimulant. The way this drug works on the human brain is to create a sensation of reward. A cup of coffee will not help you "get going in the morning", but if you regularly drink a cup of coffee early in the morning your brain will tell you that you are being rewarded for getting going.

For the reward stimulus to be most effectively recognised, the delivery of the drug must be in the form that you have become accustomed to receiving it. If you regularly drink cheap brand, instant, powdered coffee then the best coffee for you is exactly that. Similarly if you only ever drink freshly pressed expensive bean coffee served with a dash of yak's milk then that is the best delivery of the drug for you to reinforce the reward sensation.

Coffee is an acquired taste and the reaction in the brain from caffeine is an acquired response. there is absolutely no intrinsic value that places one brand of coffee higher than another and the only consequence of an elaborately ritualised preparation of coffee is snobbery.

Surely the very essence of "manliness" is having sufficient self awareness to avoid being so gullible as to mistake an affectation for a life skill.