Basically, coffee would totally be illegal today if it were introduced into the consumer market. Addictive! Side effects! Performance-enhancing!
There was some mid-Eastern country that banned coffee in (IIRC) the 1500s or 1600s. They were afraid that folks would sit around in cafes drinking coffee and planning revolution.
They should have just introduced lattes and wireless Internet.
With all respect to people who can quit it, caffeine is the finest drug EVER. It's cheap! It's on every street corner! They put it in lots of tasty items! It wakes you up and makes you feel better and the only side effect is withdrawal!
Indeed. I love coffee. Given enough coffee, I love everyone else, too. It's a better mood enhancer than booze, and I can drive safely after three cups of coffee. (Safer than without three cups of it, some mornings.)
Coffee history's finest moment:
1453: Coffee is introduced to Constantinople by Ottoman Turks. The world's first coffee shop, Kiva Han, open there in 1475. Turkish law makes it legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he fails to provide her with her daily quota of coffee.
Our in-house nutritionist, who is a sweet if optimistic girl, put up displays outside all the company cafeterias on the Evils of Caffeine
Pfah! I would go on the counterattack. How dare she malign my poor innocent little coffee beans, who selflessly give their lives that I might stay up reading till 3 AM and still put in something like a day's work. Why, the history of caffeine is the history of civilization! Liberty, equality, Darjeeling tea! Semper filter! Free Java!
1511: Khair Beg, the corrupt governor of Mecca, tries to ban coffee for fear that its influence might foster opposition to his rule. The sultan sends word that coffee is sacred and has the governor executed.
Sounds like it woulda paid to find out if the Sultan was a coffee drinker (not to mention a morning person) before giving that a try.
We are now well into the realm of Too Much Sharing. Today our nutritionist featured asparagus outside the cafeteria. She included a poll -- we were to fold up preprinted pieces of paper labelled either "Asparagus makes my pee smell funny" or "Asparagus does not make my pee smell funny" and place them into the provided bowl. At least they weren't signed...
What next? "I had oysters last night and my boyfriend's still sore"?
Was that supposed to be in Natter, Betsy? If not, it's another funny buffista coincidence.