Coffee - Addiction or Necesity

Coffee, for most of us, is the magical serum that keeps us working every day. You wake up in the morning and it’s like a force that pushes you and whispers in your ear that you have to make yourself a cup of coffee to get you throughout the day.

For those who aren’t lucky enough to have the time to sit and enjoy a coffee and probably the cigarette and newspaper that came with it, there are numerous coffee shops spread around the city. Just think of all those people who you see hurrying up to work with a cup of coffee in one hand and a laptop in the other, or the teenagers waiting for the subway.

Addiction

Spread throughout all sorts of media, coffee is advertised to be only way to wake up in the morning. Whether you drink it at home before you go out, at work in a coffee break or at some boring class in which you will inevitably fall asleep without it.

A friend of mine said:

"I, myself, believe I can’t function properly unless I drink a big cup of coffee. And I’m not referring to the regular cup of coffee, that most of you drink, but at one large cup of coffee."

Luckily, she's not the only one who drinks this much coffee and those who do, have the same opinion: the caffeine isn’t the only reason we drink it, but the flavor. The scent of freshly ground coffee is one of my favorite scent. Distinctive and pure, it will surely catch your attention. (for those who didn’t know, if you want to buy a perfume and you smelled too many, you need to smell some coffee beans in between to “come to your senses”)

Health

There is no doubt that coffee has it's medicinal uses. Some doctors even recommend a cup of coffee a day to help regulate blood pressure and help avoid heart attacks. Now the real problem is, more then 50% of the people that drink coffee, don't fully realize what's happening in them. Coffee should, like every other thing, be taken with moderation, something that we fail to understand. And more then that, there's no need for a person under the age of 28 to start drinking it. But, when will kids learn, right?

Fun Facts

Apart from the reason we drink it, whether it’s flavor or the energizing effect, how many of you know about coffee’s origins and history?

Originating from subtropical Africa and southern Asia, coffee has spread all around the world. The term of “coffee” is derived from the Turkish “kahve”, derived at its turn from the Arabic: قهوة‎, “qahweh”.

There are two main types of coffee Coffea canephoraandCoffea arabica, being the second most traded product after petroleum, with an estimate of over 1400 million cups, a day, drunk worldwide.

These are some of my thoughts on coffee. Hopefully, they were useful to you and after taking your time to read this article, the next time you will enjoy a cup of coffee you’ll stop for a moment and think that behind a drink that seems rather simple, there’s a lot of history and customs.

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