I think I’ve cut back since the doctor told me to stop drinking it at least 12 hours before bedtime.

Another reason for consumption going up, though, is limited ways to socialize. It’s cheap and easy and—in the case of a new friend, safe—to go out/meet up for coffee.

Yeah, I’m glad I’m reducing my coffee footprint by not drinking coffee at all.  I hate the taste of it: my caffeine comes in soda/pop or hot cocoa form.

Fear not.  SA has a lot of reason to make the large coffee consumer to their north fear an economy of scarcity.  However, coffee is also produced in Indonesia and Africa.  Moreover, if you’re drinking fair trade coffee (check out Counter Culture Coffee for a fascinating startup that’s doing superb work) then you’re not drinking beans from the megafarms described in the article- a bit like wine grapes, coffeeplants are slow-growing and slow-maturing, and the best coffee is from plants that aren’t overtaxed- plants like those at the smaller producers.

So.  We all may be paying more in the future for our joe.  However, it may increase demand for smaller-farmed, fair-trade coffees, increasing education and farming in danger areas like the Congo and Rwanda that are in desperate need of sustainable agricultural exports.

(heh, and I’ll stop there before I start in on how Americans work more hours a year than any other industrialized nation, etc.  Mostly because I have to get back to work! : )

BEAN ME!

I got through a few chunks of college jacked up on Mountain Dew, but I suspect my life expectancy suffered for it.

Hopefully, people will just reduce demand.

AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I don’t drink coffee (I personally can’t stand the stuff) but I know how addictive coffee is to some people. Think it’s hard to wean a society off oil addiction? Try weaning them off something they’re physically addicted to.

As the failure of the War on Drugs shows, it probably can’t be done.

Though I am fond of drinking coffee for its taste, I get far more of my caffeine from copious amounts of green tea and various cola soft drinks…..though I never cared that much for mountain dew.

Damn, I’m glad I recently began cultivating a fondness for tea instead ...

Hm. I decided to cut back on caffeine when I realised that drinking loads of tea and coffee during the day was making me fall-asleep-on-the-train tired in the evenings. Course it’s not that simple, and it’s proving to be a wearing down process rather than a cold turkey thing but it’s a step in the right direction.

Still, I think Smanatha Vines is right. There’s a social aspect to coffee too, not least because it’s healthier than a bar and cheaper than a meal. Does this mean Americans are going to have to start taking tea seriously as a beverage alternative?

I can see it now- hardcore anxiously masculine Repubs hoarding ungodly amounts of coffee, merely “to piss off the hippy tea drinkers.”

Then the price of coffee becomes so ridiculously high that no one can afford it. Then we invade Columbia, to “combat terrorisim/drug dealers”...

I had problems with headaches until I stopped drinking coffee. Maybe a coffee shortage like a gas shortage will be a mixed blessing.

*sniff*

I drink tea.  Not just any tea (except the cheap bergomot black teas that I use for breakfast), but artisinal teas.  I drink my gyokuro and my lung ching and my kusmi brand stuff, yadda yadda yadda, and I am forced to treat my tea as something special since this stuff *costs*.  Of couse, they also are so flavorful that they brew multiple times.  Thing is, all you have to do to avoid a high footprint is—buy the good stuff.  Don’t treat the things you imbibe as a commoditized nothing!  Pay for the good stuff, feel the pain in the wallet and *taste* the difference.  It’s a great way to find grace in a day, as the japanese know well.  This works for coffee.  Don’t get Starbucks, cultivate your taste, get yourself your own grinder and a high quality brewer, and buy the best beans you can afford.  You’ll be happier for it because you’ll drink less coffee, but enjoy more of it!
Here where I go for my teas.  It’s cheap, good, and has a wide selection.

As for the people who’ve had to give up caffiene or don’t like caffiene jitters…

You can try Mate, which has a slightly different theine makeup than tea, which has a different makeup from chocolate or coffee.

You can also try Coca, which has minute quantities of the alkaloids that includes cocaine.  However, the tea is quite safe, nonaddictive, and legal to drink, and the fact that Coca Cola still uses coca as a flavoring should tell you that it can taste pretty dang good.  In any event, this is an alternative for people who needs a mild morning pick-me-up, but cannot tolerate caffiene’s side effects.

If one drinks a diversity of items, also including rooibos, honeybush, and various other favorite local herbal brews like tulsi, chicory, and god knows what else, then the overall negative effect of your consumption habit might get a bit cancelled out…

People don’t sleep enough because they stay up late to carve a little time for themselves (since Americans barely take vacations) and get up early. 

Geez, even if I had lots more vacation time I’d still want to have some time to myself every day. Hence six hours a night if I’m lucky.

Americans are total light-weights when it comes to coffee-drinking, though. Try going to the Nordic countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coffee_consumption_per_capita

God is telling you to repent your ways!  The dark bean obviously is a tool of the Dark Lord!  Lo!  And you shall know him by his aroma!  As Kenneth on that evil liberal show “30 Rock” on the T.V. said about coffee…  Coffee is hot, and “that’s the devil’s temperature.”

guh….peak….coffee!?!?!

*panic*

I have actually reduced my coffee consumption recently.  Amazing what working out in the morning (and not having time to brew coffee as a result) combined with having my ADHD medicated will do.

By close to 75%.  Amazing what properly medicating my ADHD does…

I recall Utne reader back in 90s devoting an issue (or perhaps a feature article?) discussing whether the 90s coffee craze was enabling us all to be better wage slaves - working longer and harder for less but feeling oh-so-jazzed (and back then, hip) doing it.

I live on the brown liquid. I am a shameless bi-hourly consumer of my office’s really shitty coffee from a most dubious ancient drip machine. Most dubious for having not been cleaned maybe since the first Clinton administration.

I pay top dollar for good Fair Trade stuff for home consumption. I don’t want to think about cutting back. But maybe I should—and not just to spare the environment.

TEA!

I do buy and use the cheap stuff, mostly because of easy availability, but have interest in the more expensive stuff (except that “opens like a flower” stuff, which is a novelty). I will check out the place mentioned by shah8 - the local ma and pa place I went to for years closed about 5 years ago. I like genmai-cha (generic name for green tea with roasted puffed rice) as an evening drink, also mugi-cha as iced non-caffeine tea (roasted barley, no tea, not sweet).

I used to drink 6 extra-large coffees a day. I cut down to one cup on weekday mornings and rarely drink it on the weekends now, since it was giving me wicked heartburn. If you do it gradually, you’ll barely notice.

I totally agree with the social aspect of coffee - I know lots of stay-at-home moms for whom their barista is their main adult conversationalist of the day.

Also, I think a lot of people drink coffee for the same reason they used to smoke. It’s a relatively cheap luxury, and something to get you away from your desk in the middle of the day. We’ve been shamed or scared out of smoking (plus, not so cheap these days), but coffee isn’t that unhealthy and it’s still totally socially acceptable. Sure a latte is crazy expensive when you really thing about it, but it’s cheaper than a manicure or a massage, and people who work hard at lousy jobs want to do something that’s just for themselves.

Shah8, mate changed my life when I was too morning-sick to drink coffee. I can’t praise it enough.

wapsie...

Tea and sugar from Great Britain’s empire was a key, if often unmentioned, aspect of its industrial society.  Sugar and stimulants were very much a way to keep people going, cheap.

It’s why tobacco is quite permitted now (plenty of people have tried to ban it), while marajuana is still banned.  One product enhances productivity, improving memory and ability to form habits, while the other, well, depresses profits.

I switched about a year a go to green tea and have not looked back.  It can be just as social to sip away at that instead of coffee and it is much cheaper.  It looks like tea is going to have make a come back.

One good source for a discussion of the relationship between industrial/capitalist society and the drugs it produces and requires is Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.  If you’re looking to add to your reading list.

If this is true, I’m afraid a lot of people are going to die.  If I cannot maintain my two pots of coffee a day intake, the carnage will be unimaginable.

I only care if this affects the international Red Bull supply.

OTOH, I could use a few months of sleep. Think if the caffeine runs out we’ll be able to mark down the days lost to our sudden onsets of fatigue as paid sick leaves?

As others have alluded, we need to be taking cues from failed empires before us and start drinking tea instead. shah8 mentioned on online tea retailer, but personally I like to order from Upton Teas. They have a good selection, all loose-leaf and custom-sourced, plus a lot of accessories.

Although, I also wonder if it would help to switch from drip coffee to espresso drinks? Yes, people love their Starbucks, but I imagine most Americans are drip-brewing with home coffee makers or drinking from communal drip-pots at work. Seems to me that the espresso process would be a bit more efficient in terms of caffeine per bean.

As much as I love that devil bean, I am throwing my hat into the Yerba Mate ring as well.  If you’re lucky enough to live in a region with a large South American population, you can buy one kilogram bags of loose Mate- Cruz de Malta and Canarias are two good brands (from Argentina and Uruguay respectively).  Get a Mate (gourd) and Bombilla (metal straw with strainer) to drink it in traditional fashion… you’ll get used to the taste eventually.

Sorry for the double post… the end of right wing blogging will be spelled by “peak Cheetos”.

Moreover, if you’re drinking fair trade coffee (check out Counter Culture Coffee for a fascinating startup that’s doing superb work) then you’re not drinking beans from the megafarms described in the article- a bit like wine grapes, coffeeplants are slow-growing and slow-maturing, and the best coffee is from plants that aren’t overtaxed- plants like those at the smaller producers.

I wondered about that.  I usually make coffee at home and almost always buy fair trade organic blah blah blah champagne socialism.  The idea there, at least, is that the producers already get paid more than the “market” rate—so if the market rate changes, will the price of fair trade coffee necessarily increase? 

I am clearly not an economist.

I have exactly one mug of coffee a day, 7 days a week, every morning. I make it myself, with a French press (so no bleached paper filters). And part of it is chicory.

As someone who sold her car 18 months ago and now uses public transportation, a bicycle, and these things most everyone is born with called “feet”, I refuse to feel bad about my coffee consumption. YOU CAN HAVE IT WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!

I drank coffee briefly to help me cope with my transition to the 8 to 5 world.  Eventually gave it up when I came to the conclusion that it was making it harder for me to fall asleep at night.  Sugar- and fat- infused Starbucks lattes notwithstanding, I really was never that crazy about it.  But, Amanda, I think you are really on to something with your theory.  I have several coworkers who drink RedBull on a constant basis to get through the workday.  It’s about the cheap stimulants to keep us going so we can continue living these unhealthy, unnatural lifestyles for the benefit of corporate America.  It’s just a giant hamster wheel of stupidity.

I drink tea.  Not just any tea (except the cheap bergomot black teas that I use for breakfast), but artisinal teas.  I drink my gyokuro and my lung ching and my kusmi brand stuff, yadda yadda yadda, and I am forced to treat my tea as something special since this stuff *costs*.  Of couse, they also are so flavorful that they brew multiple times.  Thing is, all you have to do to avoid a high footprint is—buy the good stuff.  Don’t treat the things you imbibe as a commoditized nothing!  Pay for the good stuff, feel the pain in the wallet and *taste* the difference.  It’s a great way to find grace in a day, as the japanese know well.  This works for coffee.  Don’t get Starbucks, cultivate your taste, get yourself your own grinder and a high quality brewer, and buy the best beans you can afford.  You’ll be happier for it because you’ll drink less coffee, but enjoy more of it!
Here where I go for my teas.  It’s cheap, good, and has a wide selection.

Shah8,

I buy my green tea really cheap from a Chinese supermart in two nearby areas with large Asian-American populations.  For less than $10, I have enough green tea to last for a month or more.  Granted, it may not be the most fancy or best brand, but it serves my needs….especially when a small sprinkling of leaves can last for several steaming potfuls…each of which yields 3-4 mugs worth. 

It is not only a good drink to have while reading or doing some random work in the morning and afternoon, but also when having certain kinds of sweets….like mooncakes. 

Thanks for the Upton’s tea link.  That looks to be pretty good.

Do check out www.artisticnippon.com for your teaware needs.  Pretty good window shopping as well.

exholt, good green tea is very, very cheap.  500 grams of a good quality sencha can be had for less than $10, let alone your houjichas, kukichas, and arachas.  Big boxes of good Uncle Lee’s teas with 200 bags can also be had for less than $10, even if it’s not the best.  Most black teas outside of the more elite types are less than $2 an ounce—5 ounces makes for a decent pile of tea leaves—enough to last at least a couple of weeks of random use.

I would have no idea of what the chinese places have, heh…

Really really good tea is CHEAP!

I should say something about sleep, productivity, free time, and the joys of being a wage slave but instead I put in a plug for Turkish coffee.  I first encountered this in northern Iraq during my participation in what I hope is a performance art excoriation of idiotic imperialism but what I must admit is likely just really bad foreign policy. And Turkish coffee is the crack, except in a good way, of coffee.  It laughs at espresso.  Of course you need the right equipment to prepare it as well as a good chunk of time so I can’t claim that it is a reasonable solution but it is excellent.  And I second any comments regarding the desirability of quality vs quantity in luxury goods.  Just wanted to evangelize for Turkish coffee.

One product enhances productivity, improving memory and ability to form habits, while the other, well, depresses profits.</i>

The former is physically addicting to the point where withdrawl can be a serious business, the latter, not at all.

Brazil uses a crop cycling method of agriculture, which means that they’re going to be less destroyed by rising oil prices’ effect on food prices, but also means some years the world is flush with coffee, and some years it’s not.

Thank god they don’t grow something people need to eat to live, like beans or broccoli. (I’m sensitive to the argument that some of us do, in fact, need coffee to live.) And this is the model of agriculture that people like Michael Pollen think can feed a world of six billion better than Big Farm? When I heard him on Fresh Air today my wife and I nearly got headaches from rolling our eyes so hard. He wants to increase a hundred-fold the number of people who work on farms.

Not himself, of course, he’s not volunteering to work on a farm; god knows we need self-important know-nothing journalists too bad for Michael Pollen to dirty his hands. No, he just wants all the useless doctors and scientists and engineers to stop all that useless human progress and go scramble in the dirt for the rest of their lives. It’ll be good for ‘em.

Hey everyone, how about a delicious round of Postum?

Seriously, I’ve been in the tea camp for years.  Black in the morning, green in the afternoon.  I usually drink a cup or two of coffee on weekends (Mrs. Pesto prefers coffee), and will have coffee if I go out for breakfast/brunch.  But I prefer the taste(s) of tea, and I find that coffee produces a harsher caffeine hit than tea.

On Mate—that’s another good option.  I noticed when I watched The Take (which is a terrific documentary put together partly by Naomi Klein) that all the Argentinian workers walk around with mates and bombillas.

I don’t think anyone else has brought this up, but as someone who has worked on and off in the coffee mines for a few years now I can tell you that enormous amounts of coffee are wasted as part of regular business practice. Like gasoline used to be and industrial water still is, it’s so cheap that it’s actually cheaper for business owners to waste large amounts. So the biggest change would be in coffee shops, not grocery stores.

Oh, and for the environment, buy shade grown coffee beans. They taste better and the trees that shade them give diversity to the environment and shelter songbirds.

If you’re going to replace coffee with tea, then you’ve got to stop drinking that Lipton’s Yellow Label crap.  Honestly, I don’t know how Lipton’s have managed to market that crud as good English tea when, thank god, you never see it in England.

Samantha:

I saw that reference to shade-grown in the article, and I’m wondering how you know you’re buying shade-grown.  Do they list it on the label?  My dad, Republican though he may be, is a conscientious consumer, and he does his best to find organically grown, coop produced foods (I live in a house behind my parents and benefit from their good hearts).  If I can tell him what to look for, I’m sure our coffee-buying habits will change.

And as for filters, they do sell unbleached.  That’s all we use here.

If you’re going to replace coffee with tea, then you’ve got to stop drinking that Lipton’s Yellow Label crap.

I can’t claim to be a tea expert, but I have ALWAYS loathed Lipton’s.  I can sort of stand it in bottled iced-tea form, but even then I prefer Nestea.

But, then, my mother had me drinking Bigelow’s from a young age, so I guess I got the taste of “real” tea before I was introduced to Lipton’s.

OTOH, I could use a few months of sleep. Think if the caffeine runs out we’ll be able to mark down the days lost to our sudden onsets of fatigue as paid sick leaves?

I have kind of an odd work schedule where I work for several months at a time (wherein my time is basically the company’s, which often means 12+ hour days, coming in at 6 AM, etc), and then have a month or 6 weeks of (unpaid) vacation time.  I always make grand plans for said time off, but no matter what I do the whole thing goes to shit and I spend the whole vacation lying around the house, slothin’ it up (some of you may notice the occasional uptick in my post count here—blogging is definitely a huge part of this).

I’m pretty sure this is just because my body and mind need a month or so of rest after 9-10 months of 60+ hours a week wage slavery.  I mainly feel bad for people in other careers who NEVER get that block of idleness.

And this is the model of agriculture that people like Michael Pollen think can feed a world of six billion better than Big Farm?

Considering the fact that Big Farm’s signature policy is to consider actual food that people need to live, like beans and broccoli, “niche crops”, your point is so neither-here-nor-there that it might as well be on the moon.

Big Farm doesn’t even consider food germane to the question of farming .

Dave: I bow before your funny, but I’m still afraid of Turkish coffee.