By Tony Deyal
Drinking coffee with caffeine has been linked with improved mood and a lower risk of depression in some groups. Drinking 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day is linked to a lower risk of stroke in some studies. And coffee may help protect against cancers of the mouth, throat and digestive system. I didn’t know that, but when I was three, I was drinking it. What happened was that my mother took me to her parents’ place to spend a few weeks with the family and their two other children, each of whom had their little ones. My boor Grandma had to do all the work while her children were taking care of theirs. While the food was simple, coffee was different. Grandma had to provide three types for the family: hot chocolate, green tea and coffee. However, they looked the same- lots of milk. I never liked chocolate at home. I hated green tea. So, I drank coffee because it had more milk than the other two, the chocolate and green tea. And since then, even though I, like my father and other family, had coffee every morning with milk, I had mine with only a little sugar and even less milk.
Over the many years, as I am close to 81 on August 10, and I have lived in many places, especially in the Caribbean, US, and Canada, I have learnt, read and sometimes joked about coffee. Some seen as wild history. For example, the great Pope Clement VIII blessed coffee in 1,600 after priests called it “Satan’s drink.” Then the Ancient Turkish law allowed women to divorce husbands who failed to provide daily coffee. Brazil’s coffee empire began in 1727 via seeds smuggled inside a hidden bouquet. Then Mecca, Italy and Sweden all banned coffee at various points throughout history and, worse of all, King Charles 11 banned coffeehouses in 1675, fearing citizens were plotting a revolution! There were and are others like, “Drinking roughly 70 to 100 cups of coffee rapidly can cause a fatal overdose! Fortunately, I’m still more like underdosed. Better than that, while a lot of people drinking roughly 70 to 100 cups of coffee rapidly can cause a fatal overdose, I sometimes, especially in weddings, can ask for more.
What I learnt was that coffee is the second most traded commodity on Earth, trailing only crude oil. I tried but at my age I can’t go after crude oil. Worse, I have no intention of bothering with Cambridge scientists who invented the first webcam just to check if their coffee pot was full. I can understand, though, that over 125 million people globally depend on the coffee industry for their livelihood. Then I heard that the oldest cat on record, Creme Puff (38 years), drank coffee every morning. Obviously, I would hide mine if my home cat tried to grab mine. Or worse, honeybees get addicted to caffeine in flower nectars, which improves their pollination efficiency. In my house, I have three dogs, and that is why there are no honey or any other kind of bees around. What made me feel good was that, “Coffee drinkers have up to a 65% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.” I actually grabbed a coffee to celebrate.
More than that, I went and looked for jokes to make us laugh to support our coffee. Actually, I heard some of them when I was three, like when my Mother told me if I continued to drink coffee they would send me to jail. What I read a few years later was, “Why did the coffee file a police report?” It got mugged! Then there was, “Why don’t coffee beans ever get into trouble?” Because they are always grounded; “What do you call sad coffee?” Depresso.; “How does Moses make his coffee?” He-brews it. “Why don’t coffee beans ever get into trouble?” Because they are always grounded. What we learnt over the years was that Coffee is not a bean; it’s a seed! Europe coffee isn’t from Europe but comes from Central and South America, East and West Africa and even parts of Asia and the Pacific. Then dark roasts don’t have more coffee; Starkduks coffee is not burned, Decaf is good, coffee does not stunt your growth, coffee doesn’t sober you up. This last one ends the rest and puts you to sleep sometimes on the road.
On the other hand, those who feel even better when they share and laugh loudly with jokes like one by AJ Lee, “”Never trust anyone who doesn’t drink coffee.” As one of the others said: “I will drink to that!” Then American writer, Cassandra Clare said, “As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?” and Terri Guillemets, an American quotation anthologist, responded, “Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with.” She also made it clear, “I appreciate my mornings to the tune of coffee.” And from far away from an Australian actor and singer, “To me, the smell of fresh-made coffee is one of the greatest inventions.” Most like he took another one from the guys who liked what he said. There were others like Hanoré de Balzac. “As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move…” Then Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, the former president of the council of ministers of France, made it clear, “Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love.” To end it at that level was Louisa May Alcott, an American novelist best known for writing the Little Women, and perhaps she needed it with, “I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
I suppose that from my early days and in other places where I worked in the World Bank, PAHO and the West Indies cricket, I also liked writing and joking, especially language. This is why I loved T.S. Eliot, the poet and essayist, and his comment, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Then there was the renowned Islamic scholar and preacher, Sheikh Abd al-Qabor, making it clear, “No one can understand the truth until he drinks coffee’s frothy goodness.” The great Napoleon Bonaparte, Former Emperor of the French, clearly needed support with, “Strong coffee, much strong coffee, is what awakens me. Coffee gives me warmth, waking, an unusual force and a pain that is not without very great pleasure.” Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) put it in a brilliant comment for himself, “Without my morning coffee I’m just like a dried up piece of roast goat.” And to end it with Star Trek: Voyager, “Coffee, the finest organic suspension ever devised.”
*Tony Deyal loved Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president, who said, “If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”
NEW YORK, USA – As much of the world faces grapples with above normal temperatures and major rainfall changes, the UN Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned on Friday that El Niño, a powerful climate pattern shaping global weather, will intensify starting next month.