Newsflash: Gourmet Coffees Have Lots Of Caffeine

Evangelion writes "According to the Globe and Mail, gourmet coffees (Starbucks, Second Cup, etc) apparently have lots more caffeine than their non-gourmet competitors. One jumbo (20-oz) contains an entire day's worth of C8H10N4O2." Remember, for best effect, drink it through the day, not all at once.

Comments

Makes me wonder...

[SCSi]

if they do this on purpose, so they can hook you then make you come back to more.. Caffeine withdrawls suck, and if the home-made stuff isnt as potent, people are pretty much the slave of starbucks (or have to drink 2x more home-made coffee)...

Re:Makes me wonder...

[ron_ivi]

Considering how successful tobacco, alcohol, soft-drink, etc. companies are, I'm almost surprised coffee shops didn't catch on to this "more caffeine gets people hooked faster" insight earlier.

Re:Makes me wonder...

[Stigmata669]

I think the intention is less dubious than trying to "hook you" and more likely that people like the caffeine high, and are more likely to spend 3.85 for a latte if they get more of a high.

I recently bought a pound of pure Arabica bean which has a very good flavor: no bitterness even in a very strong espresso. My mother who also tried the coffee immediately didn't like it because the caffeine content is much lower in the Arabica bean (most blends have Robusto(sp?) which is very high in caffeine and has a bad/bitter flavor) so she didn't get the normal buzz. "Does this coffee work?!"

More caffeine just because they use more coffee?

[swb]

The article seemed to indicate that because they use 2 tbsp coffee per cup brewed, you end up with more caffeine than other coffee. Is that all there is to it? "GOURMET COFFEE USES MORE COFFEE AND IS THEREFORE STRONGER." Well, duh. Insert $obligatory_canadian_intelligence_insult.

I thought perhaps there was some conspiracy where they were doping coffee with extra caffeine or something.

Re:I knew it!

[cshark]

I think the term no duh comes into play here. Starbucks and friends use coffee that is derived from espresso. Espresso tends to have more caffeine in it. I could have told you that. If you want to get angry, get angry at the soda manufacturers that put caffeine where it shouldn't be (unidentified citrus soda?) as a play to get you hooked. Last I checked oranges and corn syrup didn't naturally have caffeine in them. There was an expose about it on the local news here in Indy awhile back. They said it compares to what the tobacco industry does with nicotine. The only difference... Nobody really cares.

...but why Starbucks?

[TheTXLibra]

You know, I can accept a certain status-quo hatred of Seattle-area based MegaCorps like Microsoft, Barnes & Noble, and so on... They are hated, for the most part, because they have money that the haters do not. There are other reasons to be sure, but it all amounts to the fact that they represent The Man, and hating The Man is en vogue.

Why then, do so many die-hard penguins and independant bookstore shoppers insist on supporting Starbucks? If coffee has an archetypical "The Man" figure, who has way too much money, produces shoddy goods, and destroys good quality companies with its monopoly-like tendancies, it is Starbucks. They put great coffee houses out of business, the kind that you may have met some of your best friends at. They use inferior beans, cooked at too high of a temperature, for too short an amount of time, just to increase output. That's right, you're drinking a bean that was treated worse than those poor saps on WB's Superstars.

Why God? Why of all people, do you, "The Man"-hating intellectuals, actually give them your business?