Carding for Caffeine

Lifestyle, slideshow — By Laura Westman on March 8, 2010 at 12:09 am

This morning, I met my sister for coffee at the Au Bon Pain at Union Station (though not the most delicious of ways to take your cuppa, it did the trick on this particular morning).  As I was paying, the sales associate said to me in all seriousness, “Ma’am, I’m afraid I need to see your ID.”

Instinctively, I reached back into my wallet - then I remembered I was buying coffee.  I must have looked a little confused because he smiled and said in his Ethiopian accent, “Ah, ha ha ha.  Just kidding!  Got to be careful with that stuff!”

We sat down and laughed about the idea of carding for caffeine.  But even though he was kidding, he was making a pretty good point.  Caffeine is a psychoactive stimulant drug - and can be a pleasant experience or an uncomfortable and silly one, depending on however your own central nervous system is predisposed to process it.

I went to Baked & Wired this week - not for dessert, but to try a coffee.  Baked & Wired will do a single-pour for you.  You pick out your beans and they grind them up, set them in a filter, and patiently pour water through it so, after just a few minutes, you have your very own mug of delightfully personalized Counter Culture coffee.

My coffee companions for the day, one Anya Firestone ’10 and Douglas Brundage ’11, opted for different beverages.  After introducing me to the barista behind the counter, Firestone chose a deliciously trendy soy latte.  Brundage ordered a large iced chai latte with a little espresso in it.  I’m a fan of this because I get to ask for a “dirty chai,” in the same way that I like to eat at Qdoba sometimes so I can ask for my burrito - “naked.”  It seems kind of sneaky.

Anyway, we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves.  The barista let me sample a little espresso and while we were browsing the baked goods section, Brundage started getting all twitchy from - oh, the horror- too much caffeine.

Fortunately, we were able to calm him down.  But as I finished my own mug, watching my friend involuntarily respond hyperactively to external stimuli, I was reminded of the time when my roommate at the time, Chandula Seneviratne ’09 would have similar results with even the slightest bit of caffeine.

Sri Lankan and with a very low tolerance for the stimulant, Seneviratne would not drink even a bit of Coca-Cola.  For a Christmas party at work, I made a chocolate cake with tons of sugar, pudding mix, and — a small amount of that morning’s coffee.  I brought the leftovers home and may have forgotten to mention the coffee inside the cake, because a few minutes after finishing it off, she was bouncing off the walls.  As literally as possible - and this continued through the night and into the morning.

As entertaining as it was, we never fed her coffee again.

I decided to ask a few more people about their over-caffeinated experiences, if they’d had any.  SMPA Seniors Natalie Cucchiara and Allee Sangiolo also have a roommate whose body can’t handle too much caffeine. We swapped stories about accidentally hyperactive roommates and their own addictions to iced coffee.

Another student, who prefers to remain unidentified as we discuss the highly sensitive topic of coffee preference and caffeine intake, took his time explaining the half-life of caffeine in the human body.

Some studies have shown that the average half-life in healthy adults is 5.7 hours.  So if you had 200 milligrams of caffeine around lunchtime - about two cups of coffee - around dinnertime, you’d still have 100 milligrams running through your system.

True statement: if you’re sensitive to caffeine and need to get to bed early, maybe you should cut yourself off by 3 p.m.

When I look back at my undergraduate years (I know they’re not quite over, but come on, indulge me for a second), I remember so many times when I absolutely had to finish something, when it was 3 a.m. and I was drinking another cup of coffee even though my jittery brain told me to quit.  And as strange and unnatural as it may feel, those memories of over-caffeinating will always be more of a comfort to me than anything else.

Tags: Baked & Wired, caffeine, coffee