Coffee

[Hauldren Collider]

Smoking's extremely different. The withdrawal symptoms from caffeine (basically just headaches) completely subside after about 24 hours. Nicotine withdrawal is lifelong and never completely goes away, like alcohol.

[rah]

I was making fun of your definition of addiction. It's an old smokers joke. Quitting is easy, I've done it 100's of times.
And for the record, I haven't had a cigarette in almost a decade after smoking for 35 years.

[giblets]

Wait, people actually get addicted to caffeine?

[Jon Miller]

Yeah.

I have a colleague who had some liver damage due to trying to go off coffee cold turkey and then taking too many pain relievers when he tried to deal with the pain.

I use to go without one day a week (and have a headache that day) so that I didn't build up a physical addiction.

My mom isn't functional without her mountain dew, I know a lot of people who are similar (tea, coke, mountain dew, coffee, etc).

I think you have to do more than 1 cup a day to have addiction problems though.

JM

[Jon Miller]

Yeah, I had never had an energy drink and they were giving them out by our office so I grabbed one and tried it. Besides being really awful, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
Needless to say that was the last time I tried one of them.

There have been a couple times that I have taken a small shot from an energy drink.

I don't see how I would survive the full can.

I enjoyed the Arizona teas (predecessors of the energy drink) over a decade ago.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I hated coffee in the late 90s, but liked chocolate and so had mochas (my college had a cafe that was open to midnight, I would go and get a mocha and a bag of chips while I studied some nights).

I was super into coffee and enjoyed espresso by the time the first year of graduate school ended.

I still like coffee better than tea, although I think tea is better for me and enjoy it for the mellowness.

JM

[MRT144]

I just drink coke or Dr. Pepper to get my caffeine fix. By the way, breaking caffeine addiction is really easy. I've gone through it several times. Just take some motrin and don't puss out for 24 hours and bam, addiction broken.

Someone told me the reason it happens is that caffeine constricts blood vessels, and so it constricts brain blood vessels, so your brain rearranges a bit in response to the constriction. So when you kick the caffeine habit you're just enduring your brain returning to position when the blood vessels dilate. I honestly have no idea if this is true but it is consistent with my observations at least.

This is also especially true for some people with migraine headache issues.

[N35t0r]

I switched from coke to mate for my caffeine fix when I started getting gastritis from drinking 3-5 litters of coke peer day. On the upside, I lost around 7 kg in about two months when I did.

[Hauldren Collider]

I never have more than two cokes per day at the very most, I usually limit myself to one. They're basically sugar water. And I don't need more than one to wake me up when I get to work in the morning. To be honest, the sugar probably is almost as responsible (if not more) as the caffeine for waking me up.

[N35t0r]

lol, yeah, sugar rush. I've never been a good sleeper, and during my late teens and a couple of years later, it was particularly bad (depression didn't help), so I was sleepy all the time.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Nicotine withdrawal is lifelong and never completely goes away, like alcohol.

Not true. I gave up smoking nearly 10 years ago, and all is groovy.

[Bereta_Eder]

nespresso and all these machines from hell make good coffe but here's the thing:
I usually don't drink more than two coffes but I make them myself and only put a small spoon of coffee in it. When you order a coffee, most of the time they'll put three in it.
So I basically have less than a regular coffee per day.
But the nespresso machines make a finite coffee potence so after just two cups I started feeling bad and shaking.

Then I learned that you can choose which potency the coffee capsules will have (I inadvertently got the 10 out of 10 kind :/)

[The Mad Monk]

AFAIK, French press doesn't use a paper filter, so it's not comparable to drip in any way. The paper filter is the key, since it selectively removes a lot of the volatile oils as the coffee goes through. No form of mesh or unfiltered brewing does that. It creates a noticeably different flavor profile, not necessarily superior either way, just a matter of personal taste. I like unfiltered as a change-up.

[Bereta_Eder]

The one with the piston and movable filter uses the same kind of coffee as the filter. Both are called french but most of the time when you order french you'll get the filter one.
The piston+movable filter is more wholesome, the paper filter is a more "light" taste.
The more "connaiseurs" prefer the piston+filter to the paper filter when it comes to french though. But it is a hassle to clean it.
also the best way to prepare greek coffee (or turkish) that is baked coffee is in the "hovoli". It's basically a square iron filled with sand. The sand gets hot and you place the small pot with the coffee there and wait to boil. It's awesome. But you can't do it at home.

[jsorense]

It is my experience that I get a different grind (more coarse) for the French press than I did with the filters.