European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 11, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse By Jenny Vogt Cox news service there is a sense of urgency about Sandy Lewis As she approaches the Coffee store counter in Palm Beach Fla. It s As if salvation lies in the fragrant bins and boxes just out of her reach. Once she gets her cup of blended colombian and Sumatran Coffee she quickly slips into a seat at an adjacent table. Cradling the paper cup of steaming elixir she drinks deeply. Finally her tight face relaxes and she hazards a conversation something she said she could not do before this moment. Quot i guess i m addicted Quot admitted Lewis 30, smiling wryly Between sips. A i Don t smoke. I Don t like drinking and i be never been into the drug thing so i guess Coffee is in a sense my the headache she had is gone a this is her first cup of Coffee of the Day and it is 2 . A and Lewis goes on to explain that Quot Coffee is the last socially accepted she added Quot there Are a lot of people like indeed at a time when cigarette censors abound sex seems to get More dangerous by the minute and fitness fanatics proliferate caffeine May be the ultimate bad habit a if not vice a for Many born again puritans. It also continues to be the most widely used drug in the world responsible for boosting moods decreasing fatigue and the subject of wide dispute in the scientific Community. Quot i Don t know if it s really a vice Quot said John w. Daly a research chemist with the National institutes of health in Bethesda my. Quot the Bottom line for me is that in be seen nothing in any of the studies that show that people who drink Coffee have any greater risk of diseases than people who Don besides being on the Federal drug administration s gras generally regarded As Safe list of More than 600 commonly used food additives caffeine is Quot not harmful to the average healthy adult Quot according to an extensive evaluation by the Institute of food technologists in Chicago. Caffeine even has therapeutic properties and is used among other things in the treatment of some asthmatics. Michael Jacobson executive director of the Center for science in the Public interest a non profit group that has unsuccessfully petitioned the Fra to require warning labels on caffeine Laden drinks is on the other Side of the caffeine debate. He advises against caffeine consumption for children insomniacs pregnant woman and nervous people. Other people should limit caffeine consumption to no More than the equivalent of about a cup or two of Coffee a Day he said. Quot the immediate effects of caffeine Are insomnia nervousness jitters a racing heart. But there Are other issues More Subtle and less obvious. One is birth defects and miscarriages Quot said Jacobson citing several studies that link Halleine consumption to health problems including a higher incidence of birth defects among children of women who consume Large amounts of caffeine during pregnancy. Quot i would t put caffeine in the same category As alcohol and cigarette smoking Quot he said Quot but i think the Bottom line is if they re drinking More than a couple of cups a Day they ought to rethink their Collee even Joseph Simrany executive director of the Tea Council of the u s a. Admitted Quot calling it caffeinated Tea a healthy beverage could be a bit of a and the Institute of food technologists includes this caveat in its pronouncement that Halleine is Sale Quot common sense dictates that excessive consumption of stimulants such As Halleine is not particularly but no matter what the exports warn most Collee drinkers seem to stay True to their brew. Ray Browne chairman of the popular culture department at Bowling Green state University in Bowling Green Ohio said alcohol As Well As caffeine May be the Iasi of the socially acceptable vices in this country caffeine got a boost in popularity said Browne when agent Dale Cooper on the cancelled television series twin peaks drank Coffee with gusto extolling its Many Virtues. Quot i think of caffeine As being the least dangerous of the last of the acceptable stimulants Quot Browne said. Quot nowadays with so Many other hell s Bells out there we can to possibly be concerned about Daly at the National institutes of health draws a distinction Between alcohol and caffeine. A i guess one of the reasons caffeine is socially acceptable is because if you drink too much caffeine you Don t behave socially unacceptably the Way you do with alcohol Quot he explained. Quot drink As much of it As you like you la just feel take Coffee devotee Murray Harding 27, of West Palm Beach for instance. He drinks five to 10 cups of Coffee each Day a until i get totally littered he holds his hands out to demonstrate and sure enough they shake uncontrollably. A since people Are into this health thing i bet people Are going to be cutting Down Quot Harding said. For now however caffeine beverages seem secure. In the 1980s, soft drinks surpassed Coffee As the most popular beverage in the United states according to the National Coffee association. Consumption of soft drinks a including those with caffeine a has grown steadily since then to 48 Gallons per person per year Coffee and Tea Are no. 2 and no. 3 respectively. N despite its growth caffeine is still viewed As a moral Issue by some caffeine naysayers. Quot i be got friends who drink Coffee All Day Long said Paul Macananey 76, of Lake Worth Fla. 1 now disapprove of that. I think they re getting too much but Sandy Lewis the Contee worshipper from Palm Beach sees caffeine As her secret formula for getting through the Day. Quot its give me a cup of Coffee and then Iii talk to you. Everyone wants at least one Coffee has come a Long Way since the 14th Century. Espresso can be High tech. Page 14 a the stars and stripes history of Coffee some tales Are groundless by Charles Perry the los Angeles times the Early history of co fee drinking is vague but one thing is certain the often told tale of a goatherd named Kaldi who first brewed Coffee upon noticing that his goats were Lively All night Long after eating Coffee berries is a recent invention. The Early arabic records never mention anybody named Kaldi a or any Frisky goats either Ralph s. Hattox studied the arabic writings on Coffee for his Book Coffee and coffeehouses the a gins of a social beverage in the medieval near East University of Washington 1985. He found several different stories about How Coffee drinking originated All pointing to sufi mystics living in Yemen and their need to stay awake for their All night prayer services. One Story says that a 15th-Century sufi named Al Dha Bhani encountered Coffee in Ethiopia a Why he was there and whether it was Coffee prepared As a beverage rather than chewed As Beans the Story does t say. Anyway when he fell ill after returning to Yemen he called for Coffee and found that it drove away fatigue. This the Story goes is How Coffee was introduced to the sufi of Yemen. The question is How was he Able to ask for Coffee in Yemen if it weren to already known there another Story says that in the Early 1300s the sufi of Yemen were already using another drink a a Tea made from the leaves of the stimulant at Plant a for wakefulness. But at does t grow everywhere and so says the Story an Early 14th-Century sufi named Ali Ibn Umar Ai Shahili told his followers to make a Tea of Coffee bean husks instead. It is True that even today Coffee husks As Well As Coffee Beans Are brewed into a beverage in Yemen and another source does say Husk Coffee was consumed in Mecca about 20 years before bean Coffee was. At any rate All the Arab writers agree that sufi spread Coffee drinking to Mecca in the late 1400s, and then to Cairo Egypt where the area around the Al Azhar mosque sprouted coffeehouses around the year 1500. Once outside the context of religious ceremonies however Coffee started to gather unsavoury connotations. The arabic name Zahwa Means a that which makes one Able to do without something Quot a without sleep obviously but the word had previously been applied to wine because wine was thought to substitute for food. The feeble association with the forbidden drink write the fact that gambling also forbidden to muslims and entertainers considered to be of Loose morals were common in coffeehouses a As Well As rulers fears that people who associate in the dead of night Are probably up to no Good a led to a series of crackdowns against Coffee. In Mecca in 1511 and in Cairo in 1539, Public coffeehouses were closed. But there was no stopping Coffee. The institution of the coffeehouse apparently developed in Cairo in the Early 1500s, was introduced to Turkey around 1555, although coffeehouses were closed in Turkey from 1633 to the 1680s, the turkish ambassador to France made Coffee fashionable among the French court by serving it to All visitors to his Paris Home in 1669. That was during the reign of Louis Xiv the trend setter Lor All of Europe and by the beginning of the 18th Century coffeehouses could be found in All european countries. The dutch had already introduced Coffee plants to Java in 1690, and the plants reached India in 1700. The dutch also introduced Contee to Central America and from there they naturally spread to the Caribbean and Brazil. Coffee was on its Way to becoming the third largest commodity in International Trade a after Petroleum and strategic recipes on Page 16 the stars and stripes a Page 15
