Coffee may brew trouble for teens

By ADAM GRAHAM
Gannett News Service

Kayla Belgiano is the future of the coffee industry. And in her hands, the future is bright. It's Friday night, and the 14-year-old, high school freshman is sitting with her friends at a back table inside Caribou Coffee in downtown Birmingham, Mich., where she's nursing a Chai Tea Latte. In the bottom of her cup is a honey deposit so thick it's a wonder it doesn't clog her straw every time she takes a sip from the frothy concoction.

Kayla has been a coffee drinker for three years, since she was in sixth grade.

"I used to think it was gross," Kayla says of coffee in general. "But now I love it."

Kayla is one of a growing number of teenage coffee drinkers who are boosting the $18 billion per year coffee industry but alarming health professionals, who worry that teenagers are unaware of the adverse effects of coffee's strong caffeine content and its impact on their still-growing bodies.

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