Caffeine High School

Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/05/04

Coffeehouses new option for money-savvy teens

BY ALEXANDRA GUADAGNO

"What do you want to do tonight?"

"I don't know. What do you want to do?"

Sound familiar? For many teens at that dreaded "in-between" age (too young to go to a bar or a club, too old to stay home and play board games), this situation is encountered far too often.

"There's just no place for me to go," says high school senior Sarah Dwight, 17, of Red Bank. "They won't let me into Chuck E. Cheese, and they won't let me into a night club. The only other things are shopping and going out to eat, and that can get expensive."

By the time teens are old enough to drive or get around on their own, there's a good chance they've exhausted all of the entertainment options in their hometown. There are only so many times you can go to the mall or the movies before you start to crave new and exciting social activities.

More...

Is Coffee Making You Crazy?

The Motley Fool

By Alyce Lomax (TMF Lomax)
October 4, 2004

It may soon be official -- caffeine withdrawal could be considered a "mental disorder," temporary in duration though it may be. The reaction for many people to this piece of news has probably been, "Well, duh."

Last week, WebMD Medical News and other sources said that some researchers are suggesting that caffeine withdrawal should be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM, as it's commonly known. The article states that by some researchers' estimations, caffeine withdrawal produces "enough physical symptoms and a disruption in daily life to classify it as a psychiatric disorder."

More...

A Starbucks-saturated planet

The Japan Times Online

Are we tired of Starbucks yet? Apparently not in Japan, where, after a dip into the red last year, the company reported a higher-than-expected surge in profits this past summer, fueled by cost-cutting strategies and a boom in sales of Strawberry Cream Frappuccinos. While a few unprofitable stores have been closed, overall Starbucks has boosted its presence here to 531 outlets nationwide.

And Japan is not alone, or even the most ardent, in its enthusiasm. The Seattle-based company now has nearly 6,000 stores in the United States and close to 2,400 overseas and in Canada, with new outlets setting up brew machines every day.

It is as if there were a planet-wide consensus to update Samuel Johnson's famous dictum about 18th-century London, thus: "When a man is tired of Starbucks, he is tired of life." (Casual observation suggests, however, that in the case of the ubiquitous coffee chain, "young woman" might be more accurate than the Johnsonian "man.")

It was therefore hardly a surprise to read in the current issue of Newsweek that Starbucks plans to expand even farther and faster than it has been doing. According to the company's chairman, Howard Schulz, "I think there are very few places we are not going to be able to go."

More...

Caffeine Withdrawal Recognized As A Disorder

If you missed your morning coffee and now you have a headache and difficulty concentrating, you might be able to blame it on caffeine withdrawal. In general, the more caffeine consumed, the more severe withdrawal symptoms are likely to be, but as little as one standard cup of coffee a day can produce caffeine addiction, according to a Johns Hopkins study that reviewed over 170 years of caffeine withdrawal research.

Results of the Johns Hopkins study should result in caffeine withdrawal being included in the next edition of the DSM or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, considered the bible of mental disorders, and the diagnosis should be updated in the World Health Organization's ICD, or The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.

"Caffeine is the world's most commonly used stimulant, and it's cheap and readily available so people can maintain their use of caffeine quite easily," says Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. "The latest research demonstrates, however, that when people don't get their usual dose they can suffer a range of withdrawal symptoms, including headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating. They may even feel like they have the flu with nausea and muscle pain."

More...

Starbucks chief unfazed by price hike

Schultz says increase in effect Monday won't drive away business from coffee shops.

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz said Friday higher prices will not drive customers away from the coffee shop chain's signature cappuccinos and lattes.

"I don't think it's going to have any negative impact," Schultz said during an interview at Starbucks' Seattle headquarters.

Starbucks will raise drink prices at company-owned stores in North America by an average of 11 cents beginning Oct. 6.

The chain, which has nearly 6,000 stores in the United States, last raised prices in August 2000. Since then, however, the company that transformed coffee from a 50-cent daily staple into a $3 treat has let its prices slip below those of some of its competitors.

More...

Japanese company donates US$10,000 to coffee board

Observer Reporter

THE Association of Japanese Importers of Jamaican Coffee (AJIJC) has donated US$10,000 (about J$$619,000) to the Coffee Industry Board (CIB).

The funds will go toward the rebuilding of the industry, which is expected to cost US$18 million.

"(The donation was made) in recognition of the seminal leadership of the CIB in the post-Ivan coffee industry recovery programme," said Masaro Ueshima while making the donation at the CIB's office on Thursday.
He is AJIJC secretary-general and a director of the Ueshima Coffee Company.

The AJIJC represents several Japanese coffee importers and has traditionally had a close relationship with the industry and the CIB. Over the years, joint initiatives from both organisations have significantly enhanced coffee trade between Jamaica and Japan - the country's largest buyer of coffee. About 1.2 million kilos of Jamaican coffee, valued at US$24 million, is exported to that Asian country every year.

More...

Near-term coffee futures to 80.15¢

Arabica coffee futures for December delivery ended the week at 80.15 cents a pound on New York's Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange.

Hawaiian coffees are specialty products that sell for several times the commodity coffee rates.

Traders are watching a later-than-usual rainy season in Brazil, the world's largest coffee-producing country, to see how flowering develops.

Pacific Business News

Brazilian Coffee Farmer Bucks Trend, Prays for Sun

By Peter Blackburn

VARGINHA, Brazil (Reuters) - Unlike other coffee farmers, Hugo Swerts wants two more weeks of dry weather so he can finish harvesting on the Santa Cruz farm high up in the hills of Brazil's main production region of south Minas.

In contrast, growers on lower lying land in the world's No. 1 producer and exporter have already finished gathering a large harvest and are desperate for rain to revive tired trees and prompt the flowering of next year's crop.

"We don't want any rain now -- 30 percent of our crop is still on the trees," Swerts told Reuters, pointing to two huge terraces covered with coffee cherries drying in the sun on his remote farm in the key coffee growing area of Varginha.

Forecasts for rain this weekend sent benchmark arabica futures falling more than 5 percent earlier this week as expectations rose about the size of the 2005 Brazilian crop.

More...

Don't fault growers for rising price of coffee

But beans account for only fraction of the cost of a cup

Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle

If the price of your morning jolt of caffeine is going up, don't blame the poor guy in the tropics who grew the coffee beans.

For that double cappuccino that set you back $3.75, a mere 21 cents went for those ground-up beans. The cost of the milk was nearly double that. The bigger ingredients are labor, rent, overhead -- and profit.

The cost of gourmet drinks is poised to rise after Starbucks' announcement earlier this week that it would boost the average price per cup by 11 cents starting Oct. 6. Given the Seattle chain's market clout, industry watchers expect the increase will ripple through an estimated 11,000 other independent and smaller chain coffee shops nationwide.

Wholesale coffee prices have risen 36 percent in the last year in U.S. commodities markets. But to farmers, especially those who grow the specialty beans prized by coffee aficionados, the recent increases only begin to repair the damage of a disastrous price slump that has devastated regions such as Central America.

(See full article for breakdown of the cost of a double cappuccino.)


More...

South American Coffee: Quality, Exchange Rate & Weather

by Safras & Mercado

Quality, Exchange Rate & Weather

The coffee market was taken by a strong movement of recovery of quotes. The fears in relation to coffee quality and its reflections on the flow of shipments from Brazil served as fundamental support to the purchases by funds and speculators. What could be noticed is that in this final straight of operations of exchange between September for December contracts the question of the quality of Brazilian coffee gained more weight, prompting support to prices. Another fact that also helped the highs, connected to the outside Brazilian performance, was the valuation of real against the US dollar. So, a combination of factors that confirms the hypothesis of a more staggered flow of Brazilian sales, raising even the possibility of potential supply bottlenecks. And, at last, speculation about the possibility of delay in the Colombian crop also contributed for such an action. In this sense, international prices jumped, with December expiration in New York moving from 73.00 cents, in early September, to test and later outdo 80.00 early this week. In practice, the market has found support in the liquidation of sold positions by funds and speculators, with such players adjusting a portfolio, which previously held a net balance of almost 18 thousand sold contracts, to slightly less than 8 thousand sold contracts, according to the latest CFTC report, with data up to September 14. The buying performance was sustained, with the sold position likely not only to drop but also to invert the direction already in the next report. In other words, such players will possibly move to a buying profile, given the bold buying performance for the past few weeks, especially in the first two sessions of this week.

More...

Bleached coffee filters bother you? Go gold!

More consumers are concerned about the bleach used in paper filters. ‘Today’ food editor Phil Lempert discusses alternatives

By Phil Lempert
"Today" Food Editor

In the "olden days," somewhere in the early 1600s, London coffee houses were the epicenter of lively conversation, business deals and a continuously available pot of coffee, all for a penny.

Coffee had been introduced to England, and all of Europe, by traders from Arabia and Africa, who brought back with them the coffee-making customs of the regions where coffee was first discovered.

At first, coffee grounds weren’t filtered but allowed to sink to the bottom of the pot. If any effort was made to clear the brew, some fabric or an old sock was wrapped around the grounds, and coffee brewers (people, not machines) squeezed it tightly to get every last drop out of the sock and into the cup. (The “coffee sock” is a fixture even today in some parts of the world. It’s easy to use and can be rinsed out to be used over and over again, but the flavor of the textile, whether it be hemp, cotton, wool or burlap, can definitely be tasted in the brew.)

The birth of paper filters

Since then there has been continual innovation to perfect the filtering out of coffee grounds and sediment, though the first patented filters — made of metal and introduced in France in 1802 — actually didn’t filter grounds so much as help the water drip evenly over the grounds.

Although Mr. Coffee popularized the thin paper filter here in America beginning in 1975, the main credit goes to Melitta Bentz, a German woman who thought that she could make coffee less bitter by pouring boiling water over ground coffee, then filtering out the liquid. She experimented with many types of paper, settling on her son’s ink blotter paper (used during the days of pen and ink in the classroom). The year was 1908, the patent was filed by Bentz and her husband, Hugo, and paper-filter history began.

More...