Do you know about caffeine? This month, March, has been named Caffeine Awareness Month by the Caffeine Awareness Alliance and raise awareness about a little-known compound.
Now you’re probably saying, “Sprudge, I’m not sure if you realize this, but isn’t the Caffeine Awareness Group the one that was accused of “selling a false way to meet court-ordered community service requirements by doing little more than taking an online quiz‘? And did their founder, Marina Kushner, author of many books containing a combination of the words , , and , confess to these crimes and ironically received 500 hours of community service?” To which we would respond, “Yes and yes, we are aware of it. There are many things worth knowing.”
Nevertheless, we also believe that it is high time for caffeine to gain some awareness. Aware of what? Mere existence? Is it a stimulant? That it is so inextricably linked with coffee that its very name comes from the drink? Yes to all this and more. What better way to draw attention to this by highlighting moments where we may have been overly aware of caffeine. (Everyone is sensitive to caffeine if they try tough enough).
Here are our stories. Our Caffeine Awareness Stories.
Talk about psychedelia
I once decided it would be a good idea to drink an entire 850g of Chemex Robusta. This is the amount of coffee (Arabica) I drink every morning, so I thought that being a gigantic lover of mighty coffee, what is a little Robusta between friends? My judgment is further complicated by the fact that the coffee was really damn good. Anaerobically fermented Robusta, grown in the Krông Năng District of Đắk Lắk Province in Vietnam and roasted by Nguyen Coffee Supply, the coffee was so good that it was Maya Nguyen’s competition coffee (no relation) and the first Robusta used in the US Barista Championships.
And so, with great arrogance, I drank all of the delicious Chemex, completely unaware of the journey I was about to embark on. This wasn’t one of those caffeine-soaked ones. NO. Within minutes, the edges of everything muted to a different vibration frequency. I felt a universal buzz. My third eye opened and was acutely aware of the caffeine.
Insomnia In Seattle
I went to my first gigantic coffee festival, SCA Expo 2018 in Seattle. I was a modern content creator at the time and wanted to experience all the excitement of being at an event. I was very excited, but I really didn’t know what to expect, and the event was so, so gigantic that I honestly didn’t realize how many ways people could serve you coffee. La Marzocco stand, Pacific Barista stand, macadamia nut milk stand. Soon I had 14 shots on my first day and was absolutely thrilled. Honestly, I felt like I was a Spongebob meme, you know the one where he’s stunned? I don’t drink alcohol or do drugs, but this was the closest thing to an out-of-body experience I’ve ever had. I had to eat a lot of waffles and drink a lot of Topo Chico to get down.
Lamentation at the Loaf Lounge
I recently returned to my hometown of Chicago. A friend mentioned that I would be near a bakery called Loaf Salonwhich, along with delicious bread and sandwiches, served chocolate cake, the recipe of which was made eminent by the TV show “Niedźwiedź”. Even though I’m a fan of the restaurant, Chicago and screaming, unfortunately I haven’t been able to watch The Bear yet. Maybe if I did, I wouldn’t be halfway through a slice of their fantastic chocolate cake at 11pm one night before I recognized the distinct, delicious flavor of coffee – from the 1 1/4 cups of coffee used in this cake recipe.
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Matcha Most Malicious
In 2016, I drank my first matcha latte in Modern York. I naively thought that matcha had a similar amount/effect of caffeine to other teas – which don’t work for me – and halfway through I experienced my mistake. My mouth and brain were out of sync, I was shaking uncontrollably and he knew I needed food, stat. Looking up, I saw David Buehrer (from Houston!) who had found some noodle soup nearby, and thankfully my excessive caffeine was under control.
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Warped by the third wave
At the Stumptown Coffee Ace Hotel in Portland, back in 2009, I worked as a manager – sorry, manager – and the baristas I worked with could clearly see that I was losing steam. There were two coffee machines and I would be tasting shots all day long. We’re probably talking about 10 espressos. You’re constantly tasting the espresso – your own espresso, the other barista’s espresso, the interns’ espresso – because all day long we were calling around and making sure it was up to Stumptown standards. In those days we were taught to overfill the cobs so high that it looked like “mountains” and then brush and brush it all over the floor, which is where the original term “sprudge” comes from. This was before the scale, before weighing shots. Eventually, my co-workers at the store would have to ask, “Robyn, would you like a cookie?” They meant I was totally terrified. What they meant was, “Robyn, you MUST eat the cookie.” It was comical, but I didn’t see the humor until later… after I ate that cookie.
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Milan hand-to-hand combat
I once drank eight espressos in an hour in the name of journalism. The year was 2013. It was our first year at Sprudge full-time, and I was in Milan for an event called DC Campus as part of Dalla Corte’s reporting commitment. This wasn’t our first time in Milan (we were at HOST in 2012), but during this visit I wanted to visit all the cafes, get amazing service and take photos of amazing aged baristas. After a crazy hour of exploring cafes all over Milan, I felt uneasy about the truly Italian Robusta Arabica blend I had consumed. But they were all delicious (with a few exceptions that we talk about in this story). It was a great time. I took it to the next level, sweated caffeine and felt attractive.
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Disaster in Colombia
The year was 2012. I was in the mountains an hour outside of Medellin, Colombia, attending an event called Let’s Talk Coffee hosted by green coffee importer Sustainable Harvest. One of the intriguing highlights of the event was the opportunity to attend a cup of coffee hosted by Dr. Sunalini Menon, where she focused on her work in the field of Fine Robusta. I had been to many cups of coffee by then (and Sprudge hosted a few memorable ones), but I had never had Robusta before. Today, people are much more likely to talk about good quality Robusta, but 13 years ago it was a less common discussion that we found electrifying (and still is), so we settled on two tablespoons.
I looked through the content we created from this event, and while it is lovely video produced by Zacharyit is not accompanied by any written article. This is because after drinking through two tables of Robusta, I developed excessive caffeine consumption which led to penniless health. I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest like a cartoon wolf. It wasn’t a panic attack – at least not at first – until I started wondering where the nearest hospital in Antioquian might be in case I had an aneurysm. Within a few hours, the madness passed, and my visit restored my full journalistic vitality Sevan’s grill and the accompanying drama by Ron Zacapa. But this experience made me aware of caffeine in a way I hope never to be equaled here in the annals of Caffeine Awareness Month.
