Energy Drinks, Coffee, and The Cost

The title might be a bit misleading. If you’re reading this expecting a rant about the increasing price of caffeinated beverages, then I apologise in advance.

Coffee is great. I love the taste and probably fetishise the experience to a very moderate degree. In other words, I talk to workmates about coffee, the taste of it and the areas of the world it comes from. Just to be clear, we’re talking about Coffee and not it’s cousin seven times removed, freeze-dried coffee or instant, if you prefer. This is a rant for another day, but needless to say, if you freeze-dry something it doesn’t come out the same when you wet it again. Instant is coffee that has died and then been raised from the netherworld. It’s uncoffee!

Ahem… Coffee tastes great (milk, no sugar) but it is very strong, especially in the strengths that I sometimes drink it… And it leaves my brain feeling filthy in the afternoons. I’m bright as a button in the morning, of course. That’s the caffeine boost. Everything that goes up must come down… This is The Cost.

Coffee isn’t the worst offender in the caffeine boom/bust cycle. This title has to go to diet soda. And it has nothing to do with the caffeine in it, which is nothing compared with a comparable serving size of filter coffee. It’s all the other chemicals; artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and colourings. This wicked cocktail will sharpen your brain to a gleaming point, but then after the epiphanical experience is over it feels like someone has been sharpening your brain. You feel tired and muzzy, lethargic, and light-headed. It’s horrible.

Energy drinks are a hybrid of the two. There’s plenty of caffeine and plenty of colourings and preservatives in it. And to top it off you have sugar, which has it’s own buzz and drop. When I was studying for my CCNA (failed again) I was drinking energy drinks, because the thought of drinking warm coffee when studying was very unappealing. In the wake of my test (failed, did I mention) I felt like someone had run over my mind with a spiky-wheeled vehicle from the Road Warrior.

In my youth, as a table-top and Role-playing gamer, Caffeine was the ambrosia of my peer group. As an older man (37) I still have my caffeine, but now I don’t drink it in the afternoon or I don’t sleep at night. No more all-nighters for me.