Posted on 04/14/2004 4:50:30 AM PDT by Wolfie
Starbucks offers caffeine superjolt
Tests show coffee has 50% more than home brew
It isn't just the long lines and high prices that are outsized at Starbucks and other specialty coffeehouses. There's also the caffeine.
In pursuit of a bolder taste, coffeehouses typically brew their blends much stronger than a trusty cup of Folgers. But a powerful side effect is unusually high levels of caffeine, according to a national test of ready-made coffee run by a laboratory for The Wall Street Journal. House blends at Starbucks Corp.,Gloria Jean's and other gourmet coffee chains have an average 56 percent more caffeine than samples tested at 7-Eleven stores and 29 percent more than at Dunkin' Donuts nationwide.
One of the strongest happens to be the most successful: The Starbucks house blend had 223 milligrams of caffeine on average per 16-ounce "grande," or medium, cup size. Starbucks says that on average, its array of coffee drinks contains even more — 320 milligrams in a medium cup. That's nearly double the caffeine in Folgers, the leading grocery-store brand.
The more robust taste certainly lures many consumers. But in light of mounting research on how the body reacts to higher caffeine, the stronger brew suggests another reason coffeehouses have resurrected a beverage that once had considerably less buzz in the United States. However accidentally, their business may be thriving in part because customers are habituated to a drug, albeit one legal and relatively harmless.
For caffeine, scientists usually use the term "physically dependent" rather than "addicted," a term they reserve for severe cases, as in a heroin user or someone who smokes a few packs of cigarettes a day. But in recent years researchers have quantified specific doses of caffeine and linked them with withdrawal symptoms, including headache, drowsiness and difficulty concentrating.
These ill effects are important. Recent research has shown people often choose to maintain their caffeine intake more to avoid the irritable results when they don't get it, than for the positive effects when they do. Caffeine withdrawal usually begins within 12 to 24 hours after the last coffee was drunk, which may neatly explain why people often reach for their mug first thing in the morning.
"You wake up in a state of withdrawal," says Laura Juliano, an assistant professor of psychology at American University who has studied caffeine.
Gourmet coffeehouses have extraordinary customer loyalty. About 12 percent of coffeehouse patrons nationwide visit four or more times a week, according to Mintel International Group, a market-research firm. Starbucks says that its typical heavy user shows up 18 times a month. What makes these numbers more impressive is that coffee, of course, can easily be brewed at home. And 67 percent of regular coffeehouse customers recently surveyed by Mintel agreed that gourmet takeout coffee is too expensive.
Starbucks coffee is brewed to bring out "the best flavor quality" without regard to caffeine content, says Norm Ouellette, the company's vice president of research and development and quality assurance. "The popularity of Starbucks is based on the taste of the coffee."
He questions research connecting caffeine with physical dependence, noting that the American Psychatric Association, in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, published in 1994, does not list caffeine with drugs that cause dependency.
Nevertheless, some coffeehouse regulars have found it hard to quit. Six days a week, Randy Sheehan starts his morning with a 20-ounce cup of Starbucks coffee. Some afternoons, he has a second cup. On weekends, he'll stop by a Starbucks kiosk when he's shopping at the mall. He's in a Starbucks, he says, eight to 10 times a week.
"My body went through caffeine withdrawal when I did go caffeine-free," says the 31-year-old tech worker in Chicago. He says he tried to quit twice: once after stomach surgery and another after recent struggles with sleeplessness. But, without coffee, he says he felt nervous and got headaches.
"It's some kind of chemical dependency," he says, adding that he could quit again if he wanted to. But he no longer does.
In the Journal test, nine to 12 samples from each of the big coffee brands analyzed were purchased in Seattle, Chicago, Pittsburgh and New Orleans. The samples, including some local coffeehouse blends, were all sent to Central Analytical Laboratories, based in Metairie, La. It is a food-testing company whose clients include PepsiCo, Pfizer and Cargill, but no coffeehouses.
Starbucks' reported average of 320 milligrams per 16-ounce cup compares with Folgers, the Procter & Gamble Co. brand, at 170 milligrams on average, the lab analysis showed.
Now we know why Starbucks is so popular: serve a high caffeine dark roasted coffee whose flavor (or lack thereof) is masked by milk, sugar and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate, whatever).
Perhaps the best way to think of Starbucks coffee drinks, as compared to high quality coffee, is that it is like the sweet flavored wine drinks of the '70s like "Annie Green Springs" or "MadDog 20-20".
Thanks professor. Is that right next to the state of confusion? Get your lawyers ready. We've been tricked into this awful addiction. We demand compensation! Outrageous! Disgusting! Inhumane! Oh, a $.50 a cup tax for anti-coffee drinking education? Never mind.
Only the French/Italian roasts. Most blends and all varietals are Full City roast and taste great black.
De gustibus non disputandam, I suppose. If you compare ordinary Starbucks blends and varietals, the roast is much darker than the standard for gourmet quality beans. It is closer to a Viennese roast than to a normal roast. In fact, the only Starbucks coffees that could even concievable by considered a normal roast are their "mild" coffees. I had a long conversation about this a few years ago with the owner of a major coffee wholesaler/roaster. I was complaining that my new shipment of Jamaica Blue Mountain was roasted more darkly than usual. He agreed with me, and apologized, but said that there was more demand for darker roasts because of the Starbucks phenomenon. He said that he would make sure in the future I received my orders from the smaller portion of his production reserved for coffee professionals who did not like the darker roast.
I've also heard the one that Navy coffee should hold up, but not dissolve, a stainless steel spoon.
Sounds like Donkin Donuts is the coffee for you.
They didn't test my wife's coffee!
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