General Cycling Discussion - Caffine Survey

I just had a afternoon cup of coffee and often I feel guilty about it. Sometimes I just feel like a cannot get work done in the afternoon without a cup. Undoubtly a sign of addiction. I have been vainly trying to eliminate this afternoon cup without success.

So the question of the day is how many cups of coffee if any do you drink?

Usually none.
I drink a lot of tea, though. Especially green tea.

One giant cup when I get up in the morning. One when I get to work. One after lunch. Sometimes I sneak another one in there somewhere too. Try not to drink any caffiene at all after about 4PM or I can't sleep at all. :eek:

I actually try to stay away from caffeine as much as possible. I don't drink coffee at all, and very rarely have soda. I sometimes give into tea, though.

I used to have two cups of coffee before I could even get going in the morning. Then one more cup when I got to work. And then I would drink three Mt Dews throughout the day and more sodas at night. Since then I have quit caffeine. I like to be calm. Every once in awhile I'll have a caffeinated soda or 1/2 cup regular coffee mixed with 1/2 cup decaf. Funny, once I quit the caffeine I didn't need a tranquilizer to sleep anymore. Go Figure!!!

One BIG espresso before the morning ride and a cup of regular java once I get to the office. I'm sure the caffeine is off the charts on the big espresso and the coffee gets me through the rest of the day just fine.

:)

With the exception of iced tea, I pretty much gave up caffiene about 3 months ago.

When I don't go on a bike tour I find I can drink as much a 5 cups of coffee a day at work and about 4 on the weekend. However when I cycle I find I can't cycle very well with the stuff as it acts like a diuretic (laxative). I've gone on 3 week tours and maybe had only 4 or 5 cups in that whole time, but once home I crave the evil stuff.

That reminds me, it's breaktime.....bye

I really love coffee but I only drink it in the mornings- if I have it after dinner I have trouble sleeping. However, I've begun to realize that in the future, having too much coffee before a ride is a bit of a problem because it means having to make a rest stop and the fewer of those the better!

Usually I go for a double or triple espresso from the Starbucks before work, depending how much i'm hanging in the morning, then once that is done.. I switch and have 2 cups of Yerba Mate Tea... slightly caffeinated, but mellower than coffee... then water the rest of the day, and maybe a Diet Coke mixed in for excitement.

-Jeff

I stopped drinking coffee completely, 2.5 years ago. I wasn't hooked, I had a cup every second or third day I just didn't like the down effects about 3 hours after the cup.

Coffee in the morning and then Sweet Tea all day long...

I just love my Sweet Tea! But it does make me have ta' pee... :)

Two large espressos (triple, perhaps quad) in the morning and 1 large decaf espresso around 4 or 5 pm. Water the rest of the day. Can't remember the last time I had a soda.

Juice in the morning, either OJ or grapefruit.
Bottled water all day at work.
Sometimes I'll have a diet Coke with lunch.
Hot tea on Sunday mornings during the cooler months.
Can't stand the taste of coffee. :crash:
That's all for me.

I enjoy it. I used to be addicted but have weened myself down to a casual drink. :)

Coffee is a sacred bean and should be enjoyed with a religious pleasure. I attend the church of the coffee bean every morning.

Caffiene is actually made from strains of my blood. I would probably enjoy an I.V. bag with a steady drip of caffiene. I'm still not as bad as my boss. That guy crushes Vivarin up to sprinkle over his Special K.

In Ken Burns', "The Civil War," it was revealed that soldiers drank coffee continuously. If they could not make coffee, they would often chew the grounds.

I think this sums it up for me.

Although I'm admittedly addicted to the Bean, and while I know that coffee is an evil almost as bad as television or the internet,
I have to ask an innocent question:

Given how bad coffee tastes, what drives anyone to drink decaffeinated coffee? It's not for the taste of it (to coin a phrase,)
and it's certainly not for the micron of caffeine in the stuff.

However, it's got to be better than plain old city water.

The only time I will avoid caffeine is when I am forced to drink
"vanilla-bean-hazelnut-cinnamon" stuff.

Pete, I'm with you! Love the stuff, though I have to admit I've had to cut back in the evenings lately to get a good night's sleep.

My consumption varies whether I'm at work or not. If I'm at work where it's continuously available I'll have several cups in the morning and maybe one or two in the afternoon.

When I'm on days off I don't drink as much at home, sometimes going for one or two days without!

I'll even drink the instant French Vanilla etc.!

Hey, some of us like the taste of a good cup of coffee.

I never started drinking either caffeine or alcohol; at age 52, I am too old to start now.

In my early 20's before I was into cycling, I would drink about 8 cups of instant coffee a day, I was a night owl and would usually stay up to 2am and get about 5 hours sleep. After a few years of this existence I started to get a heart arrhythmia, which the doctor said was due to COFFEE.

Now I am down to 3 cups per day maximum. A cup of instant in the morning, then a Cappuccino at lunch with my wife, then an instant coffee after work. I now go to sleep between 9.30 and 11.00 weekdays, so I can ride in to work the following morning.

Cycling has had a huge affect on my sleeping patterns.

CHEERS.

Mark

Espresso actually has less caffine than regular coffee, the cheaper the cofee is the more caffine it has.

One can of coke has the equivilent of 4 cups of regular coffee. Or so I am told.

I used to drink one coffee a day, or was that an all day coffee?

Now if somone asks me how much coffee I drink, my answer is usually, "just enough to keep everyone safe!"

And Im with you Pete on the "Vanilla haazelnut crap!"

May as well put a paper umbrella in it, what a waste of a bean!!

Originally posted by Pete Clark
.... Given how bad coffee tastes, what drives anyone to drink decaffeinated coffee? ...


Well, I don't like most decaffeinated coffees. I also agree with what you said, but with a twist:
"Given how bad American coffee tastes...".

I was used to fairly decent coffee at home, usually equivalent to private labels of a typical grocery store. Miles ahead of the canned processed coffee. When I did filter coffee, I was putting much more coffee than what most people use; for instance, the 12-cup cone filter was good for 2-3 full cups (maybe 6 or 7 5-oz cups).

However, I have now totally migrated towards espresso coffee. I do it with premium beans (less costly, BTW, because I need much less). Mellower, yet tastier. It not only tastes better, but it is also better on my stomach and on my sleep. When I tour, I usually don't drink any. If it's cold, I'll usually get some hot tea.

BTW, I find strange to go in a restaurant and see through a cup of coffee, when at home, I can't see through a tablespoon of coffee.

Regards,

Originally posted by Prosody
[B]Coffee is a sacred bean and should be enjoyed with a religious pleasure. I attend the church of the coffee bean every morning. [
/B]
Can I hear an AMEN! I quit the damn cigarettes, I'm NOT giving up my java!

I have a reputation for drinking lots of coffee, to the point where some of my online buddies chipped in and got me a nice long-sleeved shirt (http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/2891/) with a caffeine molecule silk-screened on the front. I wore it today, in fact. :) I usually drink about 20 cups of coffee a day, although I don't make it as strong as most people do.

For the record, the spelling is caffeine. It is generally associated with coffee, hence caffe-, and the molecule is of the amine family, hence the -ine on the end. Make sense now? :)

Mmmmm.... Coffee... :D

Actually, since I stopped drinking instant I've really cut down to just the one cup per day. Instant just doesn't taste good any more. I drink it black, so you can really taste the difference. I enjoy an espresso, or a watered down espresso, on weekends and a filtered coffee on weekday mornings.

I drink tea all day at work. I try not to have more than 4 cups a day, but sometimes it's tricky.

Ellie

I just celebrated my 500th post to the forums with another cup of coffee.:fun:

Average 5 cups of day. No matter how strong, it never bugs my sleep, never gives me a downer, I can live without it, and never get the shakes or headaches.

As a diuretic, it keeps me on the go. As a laxative, never noticed any difference.

I like the stuff, love the taste, but I also enjoy cups of tea.

This should just about cover my feelings about coffee...

on the night shift up 10cups of instant 3 scoops in each cup, needless to say i feel like $#1T on a stick by the end of the shift:crash:

Originally posted by Skuda25
So the question of the day is how many cups of coffee if any do you drink?

None. Don't drink anything with caffeine - for personal and medical reasons. Don't smoke nor do I use alcohol, either!! And I drink no sodas with caffeine or sugar. Hmm!! How come I continue to be overweight?? Must be the ice cream:D

I eliminated caffeine about 3 years ago. My beverage of choice is water, lots of it. But I do have a cup of yerba mate tea in the morning--it's got something similar to caffeine, but it doesn't have the "highs and lows" of caffeine and doesn't cause a headache if you stop drinking it. It's also loaded with antioxidants.

I usually have a double cap in the morning straight from my new Illy espresso maker that I purchased for my office. Then, I generally have an espresso after lunch.

Let me tell you, this machine has turned me into a slave that serves the caffeine gods! :beer:

I love my morning cup of coffee, but other than that and a coke at lunch, I keep my caffeine intake to a minimum.

Click here (http://www.cspinet.org/new/cafchart.htm) for caffeine levels.

not nearly enough.

I drink alot at work, probably 6 or 7 cups in addition to
my double in the morning. At night, one cup after dinner.
I refuse to drink instant, it isn't coffee its some vile
blackish immitation of fake coffee.

Flavoured coffee is the work of the devil. nasty.

Marty

This summer riding a cross country tour was like an experiment in coffee. The first week no one really drank it at all, but as the summer went on and the days started to get hotter, and the wake ups from the rides got earlier and earlier more and more people started drinking coffee just to wake up (personally I had been a junkie all through college, so I helped start the trend). The truth is that days that we didn't get coffee seemed so, so much worse then when we did. By the time we were in Nevada and had to wake up at 4am every morning, everyone was drinking at least a cup before riding, and if we didn't get it with our breakfast (had to camp a lot), we would stop at the first gas station or diner along the way. (Unfortunatley in NV there are sometimes 100 mile stretches with no coffee:( ) Anyway by the end of the trip everyone was pretty much a junkie, but the riding for 6 or more hrs a day made it easy to go to sleep. Now that I am back at school I hit up at least a tripple espressso before class (only way to get through 4hrs of Tort Law), and more coffee durring the day. And if I don't get some kind of ride or run in the day (happens more then I like:crash: ) then it is hard to sleep at night.

One cuppa herbal tea in the morning when I'm at work. (The coffee at work tastes horrible! :( Damn cheap stuff.) Water the rest of the day

I like the occasional cup of good quality coffee on a weekend -- around here that would be from City Roast or Arabica Coffee House. Starbucks is too acidic for my taste.

Yes, MOST American coffee tastes bad. It's so flavorless!

No, I don't drink instant because I also drink my coffee black and you really, really can tell the difference!

I do like certain kinds of decaf coffee, too.

What's the problem with flavored coffees? I love 'em in the winter!

:beer:

Has anyone tasted *real* Greek or Turkish coffee? If done right, it 's brewed in a copper pot with sugar & powder-like coffee grounds which settle to the bottom of the cup like sludge. YUM! :) Tasty! Really! It is.

Yup, I've had Turkish coffee, and you're right, it's smooth and tasty. Just don't drink too far down into the glass, or you'll get a mouthful of sludge! ;)

I drink too much coffee. I have a cup in my hand all the time. I am an addict...

But, I'm an addict with high standards. I do not drink instant coffee. Ick.

A couple of times a week I'll make myself a large espresso in the afternoon.

I do not drink coffee after about five in the afternoon.

I have weaned myself off of coffee a few times. It's not that bad. Quitting cold turkey can lead to miserable withdrawl headaches. Gradually stepping down consumption works. But coffee is my last addiction. It doesn't interfere with my life or work. I love it. So, why quit?

Decaffeinated coffee and non-alcoholic beer are abominations. Make mine regular.

Originally posted by RegularGuy

Decaffeinated coffee and non-alcoholic beer are abominations. Make mine regular.


Exactly !! I mean.. really.. what is the point ?? Regualr Coffee usually doesn;t taste all that great (espresso excluded), so why bother ?

And N/A beer ?!?! yeha there is no reason for that.. not that i'm a big lush or anything, but when I want a beer, I gotta have the Alcohol... Throw me a Pint of Guinness anyday ! you can keep the O'fools for someone else !

-Jeff

Originally posted by Trek2Kgirl
I eliminated caffeine about 3 years ago. My beverage of choice is water, lots of it. But I do have a cup of yerba mate tea in the morning--it's got something similar to caffeine, but it doesn't have the "highs and lows" of caffeine and doesn't cause a headache if you stop drinking it. It's also loaded with antioxidants.

Yerba Mate Tea is great.. I usually have 2-3 cups a day of it... nice little buzz, without the caffeine withdrawal afterwards... very mellow.. and pretty tasty.. Have you tried the Yerba Mate Chai stuff ?? I see it at the store now, but haven;t tried it yet.. need a report from the field on it's taste...


-Jeff

Originally posted by OctoberBlue

Has anyone tasted *real* Greek or Turkish coffee? If done right, it 's brewed in a copper pot with sugar & powder-like coffee grounds which settle to the bottom of the cup like sludge. YUM! :) Tasty! Really! It is.


Lived with a guy from Istanbul last year who brewed his coffee like that with the pot and Turkish coffee, stong as hell. He also said that coffee isnt that big over there, kinda like the flipside of here, where there are machines to make Tea, and a pot to make coffee.

I tried coffee in college and hated the taste and the after taste. (The caffeine pill "No-Doz" never seemed to do me much good in late night studying, either.)

Nothing since then has changed my feelings about coffee. I guess I am genetically "blessed" with not having to worry about coffee. I can't even stand coffee flavor ice cream.

Hmmm. Don't think much of tea either.

Diet soft drinks -- yuck. The artificial sweeteners are NOT sweet to my taste buds. They taste pretty wretched.

Water. Maybe juice. Hot chocolate, maybe, on a cold night on a camping trip (if I have bothered to take a stove).

People's attitudes toward coffee/caffeine are interesting. Many folks give the addictive, drug qualities of caffeine no thought and drink without guilt. Some, worry about it and feel guilty for drinking it. Many times when I have declined the offer of coffee told people I can't stand the taste of coffee and don't drink it, their response is a hearty and non-sarcastic "good for you" like they wished they could do that too.

One cup in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Originally posted by lotek
not nearly enough.

Flavoured coffee is the work of the devil. nasty.

Marty


Absolutely! The bean is sacred. Any flavoring is just profane.

Without a doubt, I am a involved member to the Church of the Holy Bean.

Not to be gross, but I realized I drink lots of the java the other day in the bathroom. The porcelin wall unit smelled like I had just brewed a pot. That got me counting.... and I lost count.

We are not alone. I was reading an article in a recent article in some biking maginzine (can't remember which one), but there is some professional riding that has a pre ride ritual of a cup of the brown stuff.

Sign me up for Team Starbucks.

Luckily haven't developed the taste for hot coffee, ice Caps are a weakness of mine. Definitely addicted to caffeine. I drink several sodas/day. Wish I could quit. Thinking about substituting Beer for soda, maybe that'll work :beer:

Originally posted by SpiderMike
I was reading an article in a recent article in some biking maginzine (can't remember which one), but there is some professional riding that has a pre ride ritual of a cup of the brown stuff.


Actually what I think they were talking about is that little race they have in France every July, and a beverage in question is pre-race espresso:roflmao:

I drink decaf usually. I occasionally have a cup of "real" coffee though.

I stopped drinking caffienated coffee some time back, because decaf tastes about the same, and I became convinced that the regular intake of moderate to large amounts of a stimulant like caffiene was a "Bad Thing" and I was better off without it.

One of the unintended side-effects of substantially reducing your caffeine intake is that the comparatively tiny amount of caffeine in a packet of GU or a couple of asprins becomes noticable. GU has 25mg of caffeine, a cup of Starbuck's coffee has over 500mg. When I was a regular caffeine consumer, I hardly noticed the 500mg, now the 25mg provides a bit of a kick.

regards
Dan

I would say that I'm a slave to the Great and Noble Bean, but I don't have cravings, don't need a cup in the morning to wake up, and don't get headaches if I go for a few weeks without the stuff.

That being said, I bounce between drinking about a pot a day[1], and maybe having a cup or two of tea a day.

I totally agree with Pete Clark that most American coffee is crap; pre-ground and/or instant coffee is of totally inferior quality. It's a world of difference between dumping a scoop or two of Foldgers into Mr. Coffee, and pouring a few ounces of freshly-roasted, freshly-ground bean into a french press. The latter produces coffee worthly of an epic; the former produces slew with an LD-50 of about two cups.

Seriously. If you're a coffee drinker, give the press a shot. It doesn't really take much more time than using a drip-through, and the results are so much better. Besides, gourmet whole-bean coffee is usually pretty cheap -- I get mine at a local import store for six bucks a pound, which will last me about two weeks. Much cheaper than Starbucks or Java City. Presses can also be used to prepare tea from tea-leaves.

[1] Not a standard twelve-cup drip pot; I grind and press coffee in the morning, and pour that into a thermos. Works out to about four standard cups of coffee.