Caffeine has been the universal stimulant for hundreds of years — sometimes out of enjoyment, and sometimes out of necessity.
Europeans have been enjoying coffee since the 16th century, and people in the Middle East long before that, but the true “coffee culture” took a while to reach North America, according to Shannon Ripley of Equator Coffee, a company seeking to expand the use of fairly traded coffee in Canada.
While coffeehouses all over Europe were the seats of culture, art, and politics, Ripley said the idea didn’t spread in North America until more recently.
Until the 1980s, North Americans used coffee as a mere stimulant and rarely thought to enjoy it, she said.
In the late ‘80s, however, the “Starbucks psychology” began to grow, Ripley said. Starbucks made coffee an experience, instilled a culture of espresso-based drinks, and a movement began towards the appreciation of specialty coffee, according to Ripley.
“Overall, consumption of coffee has skyrocketed,” Ripley said.
Countries like China and India have rapidly growing middle classes, fueling the appetite for coffee. That’s one of the reasons the cost of coffee has doubled in the past year, according to Ripley.
“It’s an extremely volatile market, just like oil,” she said. She added that the unstable U.S. dollar makes the price of coffee even more vulnerable to fluctuations.
Coffee produced in coffee shops has a higher amount of caffeine than home-brewed coffee, so caffeine consumption has been steadily increasing with the spread of coffeehouses, said Peggy Barlett, an anthropology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.
In the past few years, North America’s taste for caffeine has extended beyond what coffee can offer.
Energy drinks have emerged, yet even they’re no longer the latest source of caffeine.
One new application of caffeine is Buzz Water, which is advertised as the world’s first caffeinated natural spring water.
It’s mostly sold to movie studios, music groups, the military and Fortune 500 companies, according to Steve MacGregor, the owner of the company.
Regardless of where it comes from, MacGregor said in today’s world, it’s “nearly impossible” to manage without a stimulant of some kind.
“If you look at how many hours there are in the day — eight hours of work, two hours of commuting, and then you take the kids to their activities — you just need a stimulant to make it through.”