Coffee

What is Coffee?

Coffee is a drink made from the roasted seeds of the Coffea arabica shrub. In the Caribbean it is called kafe in Haiti and café in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. It is used every day as a food and a social ritual, not as a medicine.

The seeds are picked, dried, roasted and ground. Hot water pulls out caffeine, plant acids and the oils that give the smell. Caribbean styles run strong and small, often sweetened hard, sometimes spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg or star anise.

Here is the honest verdict. Coffee clearly makes tired people feel more awake, and that is proven in trials. Claims that it treats illness are not proven.

Long use in a tradition is not proof that a remedy works, and it is not proof that it is safe. That applies to coffee as much as to any herb.

How does Coffee work?

Caffeine blocks adenosine, a brain chemical that builds up through the day and makes you feel sleepy. This effect is well established in people. It is why coffee lifts alertness and speeds up reaction time.

Caffeine also raises adrenaline a little. In people this can lift heart rate and blood pressure for an hour or two. In those who drink coffee daily, the blood pressure effect fades.

Coffee is a mild diuretic (water pill), so it can send you to the toilet more often. The fluid in the cup still counts toward your day's drinking.

Roasted beans carry chlorogenic acids. In cell and animal studies these act as antioxidants and seem to change how sugar is handled. Whether that helps health in people has not been shown.

Coffee also speeds up the gut in some people. That is a real, measured effect, but it does not happen to everyone.

What forms does Coffee come in?

Coffee is sold and used in several forms.

- Whole or ground roasted beans, brewed with hot water.

- Espresso, the base of café cubano and cortadito.

- Instant powder or granules.

- Cold brew, which is often much stronger than it tastes.

- Decaffeinated coffee, with most of the caffeine removed.

- Green coffee bean extract capsules, sold for weight loss. These are a supplement, not a drink, and the evidence behind them is weak.

- Caffeine tablets and pure caffeine powder. These are not coffee and carry a far higher overdose risk.

In Haitian and Cuban homes the drink is usually brewed strong in a cloth sock filter or a stovetop pot, then sweetened heavily.

Where it comes from:

Coffee reached the Caribbean in the 1720s, when French planters brought it to Martinique. Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, became the world's largest producer by the late 1700s. That trade ran on enslaved labour, and coffee stayed a staple crop and a daily drink after independence.

In Haitian and Cuban home practice, strong black coffee was given for tiredness, for a heavy head after a late night and for headache. Some households used it to settle a sluggish stomach or to help a slow bowel.

Sweetened coffee was also offered to someone feeling faint or weak. It was served at wakes, at work breaks and to visitors as a matter of courtesy.

These were household customs, recorded as practice rather than tested as treatment.

What does Coffee help with?

• Tiredness and low alertness: This is the use with the best proof. Many randomised trials show that caffeine improves attention, reaction time and mood in tired adults. The lift is real but short. It does not replace sleep, and it wears off as the caffeine clears.
• Headache and migraine, alongside a pain reliever: Caribbean households gave strong black coffee for a headache. Trials do support caffeine as a helper drug. Caffeine added to aspirin, paracetamol or ibuprofen makes those pain relievers work a bit better. Coffee on its own is much less studied. There is a catch. Daily caffeine can cause rebound headaches, and missing your usual cup brings on a withdrawal headache.
• Physical performance and endurance: Caffeine is one of the few sports aids with solid human trial support. It modestly improves endurance and how hard effort feels. Most trials used measured caffeine doses, not cups of coffee. Coffee strength varies a lot from pot to pot.
• A slow bowel: Tradition used black coffee to get the bowels moving. Small studies do show that coffee triggers gut movement in many people within minutes. Decaf does this too, so caffeine is not the whole story. Coffee is not a treatment for long-term constipation, and it can make loose stools worse.
• Feeling faint or weak: Sweet coffee was handed to anyone who felt faint. Caffeine does raise blood pressure a little for a short time. There is no good evidence that coffee treats fainting. Repeated fainting needs a doctor, not a cup.

Which foods are rich in Coffee?

1. Brewed coffee
2. Espresso
3. Instant coffee
4. Cold brew
5. Black and green tea
6. Matcha
7. Cocoa and dark chocolate
8. Cola drinks
9. Energy drinks
10. Guarana and yerba mate drinks

Practical Tips:

Caffeine adds up across the day from more than coffee. Tea, cocoa, cola and energy drinks all count.

Energy drinks and pre-workout powders can carry a large dose in one serving. Check the label if you are watching your intake.

What are the side effects of Coffee?

• Trouble falling asleep and lighter sleep
• Jitteriness and restlessness
• Anxiety or a racing feeling
• Palpitations, a sense of a fast or irregular heartbeat
• Heartburn and stomach upset
• Needing to pass urine more often
• Loose stools
• Withdrawal headache, low mood and tiredness when you stop
• Raised cholesterol from unfiltered coffee such as French press or boiled coffee
• Stained teeth

Good to know:

Most side effects are mild and tied to dose. Sleep trouble and jitteriness are the most common.

They usually settle when you cut back or switch to decaf. Sensitivity varies a lot between people, partly for genetic reasons.

Serious harm from drinking coffee is rare. Serious harm from caffeine tablets, powders and strong energy drinks is not rare, and deaths have happened at high doses.

How much Coffee should you take?

• Recommended daily: Coffee is an ordinary drink, so it carries no dose. The figures below are public guidance, not advice for you. Food safety bodies in the United States, Canada and Europe treat up to 400 mg of caffeine a day as safe for most healthy adults. That is roughly three to four mugs of brewed coffee. The same bodies set about 200 mg a day in pregnancy, and a single serving limit of 200 mg. Strength varies hugely between a Cuban espresso, a filter mug and a cold brew. If caffeine matters for your health, ask your doctor or pharmacist what fits you.
• Best time of day: Morning and early afternoon suit most people. Your body clears about half a dose of caffeine in five hours, and far slower in some people. A late afternoon cup can still be in your blood at bedtime. Trials show caffeine six hours before bed cuts total sleep time. If you sleep badly, try making the early afternoon your cut-off.
• With or without food: Either works, so pick what sits well with you. On an empty stomach, coffee causes heartburn or a jittery feeling in some people. Food slows the rise, so the lift is gentler and lasts a little longer. Coffee cuts how much iron your body absorbs from a meal. If you take iron tablets, leave about an hour between them and your cup. Coffee also blocks levothyroxine, a thyroid medicine. Take that tablet with water and wait before your first coffee.
• Time to effect: You usually feel caffeine within 15 to 30 minutes. The peak comes around 30 to 60 minutes after drinking. The effect on the bowel can come faster, sometimes within minutes. It may do nothing noticeable. Heavy daily drinkers often feel no lift at all, only the absence of withdrawal.
• How long to take it: Coffee is a food, so most people drink it for life. No duration limit is set for healthy adults. Tolerance builds within days. The alertness boost shrinks, while the sleep disruption often stays. If you want to stop or cut down, do it over a week or two. Stopping suddenly often brings a headache, low mood and tiredness for two to nine days.