Pick Your Potion – Gotta be Coffee – My Ambrosia

Captain Picard was into Earl Grey tea; mention the Dude and we think: White Russians. What’s your signature beverage — and how did it achieve that status?

(Thanks, Bea Patricia, for inspiring this prompt!)

In an article called: Why Does Coffee Make us Feel so good, on Psycholgoy Today the allure of coffee is explained so beautifully by Gary Wenk. He explains that scientists have discovered that coffee causes the release of dopamine, which causes pleasant and euphoric feelings. He also mentions that some research has pointed to coffee having addictive properties.

Personally, I am a grumpy morning person without my coffee. Woe is me if I run out of milk and don’t feel like going to the local garage store late at night. The following morning I really suffer.

There’s a funny article over on Cracked Magazine that talks about 7 Scientific Ways that Coffee Gives you Superpowers.

“If coffee can help Navy goddamn SEALs stay awake for 72 hours of torture, that morning coffee better not just wake you up — you’d better karate chop through your desk and do a day’s work before lunch. Standing. Violently.”

So that explains why I am grumpy, I don’t have my wonderwoman dose, so I feel too normal and average and all too human.

And don’t get me started on the aroma. I am so mad about it I could be a street kid sniffing glue from a plastic bag. In Thailand all book stores had coffee shops. The blend of books and coffee was so perfect, one forgot the heat, the traffic snarls outside and drifted into a kind of genteel universe of all GOOD THINGS. Coffee and books. Why did it take South Africa so long to cotton on? Of course there are also the smells of the baked goods. Some say that houses sell better, if they have the smell of freshly baked bread. So of course it makes sense if books sell better when you smell the coffee and the muffins. Given this knowledge it is amazing that a search of Wikimedia Commons does not bring up one image of coffee drinkers in book stores. I did however find an image of a cafe in the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. They clearly have the right idea, what a beautiful spot. If I were there I would think I had died and gone to some heavenly realm, just look at the skylights.

 

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