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The Older You Are, the More Coffee You Drink
Zagat conducted an interesting survey for us caffeine addicts:
They found that overall coffee consumption is down a hair, more men drink it than women, but I found the last chart the most interesting.
While the national average number of coffee drinks consumed is 2.1 per day, our results show that coffee consumption increases with age. People in their twenties consume the least number of coffee drinks per day (1.8), compared to those in their thirties (2.0), forties (2.2), fifties (2.4) and sixties (2.4).
I thought Starbucks’ saturation would have made the young more likely to drink coffee. I certainly drank more coffee in my Navy days (you try sitting through a lecture on Boron’s absorption of neutrons when the A/C is out), but have always guzzled more than 2.4 cups a day. Granted, I started sneaking coffee as a 7th grader so I could get through my early morning paper route.
Have you increased your java intake over the years?
Published in General
As I’ve tried to reduce my Mountain Dew intake I drink more coffee. I drink “2 cups” each morning, but I think I have a 16 oz. cup from which to do it…
I don’t seem to fit the pattern here, but that itself isn’t unusual. :)
I drank coffee in college but haven’t had a cup in 10+ years. I have to put so much sugar into the stuff just to make it palatable that I don’t bother drinking it at all. I do drink a mug of warm tea in the mornings-nothing fancy just good old Lipton.
My husband, however, never drank coffee until our daughter was born. Within a sleepless month he had developed a 3 cup a day habit.
I’ve gone up, down and sideways. Lately I’d say it’s been 3-4 cups a day, but I’ve gone long stretches without it, and had stretches when I positively lived on it. I’m certainly not at peak consumption now, at age 50. Honestly, I think for me coffee consumption during the day has been pretty strongly correlated with consumption of another beverage in the evening. More cocktails in the evening = more coffee the next day.
Undoubtedly, a sign of the declining economy. There, I said it! Or maybe it’s just the coffee talking.
I think more important that the number of drinks, is the size of the drink and the amount of time spend drinking it. It can take 2 hours to drink a large Starbucks coffee.
1 pot minus 1 mug every morning.
I drink a cup or two a day. I’d suggest, respectfully, Tonya, that if you were needing to add sugar to it, then the coffee you were drinking was really bad. The answer is not more sugar, or less coffee, but better coffee! Not just better beans, but better brews!
I work strange hours, long hours, and travel a lot = lots of coffee. I really like it though more than I depend on it. My earliest memory of coffee was my granddaddy drinking black coffee so I would drink it no other way. Good enough for the old man, good enough for me.
I admit that this is the complete opposite of what I would have thought, based on my own experience and an admittedly casual impression of my circle of acquaintance. I would have thought that women, in general, consume more caffeine than men, and that younger people drink it more.
I had an Italian friend in college who married a coffee roaster. She told me that you can tell the quality of the coffee by how much sugar you have to add (it’s an inverse relationship).
Me, I make a “cappolatte” in the morning (it’s like 2 mugs of coffee) and on rough days will nurse a cup o’ joe in the afternoon.
I never drank it when I was in my 20’s, now I basically drink a pot a day. 4-5 cups, maybe? Sometimes less. I live in Vermont, so right now, yeah, that coffee in the morning and during the day? More is better.
Hell, I even bring my leftovers in my thermos to the gym after work, like tonight. A wee sip or two after 20 miles on a bike, especially after leaving the gym to get what’s left of my hair blown off by gusts of wind, snow, and ice in the air, well, my friend Coffee never lets me down.
Unlike hippies. They will always let you down.
Jon,
I respectfully decline to answer the question on the grounds (get it) that it may tend to incriminate me with the food division of the Federal Bureau of Health Investigations.
(pssssssst Jon..Whatever you do don’t tell Claire. She made her father wear that warm coat at Versailles. If she finds out how much coffee I drink I will never hear the end of it. Com’on Jon be a pal will you. You’re the one with the tea cup in your hand. Oh sure, tea a more civilized drink. Baloney, it’s got more caffeine and plenty of acid. The Sun didn’t set on the British Empire for nothing, that stuff’s got a jolt. Listen to me the woman can give a cat a bath..Jon..Jon..Jon…don’t do it! Oh no.)
Regards,
Jim
I used to drink coffee all day, and quite heavily – six to ten cups. I could drink coffee before going to bed, and sleep soundly.
About the time I turned 55 I discovered I could not drink it the way I used to. At my old rates of consumption I would lie in bed at night and vibrate, even if I had knocked off before noon.
Today I try to limit myself to three eight-ounce cups a day, although I can sneak in an extra one or two once in a while without going into full hummingbird mode.
Sigh. I miss the old days.
Seawriter
Given this post, I think you need to cut down.
I don’t do coffee. Too much caffeine and I go nighty-night. I stick to tea. Mind you, I only started drinking the tea in about 2005, or so. Everyone else appreciated having me sedated with a little caffeine.
I’m down from 2 pots per day to 1. Just can’t handle caffeine after 3PM any longer.
I did not drink coffee until at one air show I hit a wall, and needed to keep going. Since then, the addiction remains. At this point, the caffeine does not even keep me awake; it is just an addiction.
I hit a strong Peets every morning, without which I have withdrawal symptoms.
And unless I am at a conference and/or giving a speech, that is it for my day.
I’m 31. I already drink a lot of coffee. If this is true, my future looks dark. And delicious.
On the basis of that Zagat’s chart, I am about 250 years old.
I drink several cups a day. I bring my own thermos to work because A) The coffee at my office tastes like swill. No kidding, some people call it that… “Be right back, going to get another cup of swill”… and B), I have my own brand that I like anyway. If you drink a lot of the stuff, there’s good news for you:
I am down to about three twelve ounce cups a day. Does the zagat survey control for serving size?
Freiling 16oz press plus peets italian roast every morning at work. Occasional cup of office junk in the afternoon. Pretty standard amount for me last 25 yeats
In case anyone’s wondering, I’m pro-coffee. I think adults should have the right not to drink ten cups a day, if they don’t want to–their choice. But the literature so far is quite encouraging: It’s healthy to drink a lot of it.
I bought my father a coffee-maker for his birthday.
Tea is for sissies. When people tell me “It has more caffeine than coffee, you know,” I look at them and think, “Sit down, relax, let me make you a cup of coffee. Once you have your first cup ever, we can discuss it.”
Yeah, all the numbers I’ve ever seen have coffee way out ahead. As for sissies? Well, also for those of us who have variant bio-chemistry. If I want to be wired, I skip the caffeine. Can you blame me for not hitting the coffee? I’d sleep all the time.
sissy.
Oh, I am so hurt. Pbbbbttt!
:) It is getting late here. The later I get to bed, the more coffee I’ll need in the morning! Wish I knew ounces. I’d say two or three 12 oz cups a day. Also drink tea in the evenings, very often without caffeine, though.
Not a sissy. I drink my coffee black!
Minimum 3 shot Americano every morning, occasionally followed by another, sometimes decaf or half-caff, in the afternoon. It doesn’t really matter. We’re pretty passionate about coffee in our home, but swing both ways with tea just as frequently. The caffeine has no effect on my ability to fall asleep though. I’ve polished off cups at 2:00am while reading, and fell asleep as soon as I shut off the light.
The old-timers certainly drink plenty of coffee, but (in my experience) it’s almost always of the freeze dried Folgers variety (shudders).
I was out of my usual routine in downtown Seattle today. My usual routine involves more caffeine regularly than I used to take a few years back.
Today I had tea as usual for breakfast, but took a half sandwich without ice tea and then drove downtown. I skipped the usual caffeine shake that I normally have about that time of the day — which is partially to help hold off my appetite so I can exercise and have a late dinner after workout.
Later in the afternoon, even though there was a Tully’s across the street, I would have had to leave the club and come back inside if I wanted to imbibe with my usual caffeinated shake. Now it’s after 7 in the evening, I hadn’t had anything to eat, and I started to get a mild headache.
I had no aspirin or other pain relievers with me. What did I do that relieved my headache (and reasonably quickly)?
It occurred to me after I recounted my usual routine that I was getting headache from caffeine withdrawal.
I ordered a 16 oz. cafe mocha at the snack bar. That did it.
Zagat is telling us that people drink more coffee as they get older, but I think that’s misleading: their chart merely tells us that older people happen to drink more coffee. There’s a difference. All it means is that coffee consumption is gradually declining.
I’m in my 40s, and I drink a lot of coffee; at least compared to many of my younger co-workers. But I’ve always been a big coffee drinker, and I think many people my age are as well. Coffee just has more competition these days; younger people today are just as likely to reach for a soda or energy drink for their caffeine fix.
(Side note for those of you in the Bay Area, the Philz Truck is my great obsession: http://www.philzcoffee.com/ . . . https://twitter.com/philztruck)
I drink a mug from an esspresso maker each morning. I drink it black these days. When I was younger I would add a piece of rind from a lime, heavy whipping cream, and sweetener. Now I do that just when I’m celebrating.
Has anyone tried bulletproof coffee?
For a good read, check out Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast; it’s a complete history of coffee, ignoring the Keurig phase. Pendergrast points out that before tea the English were coffee drinkers, and the story of C W Post and Maxwell House is amusing.