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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
I drink much less than I used to. When I was young, coffee was with me all day long (over a 1/2 gallon a day). Now, I stop after 2 cups in the morning. The reason is simple. When I was young I didn’t need to “go” as often.
Thanks, Max. I honestly would need to add 2+ full cereal spoons to make a single mug drinkable, and that’s been pretty consistent no matter where I tried it. If I get motivated to try it again, maybe I’ll up the game. It’s just hard to talk myself into spending money on things that I don’t know if I’ll even like!
My husband will drink swill with no problem. He says he doesn’t care how it tastes; he’s only after the caffeine. :)
Does that even come from coffee beans? I’m serious. Sort of like American “Cheese.” It’s all cooked up in some mad scientists lab from soybeans (if we’re lucky, Soylent Green if we’re not).
I am in the 2.1 cat. Damned Curerig ! First cup is fine – it is the point 1 that gets me moving. and … we have discussed this before – cup still has not been washed – US Army here .
Never been a coffee drinker until this year. My age? Yeah, well I’m definitely in the “older” zone.
My reasons for switching to coffee:
1) I’m always cold and need to something to warm me up
2) I am trying to wean myself off soft-drinks, primarily Diet Coke.
3) Coffee tastes a lot better than it used to.
4) Increasing studies show that coffee has its benefits.
I like my coffee like I like my women: dark, bitter, and in big cups.
When I was a troop commander at Ft. Bragg, I would run 4 miles in 28 minutes, smoke a pack of Marlboros and drink 10 cups of coffee, all before noon. Now it is just the 10 cups of coffee. To this day, my Mess Daddy made the best coffee I have ever tasted. I think it was the gunpowder he added to it.
Looking at the stats made me set down my coffee cup. I pondered them for a moment, raised the cup to my lips and realized the cup was empty. I promptly refilled my cup.
Barack?
That’s what keeps some of Us single.
Not only has my coffee intake increased, but my tastes now run to stronger flavored brew. In particular, I really prefer espresso when I can get it over regularly brewed coffee. In order to try to offset any ill effects from the quantity and concentration I switched to a decaf brand of espresso that is actually really delicious.
That is very insightful. But as many coffee shops as we see around, today, I wonder if it is true. Maybe the difference is that young people drink more speciality drinks (which will make you sick, quite frankly, if you drink too many) and older people still drink their coffee black (like a non-sissy man, as I previously said).
Joe.
Claire!,
So lovely to be speaking with you. I feel tremendously relieved that you are pro-coffee (pssssst Jon..I’ll get you for this). In fact it is an honor to know that you and your esteemed father are in good health.
Alas, it is the Fast of Esther. Perhaps it is only fitting to speak to a lovely Jewish Woman of Valor on the Fast of Esther. Of course, I am fasting which means I can not drink coffee. This is no problem for me. Hold on for just one minute would you.. (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!) ..as I was saying this is no problem for me.
Tonight at the synagogue I will be attending the annual Purim Costume Party. The theme this year is “The Roaring 20s”. I will attend in my usual costume in character as “An American Without a Costume” (works every time). For some reason upon reading your very nice comment I imagined you dressed as a flapper from the 20s (psssst EJ…go for it). Perhaps the lack of coffee is playing tricks with my mind.
Happy Purim,
Jim
I’m sure one could make the same statement about Ovaltine.
I would like to see a distribution, I would suspect that people who drink coffee don’t change their consumption very much over time, while as non-drinkers mature they might turn into drinkers. Using averages for the age group can’t tease that information out. It is incorrect to suggest the data suggests that coffee drinkers increase their consumption as they get older. The data only says that the age group increases its average consumption as it gets older.
The way I did things–wasn’t a troop commander, but I think the key is, “I was also too young to really believe the statistics,” was: two cups of coffee and one cigarette, then the run, then the best cigarette. The third of the day–after that run, was–well, you remember. Nothing preps your lungs for it like a good run. (After that, the rest of the coffee and cigarettes were a matter of, “need to get stuff done.”)
Sadly, the literature didn’t look anywhere near as promising on the cigarettes as it did on the coffee and the running, so I had to give them up. The coffee and the running still look fine. Now I figure one should run for “one’s health,” not to get the most out of your third cigarette of the day. But without the cigarette, running’s only “okay,” not “the race to the cigarette that makes life worth living.”
Neither coffee nor running will ever be as good as they were back when I figured the warning label on that package must be a bit of an exaggeration. A good run is only a good run, but a Marlboro is a smoke.
Well in the South, we’ve got it made: Tea AND Coffee every day. Lots of it.
Love me some Peets. I used to work at Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, got a lot of free coffee, and still bought Peets French Roast.
My Mom still drinks that type of coffee – out of a very big can.
Just so everyone’s aware, Folger’s, et al, are crap beans. They are typically the cheapest, easiest to pick beans, robusta, and, well, you get what you pay for.
To get an idea of what that kind of bulk coffee is made from, Green Mountain coffee routinely sells what I will call its “overflow” beans to bulk coffee makers. These beans are the ones that basically fall out of the internal transport system that don’t make it into a roasting hopper, where they get roasted and potentially ground, then dumped into K-cups.
There’s a small percentage of beans that don’t make it into a hopper and wind up at the tail end of the distribution system, which is essentially a 50-gallon barrel. When its full it gets sold, but it’s a combination of dozens of types of beans from all over the world – it’s a mess, basically. But for a Folgers type of company, those beans are coffee, and they’re cheaper by the pound than almost anywhere else, because they’re more or less sold at below cost.
Enjoy your folgers!