Coffee

The cherries from the coffeea plant are milled into coffee beans. After processing, the beans are dried and roasted.

The caffeine in coffee delays your brain's fatigue signals. Caffeine blocks adenosine, a compound that builds up as you burn energy and signals rest. Once caffeine wears off, adenosine floods back, leaving you even more tired.

Coffee has three times the amount of caffeine contained in most caffeinated sodas, but significantly less than espresso and cocoa powder.

Caffeine enters the brain through the bloodstream, where it blocks receptors that cause us to feel tired and enables stimulants like dopamine to increase alertness and focus. Over time, the brain begins to expect this level of stimulation, and caffeine addiction can develop. Caffeine withdrawal causes headaches, irritability, and fatigue.

While overconsumption certainly has its drawbacks—hello, not sleeping until the sun rises—on the whole, coffee is fine, even beneficial, for your health. It can even help prevent serious health conditions, like heart attacks and liver cancer.

Know how to tell your Java from your Kaffa? This quick explainer of major coffee-growing regions and their flavor characteristics helps. It breaks down the Bean Belt into three major regions: Central and South America; Africa and the Middle East; and Southeast Asia.

Five centuries before the caffeinated drink was consumed, coffee beans were used for their aromatic quality. One 10th-century text explains how it "obliterates greasy smells of food on hands and whatever of sweets and fats. Whether traveling or at home, neglect not to wash your hands with it."

A mixture of merchants and colonialism then launched the drink across Europe and the New World. Many European coffee traditions, like the Viennese custom of serving it alongside a small cup of water, are remnants of how coffee has been prepared in the Middle East for centuries.

Coffeehouses began opening in modern-day Istanbul sometime in the 1500s. These cafes quickly became invaluable spaces for gathering and exchanging news and ideas.

In the 1600s, coffee was important in multiple religious traditions. In Yemen, it was the drink of choice for Sufi mystics to improve their focus and fuel their grueling meditations. Pope Clement VIII's approval spread coffee’s popularity from the Muslim to the Christian world, paving the way for the cappuccino.