Archive for September, 2008

Caffeine is a bitter tasting white colored crystalline formed xanthine alkaloid that acts upon human beings as a psychoactive stimulant drug and a mild diuretic.  Caffeine was discovered by a German chemist, by the name of Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, in the year 1819.  The english word caffeine is derived from the german term kaffein, which was the chemical compound that Runge found in coffee beans.

Caffeine can be referred to by many different names depending on where it originates.  For example, Caffeine may be called guaranine from a guarana, theine from tea leaves, or mateine from yerba mate.  These are all synonyms for the same chemical compound.  Caffeine is found in nature in varying quantities in the beans, leaves, fibers, barks, and fruit of hundreds of plants and fungi.  Caffeine acts as a natural pesticide that may paralyze or incapacitate various insects as they feed on the organism.

Caffeine most often intersects with humanity via extractions of it’s original plant tissues.  These come in the forms of beans of the coffee plant, leaves of the tea bush, various food and drinks from Kola Nuts or Cacao.  Yerba Mate, Guarana berries, and Yaupon Holly also contain caffeine.  In humans,  caffeine directly stimulates the central nervous system or CNS, temporarily shrugging of drowsiness and making the human feel more alert.  Beverages with caffeine, like coffee, tea, soft drinks, and energy drinks are widely enjoyed across the globe.  Caffeine is the world’s most widely appreciate psychoactive substance, as such, it is openly legal and unregulated in nearly all jurisdictions worldwide.

High caffeine levels have also been found in surrounding soil of coffee bean seedlings.  From this is has been understood that caffeine naturally functions as a pesticide, but also an an inhibitor of  other germinating seeds…perhaps giving it a better chance of survival.  The world’s primary source of caffeine has been the coffee bean, whence we brew coffee.  Caffeine content will vary depending on the type of bean use and it’s method of preparation.  Beans within the same tree can even show variations in their concentration.  Normally, one serving of coffee ranges from 40 mg(a single short of arabica espresso) to about 100mg, for a cup of drip coffee.  Most of the time dark roasted coffee has less caffeine then lighter roats because the roasting will reduce the content.  Hence, most Arabica beans will have less caffeine then their Robusta counterparts.  Coffe may also contain trace amounts of theophylline, but very rarely theobromine.

Tea is the second most popular source of caffeine.  Tea usually contains about half as much caffeine as coffe, depending on the species, growing conditions, technique for processing, and many other variables.  Certain teas will contain more caffeine then other teas.  Tea contains a bit of theobromine, and slightly higher levels of theophylline then coffee.  Preparation of your tea has a strong impact on caffeine content, but color is oftentimes a rather poor indication.  Japanese green gyokuro, as an example, will contain far more caffeine then the dark lapsang souchong, which really has very little.

Caffeine is also a common ingredient of soft drinks, soda, such as cola, which was once upon a time actually prepared from kola nuts.  Most soft drinks have around 10 to 50 mg of caffeine ‘per serving’.  By contrast, energy drinks, like red bull,  will have as much as 80mg per serving.  The caffeine in these drinks comes from ingredients used or is added as a byproduct of other decaffeination, or even chemical synthesis.  Guarana, a normaly ingredient of energy drinks, also contains huge amounts of caffeine, and small amounts of theobromine and theophylline with their own naturally occuring slow release structures.

Chocolate, from cocaco, naturally has a small amount of caffeine, the weak stimulant affect of chocolate is likely a combination of theobromine and theophylline in addition to that caffeine.  Chocolate contains much too little of these compounds to cause a reasonable affect on humans, compared to coffee.  In more recent years, manufacturers have begun putting caffeine into body products like shampoo and soap, claiming that their caffeine can be absorbed through the skin.  There is not regulation on this practice, however, and the effectiveness of such products is anyone’s guess.

People have also begun to manufacture caffeine tablets claiming that their phamaceutical quality caffeine improves mental alertness and may be used by students cramming for exams or people who work or drive for long hours.