Coffee Highlights
Coffee/Brewing
$300 coffee scent training kit

Phil Mickelson

Swedenborg and Coffee

"Swedenborg cut his teeth, so to speak, in the vibrant coffee house culture of London in the early 1700s, and later accounts take note of his copious coffee drinking—‘he drank in great abundance, both day and night, and with a great deal of sugar’. This coffee drinking was accompanied by an equally prodigious use of snus, or tobacco snuff, which so caked and layered Swedenborg’s manuscripts that later archivists would marvel at how well it had preserved them."
source

Blavatsky and Coffee

"Coffee and tobacco have long accompanied each other as symbiotic pleasures, so it is no surprise to find them entangled with forms of esoteric spirituality like that of Swedenborg. His more modern analogue may be occultist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, who was infamous for both her chain-smoking (rumoured to be in excess of 200 cigarettes a day) and extensive coffee drinking, and an equally prolific pen that syncretized world religions into a New Age mishmash."
source

Geography and Origin

Ceremonial Use of Coffee

Clues to God's purpose for coffee by reading its history. Speculate why it was in Africa / South America. How it interacted with the enlightenment and Islamic Rennaissance.

Rudolf Steiner on Coffee - (highly recommend)

Even if coffee 'borrows' energy from the future, isn't intelligent borrowing useful at times? As long as the borrowed money / energy is invested wisely? Besides, I enjoy high highs and am willing to suffer low lows. Boom and Bust

Also seems that coffee helps us cope with the world coffee caused us to create.

https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/comments/qrojv9/its_not_withdrawal_your_career_just_sucks/ - i saw this happen to adrienne

In Chinese Medicine

a balanced historical perspective

** in summary: moderate amounts good for stagnated liver and gallbladder qi and blood and constricted elimination of damp-heat

green coffee, or unroasted coffee, is said to regulate liver qi while being cooling rather than warming

Other Traditional Applications

"Strong black coffee, drunk as hot as possible, is indispensable as an antidote in a large number of poisons, especially narcotics." - Materia Medica

Esoteric Perspectives

"Coffee creates a certain astral awakening and therefore can be said to carry strong astrality." - Samuel Sagan

Unknown to medical research and science that caffeine can burn out a specific, vital, undiscovered hormone that the adrenals produce. - Medical Medium (don't know if I trust this guy)

"Coffee should be a stimulant. Do not put cream or milk in same, and only a little sugar." - Edgar Cayce, when asked "Is coffee harmful?"

Personal Experience

I believe it when Steiner says coffee 'awakens the astral'. Brings me much inspiration and desire to work. Reminds me of what excites me and motivates me to action. This lasts for an hour or two. Afterwards, I'm left slightly empty, but sometimes debt is worth it. Yes, you pay back loans with interest but if that money helped you create lots of value it's worth it. Great for breaking any initial inertia and stagnation.

Seems to unbind the chest, open the breath, and cause sweating. So I do believe it 'dredges the qi'. If I haven't drunk coffee in a while, I think this dredging causes jitters. With repeated use, the experience is smoother, I assume because there's nothing left to dredge. So the commonly cited euphoria that goes away with repeated use, might be from stagnant qi mobilizing.

I've been very ascetic with my coffee use my whole life, wary of dependency, side effects, and spiritual damnation, I carefully regulated my intake despite my love for the substance and it's beautiful smell. But, starting now (2022), I'm going to try just drinking as much coffee as I want and will see / report what happens.

"Bulletproof coffee" is great, the fat really does smooth the energy.

I also find if I use it for spiritual / devotional practice I don't really crash or feel drained the next day. The drained feeling comes only if I consume tons of inspiration.

Cheap coffee also gives energy crashes. Try a great coffee once in a while as a full and conscious experience.

History

Social History of Stimulants: According to legend, Mohammed was cured of narcolepsy with coffee. There are indications in Arabic medical literature that coffee was used medicinally as early as the tenth century. But in the Islamic world, too, it became a popular beverage relatively late, certainly no earlier than the fifteenth century.

Michael Pollan Coffee

Literature

Balzac on Coffee: “This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensign to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of wit start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.”
https://urbigenous.net/library/pleasures_pains_coffee.html - incredible and hilarious essay

"OBSERVATION: Among certain weak natures, coffee produces only a kind of harmless congestion of the mind; instead of feeling animated, these people feel drowsy, and they say that coffee makes them sleep. Such individuals may have the legs of serfs and the stomachs of ostriches, but they are badly equipped for the work of thought."

Kierkegaard drank insane amounts of coffee with absurd amounts of sugar. (will find the source soon)

Neuroscience

see dopamine#caffeine and dopamine

Allopathic Research

I want to use a tool like Elicit to look at papers.

"According to a spate of such recent studies moderate coffee drinking may lower the risk of colon cancer by about 25%, gallstones by 45%, cirrhosis of the liver by 80%, and Parkinson's disease by 50% to as much as 80%. Other benefits include 25% reduction in onset of attacks among asthma sufferers and, at least among a large group of female nurses tracked over many years, fewer suicides. In addition, some studies have indicated that coffee contains four times the amount of cancer-fighting antioxidants as green tea"

Questions

If coffee were a spirit (which I think all substances are), what would its personality be?

Further Investigation

https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/19193-taomeow-on-coffee/
The World of Caffeine - recced by dao bums
https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/caffeine.shtml
Botany of the coffea plant.
Nicolas de Blégny - wrote about the healing benefits of coffee, tea, chocolate in medieval france