this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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How about 15?
Also, I wonder if they controlled for people who do specific kinds of work where coffee explicitly helps in the labor.
Fight dementia today, by dying of a heart attack at 45 instead
15 is a fine number. I once had 15 in two hours. I'm fine.
I discovered a hack deal by just pouring extra shots of espresso into the coffee. One cup, 10 shots, one gram of caffeine. Expect the barista to glare with concern, it’s part of the deal.
I did once have two quad espressi while waiting for a flight at stupid o'clock in the morning at Stansted airport. The guys in Costa coffee mostly just found it amusing.
I was also once approached by an alcoholic who chastised me for drinking coffee in a bar in the middle of the day instead of "a real drink". I offered to take a shot of vodka for each espresso he drank and "we would see who dies first". He didn't take me up on my offer.
How does any form of “labor” not fit that criterion?
Yeah that doesn't make sense. More like if the people drinking 3-4 cups a day are doing mental work vs physical work
Im not convinced that picking Amazon packages, operating heavy machinery, doing data entry, or copy editing would have vastly differing performance changes from coffee consumption.
However…
I would imagine that an office worker might have more ready access to coffee, such as a communal coffee maker, than someone with less sedentary workspace.
Read in a book about coffee that without coffee the Industrial Revolution wouldn’t have happened. Coffee fuels capitalism by making people work.
I think the person is more of a deciding factor than the work. I drink a minimum of 6 a day and don't notice much, but my partner can't drink a sip of coffee without projectile vomiting and can only manage a can of monster over the course of a full day.
Coffee does fuck all to me, I don't know if it's the ADHD or years of drinking too much pop or something.
Coffee has one superpower. If you're enjoying a cup of coffee, people are less likely to ask you for things.
Well tell them to stop mixing their Ayahuasca in with their morning coffee.
I used to but boy teams meetings used to be really hard with you were going into another realm
Your partner might have something else going on. Have they mentioned it to a doctor?
It's a psychosomatic reaction due to an experience they had as a toddler. They also really hate the taste and smell of it generally. So they aren't really missing out.
I believe surgeons, dentists, and people who do similar small-scale hands-on work, like precision soldering, avoid coffee, because it makes for shaky (but alert!) hands. There are likely enough others that I'm not thinking of.
I see plenty of this every day. Medical heroism doesn’t count. That’s just part of your Starfleet duty.
I read about a study years ago that said yes, the benefit keeps going up the more caffeine you consume. Not sure I could find it again though.