Goodnight Moon, 2026-05-05

“Silence is No Longer an Option: Why Coffee Geeks Must Reject Fascism” [Coffee Geek]. The history:

For centuries, the powers that be have understood a simple truth that we often forget: the liquid in your cup is not just a beverage. It is a political accelerant.

Coffee is a political accelerant.

Before coffee arrived in Europe, the average citizen began their day with a tankard of beer. Water was often unsafe to drink, so for hundreds of years, the Western world operated in a mild, depressive haze of alcohol. Then came the bean. Almost overnight, the morning depressant was replaced by a stimulant. The collective fog lifted. The result was the Enlightenment: a society that woke up, sobered up, and began to ask dangerous questions about why kings and popes held all the power.

When John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on July 6, 1774, he didn’t just tell her he liked the taste of the new brew. He declared that tea must be “universally renounced” and that drinking coffee had become a patriotic duty. The fuel of the American Revolution was caffeine.

In France, the revolution didn’t start in a war room. It started at the Café de Foy in Paris on July 12, 1789. It was there that Camille Desmoulins jumped onto a table – not a soapbox, but a coffee table – and shouted “To arms!” Two days later, the Bastille fell.

In London, Edward Lloyd’s Coffee House (established in 1688) wasn’t just a place to gossip. It became the birthplace of the modern insurance market, Lloyd’s of London, because it was the only place where merchants could find clear-headed, reliable information.

Coffee creates the one thing authoritarians and fascists cannot survive: a sober, informed, and connected public.

Well, I hope so. In any case, I follow Coffee Geek because I bought a manual espresso machine (a Rok, with the shapely lever arms). Unfortunately, after several hundred shots, I’m unable to achieve a consistent result, let alone crema. Which is unfortunate, because coffee has many benefits besides the “this espresso machine kills fascists” angle.

“Scientists just discovered what coffee is really doing to your gut and brain” [Science Daily]:

[R]esearchers compared 31 regular coffee drinkers with 31 people who do not drink coffee. Participants completed psychological assessments, tracked their diet and caffeine intake, and provided stool and urine samples so scientists could analyze changes in gut bacteria and emotional state. In this study, “coffee drinkers” were defined as individuals who typically consume 3-5 cups of coffee per day, a level considered safe and moderate by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Interestingly, improvements in learning and memory were only seen in participants who drank decaffeinated coffee. This finding suggests that compounds other than caffeine, such as polyphenols, may be responsible for certain cognitive benefits.

On the other hand, caffeinated coffee showed distinct advantages. Only participants consuming caffeine experienced reduced anxiety along with better attention and alertness. Caffeine was also associated with a lower risk of inflammation.

3-5 cups of coffee per day, though. That seems like a lot!