Some historical facts
According to the Wikipedia history of coffee dates back to the 15th century and even before that. The first proof of knowledge of the coffee tree is from the 15th century too. The same goes for the first consumption of the drink. It took place in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen. The world production of green coffee beans was 9.2 million tonnes in the year 2016. Another important fact. Caffeine is a major ingredient of coffee. It stimulates the central nervous system. Alertness is the most obvious effect of caffeine after it had reached your brain. Consuming caffeine could make you feel more awake. Or not that tired. It is often used in medications for drowsiness, headaches, and migraines.
Effects of caffeine
Rao Unnava is the dean of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. He and assistant professor Vasu Unnava explored the subject. They announced the following. Having coffee before a conversation can stimulate concentration. Or make you feel better about the others who you’re talking to.
The scientists announced that they were the first to examine the effects of coffee consumption on a group. Other experiments have been conducted as well.
They’ve explored the effects on individuals.
First experiment
“Usually, people drink coffee in group settings,” said Rao Unava. He and his colleague organised two experiments which involved 134 college students. In the first experiment, scientists divided students into two groups. The first group had to drink coffee. This happened half an hour before a group discussion. The topic of the discussion was “the Occupy Wall Street movement”. The other group had coffee after the discussion. According to the results, people who ingested coffee looked at themselves and the other students in the group more positively.
Second experiment
The second experiment was conducted in a similar way to the first. Both groups had coffee before the discussion. The first group had traditional coffee. The other had decaf which is healthier. However, those consuming caffeinated coffee concentrated better on the subject at hand. “People who participated in the experiments consume coffee often,” Unnava said. “It helps them be more alert and become more concentrated on the problem at hand. On the top of that, it turns out that coffee helps you do better in group tasks.”
Faults of the experiments
“An important flaw is that the participants hadn’t had coffee before the experiment ” Unnava said “ We couldn’t find out whether the coffee they drank increased their alertness. Or it was the decreased alertness in the students who drank decaffeinated coffee that led to these results.” “Another thing is that we set a topic on which the students more or less had the same opinion. The outcome could have been different if there had been varied opinions. We need to work further on this.”
“Finally, we set only one kind of task – discussion in a group. In what way coffee could influence people’s attitude in other types of tasks (e.g., physical work or problem-solving in a group) is yet to be studied.”
