This is like asking: People who eat food for the calories, why don't you just eat dry primate food pellets?
Because there's a big upside to enjoying the experience of drinking coffee with few downsides. If coffee was just caffeine dissolved in water it'd be a very different story
The same reason smokers don't just wear nicotine patches.
There's much more to the ritual. The caffeine may be part of it, but pulling in the other senses: the flavor, the smell, the warm mug in your hands, all add up to much more than a dose of caffeine.
"People who X, why not Y?"
Y person: "Well akshully,"
I thought about that but two things. 1) nicotine patches don't give you the same amount afaik. 2) There are more addicting things in cigarettes, people that switch to vaping (same nicotine) say it doesn't hit as much. 3) also why I said for the caffeine instead of who enjoy coffee.
nicotine patches and lozenges are actually similarly great. Just low level nicotine for hours. If I don't have enough water or am too tired to start with then they will cause low-grade nausea though.
it's like drinking alcohol - you can go to a bar/pub for the social scene or you can pregame in the parking lot with a bottle of cheap vodka to get fucking wrecked first.
People who have sex for the orgasm, why don’t you just masturbate?
- Coffee smells good
- Coffee tastes good
- Coffee is warm and comforting
- Coffee is more socially acceptable than popping pills
- Caffeine pills are somewhat harder to find. I can't order them at a restaurant.
Edit: I'll point out that you'll rarely find someone who only drinks coffee for the caffeine. For many (most?) it's just a perk, or even an unfortunate side-effect, hence the popularity of decaffeinated coffee.
caffeine pills are easier to find. they come in the hundreds and then they're just in your bag or coat or whatever.
essential for travel in my opinion. no running around in the morning trying to find a good coffee or suffering through the awful hotel room coffee maker.
A good cup of coffee is better than the pill, but often the pill is better than the coffee that is around and readily available
caffeine pills are easier to find
I have to disagree. Nearly all stores that sell caffeine pills, gas stations and pharmacies mostly, will also sell coffee in some form. Many workplaces, offices in particular, will have coffee available for free to employees. Even many waiting rooms and lounges at airports, train stations, even the lobby of the local mechanic have coffee available. Plus pretty much all restaurants and bars will have coffee.
If you limit yourself to only 'good' coffee then you may have a harder time, but that's really got more to do with your personal preference than availability.
You've got a point that pills are easier to carry once you've got them, and your money goes a longer way with them. And they're obviously easier than making a coffee yourself. To be clear, I've got no problem with pills, they just aren't my go-to.
Are you really unable to function without caffeine to the point this be running around wasting your morning looking for a coffee?
It's really interesting to me that it's socially acceptable to be unable to deal without caffeine, and the source of many "light hearted" jokes about "ooooh, you don't wanna meet me before my morning coffee!".
I don't think it's necessarily a very bad thing but have you ever considered it and thought wow, I'm carrying my drugs with me in case I can't get my drugs drink?
Drinking gives higher comfort levels than pill popping.
I personally find that coffee delivers caffeine in a way superior to pills or Red Bulls or whatever. Coffee gives you a better buzz. Red Bulls and pills are like concentrates to flower. The nuances are lost. quit scratching, my fucking chair Oliver. Edit : on the phone, so I use speech to text and my cat is a dick
Is Oliver your cat, orrrr-?
Yeah. He’s a cat. I’m not sure how he would feel if I said “my” cat but I’m the one he has charged with caring for all of his needs, including but not limited to, adding food to his bowl every morning even if it’s still full. I have to at the very least pretend to add food. Also, he doesn’t like to be petted or touched in general, so I’m not even sure what I’m getting out of this relationship.
quit scratching, my fucking chair Oliver.
Keep scratching Oliver!! 🤣
I have a pocket full of pistachios that would like to have a word with you. And if you listen closely you may smell the candied pecans wailing in the distance.
I like the taste of coffee
I once took a huge number of No-Doz trying to get the same effect as adderall.
At about the two and a half hour mark I was driving through downtown Chicago toward my home, just openly puking on myself. I’d puked so many times I had finally stopped trying to pull over and open the door. I just needed to get home.
Home meant I could run a hot bath and huddle in it, rocking back and forth. I figured I’d be okay.
Then my fingers started to tingle and go numb. That scared me, so I called 911. Managed to get my boxers back on before the EMTs arrived and hauled me out into an ambulance.
At the hospital, they gave me a gown and a big cup of charcoal smoothie to drink. They wouldn’t release me until I’d had a psych eval. The shrink told me it looked like a suicide attempt. I told her no I was just trying to get high.
I remember saying “You know that feeling when you just have to get high on something?” She looked at me like I had two heads.
For the walk of shame/relief home, they found me a pair of blue scrubs that were comically small. Like they barely covered half my butt.
Discharged me and I walked home through the warm summer night, swerving like a drunk man, pausing every block do so to puke a stream of black sludge into the bushes.
It was fucking ridiculous and it turned me off of caffeine pills.
You poor bastard. Didn't they check your heart rate and give you something to reduce it? I imagine with the amount of caffeine you'd absorbed you'd be tachycardic.
Of course they checked my heart rate. It was a hospital intake. They didn’t give me anything to reduce it though.
Dosing. You can order crystalline caffeine, but you have to take micrograms. If you overdose you could have a heart attack.
Availability, coffee is a social and calmly accepted drink wherever you go. Even if you can't get coffee you can get tea. Finding pills is more troublesome.
Because liquid is consumed slowly because it's hot, it's easier to dose to the level of excitement you want. If you ingest a pill there's a delay effect, so it's easy to take too many pills before the impact hits you. Sipping hot coffee, you can get to the point where you're just the right level of jittery and then stop
Caffeine is definitely dosed in milligrams not micrograms.
You can buy a whole bag of caffeine pills that will last months.
Dosing on pills is more exacting than coffee which has variability per batch, so you can get the exact amount you want. You have an interesting point about stopping drinking though. You could also take a half pill. I wonder how that would play out with experienced people, if you know how much caffeine you want you can get that exact amount with pills, but you have to know already of time.
There's also the ritual and social aspects.
Nothing stopping people from taking coffee pills. They're pretty cheap. They just don't
I do this all the time. I've gotten used to judging how I feel in the morning, and determining from that how much to take.
You really can't decide by how much difference you feel right after taking a caffeine pill. If someone is going to keep taking one every 10 minutes until it kicks in, that would be deadly.
There's a short lived placebo effect, then half an hour to 45 minutes later, after I've forgotten whether I took one or not, my energy suddenly ramps up. If I've taken more than I need for the day, it's a bit of a ride that I just have to hang on for, it's not going away until the chemicals are done doing chemistry with my brain.
There are also slow-release caffeine pills. It's a slower, smoother ride up and down the energy boost, and more analogous to sipping a caffeinated drink through the day. But without needing to pee 2 or 3 quarts of water that would come with sipping enough drinks to reliably get 100-200mg of caffeine out of it.
I tracked down pills because I can't stand the taste of coffee, so the whole ritual thing is ruined because I hate the stuff. Tea seems more variable in dosage, and energy drinks or Mtn Dew are too expensive both upfront and in long term health expenses.
Typical doses of caffeine are in the high tens to low hundreds of milligrams, which is much easier to measure than micrograms. A potentially lethal dose for a healthy adult is around 10 grams, about a hundred times as much as one would typically take.
There have been incidents of people dying from caffeine powder overdoses; a tablespoon or so is dangerous, but it's easy for anyone who understands what a typical dose looks like to not do that. If it would fit in a pill capsule, it won't kill a healthy, non-hypersensitive adult.
Cause I like the smell, the taste, the warmth. Maybe if I had no time I would take caffeine pills, but the experience of a cup of coffee is nice.
coffee means I can take a shit at work
On top of all the things said in this thread, I would also add caffeine is a diuretic. The liquid in coffee offsets that side effect.
Have you had a good cup of coffee?
Titration.
I googled this and still don't get it. Can you elaborate?
Controlling your dose
When you titrate something, you're controlling how much of something you add to get the desired effect. A sip of coffee is a very small amount of caffeine, you'll slowly add caffeine to your system throughout the cup. A single caffeine pill is like drinking an entire cup in one swig.
Yes! I tried caffeine pills once. Tiny and had me wired like mad, immediately. It was not a pleasant experience. I drink a lot of coffee and probably have some tolerance for caffeine, too. Could I split the pills into halves or quarters? No.
There is a caffeine gum Ive been meaning to try called POWER gum. Havent tried it though.
When I was in my training for the Army, I did use caffeine pills - it was a jittery and uncomfortable experience, but I couldn't fill my canteen with coffee, and it's not like we were allowed to swing by a café.
Also when I used to go to conventions, and caffeine is handed out like crazy (because, gamers - so pimping your brand of caffeine is an obvious move, and free shit is good for business) - but it's also kinda "required" in order to get the most out of the experience. Late night parties and concerts and next morning panels, and more! Plus visiting the city!
But it's too much for just a normal day now, and the jitters and sour stomach aren't worth it. Part of the problem is that it's basically delivered all at once whereas I can add a little bit more caffeine throughout the day if I need it via coffee or soda or tea.
It's tasty and something to look forward to in the morning. It's also a pretty cheap luxury if you make it yourself.
I dislike coffee. Something about the scent literally makes me nauseated.
So for years my caffeine source of choice was Mtn Dew. (I don't like black tea either. Tastes like boiled raisins to me, and yes I have tried the good stuff.)
Unfortunately, after years of this, I have developed The Beetus.
Today, I get my caffeine from caffeinated chewing gum. It's faster, less glycemic impact, and makes my breath nice. (Especially vs coffee breath.)
There's other healthy components in coffee that wouldn't be present in a caffeine pill. Plus, I like the taste.
I do pills. Personally, it's because a pill releases it all at once and coffee is a dose over time, making the effect less.
Also, my pills are tempered with L-Theanine to blunt the jitters.
coffee smells amazing. if I make it myself, I can do it cheaply & add whatever I want to it (freshly ground cinnamon is very nice).
if I want pills I can get them. I dont want them.
Because I also want to poop.
I do drink coffee for the caffeine. But its also yummy and soothing on cold days. Win win.
Weirdly, taking caffeine pills makes me super sleepy. I have ADHD so stimulants affect me differently from most people, but coffee doesn't make me drowsy at all. The only thing I can think of is that with a pill, the full dose is absorbed all at once, while with a drink, it's spread out over the time it takes to drink it.
I’m convinced that the “ugh, decaf, what’s the point?” crowd don’t actually like coffee and should just take caffeine pills, lol.
"People who drink to get drunk, why don't you just drink Everclear?"
Some people like coffee. It tastes like mud, feels like wet sediment in your mouth, but some people like it.
Other people make a scene about it. Same with energy drinks. You won't get a health lecture if someone sees you drink a cup of coffee. Pop a pill? Prepare for unsolicited medical advice.
Also, they don't sell them at the grocery store or pharmacy I frequent.
tldr: it's too much of a hassle
lol that's an interesting aspect.
I do both. Coffee ritual because it's nice time spent. But caffeine pills for the actual alertness.
I've asked my partner the same question a few times. They will drink 3-4 espresso over the course of an hour in the morning, so they could surely take a 200 mg pill and just have 1 cuppa. They just don't want to. And also will not try, so they will never know if they like it.
Wondering:
How much of the stimulant effect of caffeine could be down to placebo? And what's the better placebo? A tiny pill or a bitter tasting elixir with a lengthy preparation ritual?Maybe some placebo for some people? But there have been times where I couldn't figure out why I was so energetic, only to remember that I had an extra cup of coffee or drank it later than normal.
I think most regular coffee drinkers know the simulant effect is very real. And I also think that, because of the sheer number of coffee drinkers over the last several hundred years, any significant placebo would have been rooted out by now.
Pills don't warm me up.
Pills aren't as easily divisible/measurable.
Pills don't have a good taste like creamer.
The pills that I have make me too jittery (this might just be a reflection of the 2nd point).
Why would I go out of my way to purchase and swallow pills when I can just hit a button at work and have it spit out an espresso?
I don't like the taste but it's tolerable
Why eat vegetable ? Just take a pill ?
I doubt anyone would list this as a reason, per se, but a common justification for the coffee/tea crowd is that these drinks are rich in antioxidants. The theory goes that stimulants cause oxidative stress, so you want all of the extra antioxidants that you can get.
I don't just drink it for the caffeine but that's a big reason. I also like that it does hydrate you in the short term and also that combo helps suppress appetite. I only drink coffee in the morning and don't usually want to eat until lunch. This gives me everything I want in the beginning of the day.
Never heard of them. I can also get coffee from the office break room, unlike pills
In the absence of coffee I might take caffeine pills but as a stimulant it's pretty mild. My main source of stimulation comes from lisdexamfetamine.
I also like to have a nice drink to enjoy while I'm doing stuff. It's also kind of necessary to drink the water so that it offsets its diuretic effect (if any, but my sources on that have been inconsistent).
don't drink coffee, but I don't do the pills cause the caffeine release is way too fast. Nowadays I just use mints that slowly dissolve in your mouth.
I do both! Tea as well.
Coffee I like when I’m sitting at a desk doing busywork for a long time. Tea I like for many reasons, it has more vitamins and minerals than coffee, more flavor diversity, and anti inflammatory properties.
Caffeine pills I take in the morning if I just want to get moving quickly, and I also use them as a pre-workout instead of those expensive powders.
I could just use (and have just used) pills instead of coffee, and it works just fine. However, they literally just hit different. The pills are all at once and then it wears off slowly, coffee lets you ramp up at any speed and maintain at any level. It’s mostly just preference, but being able to spread out the same amount of caffeine is very handy. I would be interested in slow-release caffeine pills, although I imagine these would be very dangerous for some people.
Control of pacing. I drink my coffee over a period of time or else I get jittery.
Because I only drink very small amounts, rarely, and I have a tin of coffee I got years ago that I plan to continue using for more years. Caffeine pills would be harder to get the dose I want and it would be harder to obtain them than just making coffee, so there is no point.
On the one hand, I do take caffeine pills. They are mixed with theanine which prevents the jitters other people are complaining about.
On the other hand, sometimes I just like something to do with my hands, something warm, and something to make my stomach full.
Cause sooooooodaaaaaa
