You Oughta Know #31

In this issue: Government says nicotine as bad as caffeine - is that true?; The future of pour over coffee; What happened to the reusable cup?

Nau mai, hoki mai! Welcome back to You Oughta Know.

I hope everyone had a good Waitangi Day, and celebrated that in a meaningful way.

It’s been a heckers few weeks over hear at The Magic Roast towers, putting out great content, and discovering amazing new coffee spots.

Salty Brew - Karikari, Northland

In this issue: Government says nicotine as bad as caffeine - is that true?; The future of pour over coffee; What happened to the reusable cup?

You Oughta Know, like all the articles on The Magic Roast, is supported by our Members! Their generous support allows us to get stuck into this amazing, wonderful and often perplexing world of coffee.

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Government appears to be using the ye olden Big Tobacco play book

Disclaimer: I'm not a researcher. I'm not an expert in tobacco or nicotine harm. I am a humble coffee lover and internet user. Take that for what it is.

You may have heard some lines from the current Government that nicotine and caffeine are the same when it comes to harm.

“[Associate Health Minister] Costello also reportedly compared nicotine harm to a cup of coffee, with the notes saying nicotine is as harmful as caffeine but its association with smoking has seen the poorest punished by huge taxes.”

ACT leader David Seymour said: "Nicotine often comes with tobacco which comes with a whole of tar and other things that are unhealthy. If you have too much creamer in your coffee, that could be unhealthy for you too."

Housing Minister Chris Bishop said: "They're both harmful, I am certainly addicted to caffeine, I’ve had four coffees today."   

Hearing that made me question my love of coffee. If it was so harmful, or at least as harmful as nicotine, then maybe I should stop drinking coffee. Right?

So I did some googling and found some interesting results.

Despite claims from current ministers that their links to big tobacco aren't impacting their current health policy, the line about caffeine and nicotine being about as harmful as each other, isn't new.

In this article on The Verge, one expert says:

“Where trivializing nicotine addiction by comparing it to caffeine was once part of the Big Tobacco’s larger strategy to deny the danger altogether, now it’s part of an effort to promote the idea of “clean nicotine. If e-cigarettes are positioned as a safe way to use nicotine, then the e-cigarette companies are going to embrace this idea that nicotine itself isn’t harmful and might be beneficial.”

Righto. So this comparison isn’t new.

The other line you might be hearing lately, is that caffeine is as addictive as nicotine.

While you might ‘need’ that caffeine hit, it appears that it's not addictive, at least in the way that drugs, alcohol or nicotine is.

In this article from webMD, they talk about the myth about caffeine addiction.

“Caffeine doesn't threaten your health the way addictive drugs do. But if you stop all caffeine cold turkey, you may feel the effects for a day or more, especially if you usually have two or more cups of coffee a day. 

Caffeine, unlike some drugs and alcohol, doesn't cause severe withdrawal symptoms. (And if you slowly cut back the amount you have over a few weeks, you may not have withdrawal symptoms at all.) Because of that, experts don't label regular caffeine use as an addiction.”

That article on webMD has been pair reviewed by actual experts. So it’s probably a trustworthy source.

James Hoffman, world expert in making coffee, noted this on his appearance on diary of a CEO (from 4:42):

There's a lot of information from a lot of sources out there. And of course, confirmation bias may have meant that I just found the sources that reaffirmed MY own suspicions.

Or maybe my suspicions are based on the past behavior of Big Tobacco, who for many decades claimed that smoking tobacco was harmless, and also target children:

“Tobacco companies have targeted kids and teens for decades spending millions of dollars in marketing techniques.⁵ Schemes such as marketing candy, celebrity endorsement and misleading health claims have contributed to tobacco youth addiction.”

I'm no expert in nicotine, or the health impacts of nicotine vs caffeine. It appears, at least on the face of it, that the link that is being made is mischievous at best, intentionally misleading at worst.

I’ll continue to dig into this topic.

Perfect Daily Grind: What’s the future for pour over coffee

My entry into specialty coffee was via a Chemex - a pour over brew method. My first Chemex was purchased ten years ago (long broken), and a lot has changed in the coffee world since then.

Perfect Daily Grind get into the state of pour over coffee in this article. They note:

“Over the past decade or so, the number of manual pour over brewers available on the market has only continued to grow. Although the V60 still remains one of the most popular, specialty coffee shops are now using a wider range of manual brewers – including the Origami, GINA, Graycano, and Orea, to name a few.

Given the increasing diversity of pour overs, brewing methods are also changing. One of the most noticeable developments has been a much bigger emphasis on precision and controlling as many extraction variables as possible.”

What’s next for pour over? Check out the article and find out!

The Spinoff: Why aren’t reusable coffee cups more popular?

The Spinoff pondered why reusable coffee cups aren’t more popular than they a) should be and b) used to be.

While COVID-19 lockdowns and health precautions might have had an impact, our laziness might be a bigger problem.

Using a reusable cup is good for the environment, but it’s even better for your local cafe. Reusable cups are speny.

I have a few reusable cups, namely my wicked Fellow Carter. But on the odd occasion i leave it at home, or forget to clean it (ewwwwwww), I go to cafes that offer Again Again - a cool scheme that allows you to borrow a reusable cup, for free. You have a week or so to clean it and bring it back before you get charged, all managed through an easy to use app.

Ask your local cafe about Again Again, or get yourself a cool reusable cup to fall in love with.

The Fellow Carter, in full flight, at Zealandia. Does it have coffee? Or does it have gin?

Coming up on The Magic Roast

• An interview with 2023 World AeroPress Champion, Tay Wipvasutti

• Roaster of the month: Kū by Coffee Tech

• A review of the AeroPress Flow Control Cap - thanks to The Magic Roast Members

If you haven’t checked out the Tokyo coffee tour, you must. It’s a great read.