The Caffeine in the Bean

The word caffeine comes from the same word as coffee.

In An Ode to Coffee with

Michael Woudenberg

, I wrote that the word "coffee" comes from the Arabic phrase qahhwat al-bun, which means "the bean's wine." This was shortened over time to just qahwa, which eventually morphed into coffee.

There’s even an apocryphal story about an excited, caffeinated goat who ate some of these bitter berries, and then jumped around like a goat who came to get down, and of course we talk about that, too:

Today’s piece, though, is all about the caffeine in the bean.

By the turn of the 19th century, there was plenty of recognition that coffee had some special properties that allowed you to have increased mental clarity and focus, and many prominent intellectuals of the time famously consumed coffee.

One of these intellectuals who loved coffee was the author of the play Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Faust was already being considered among the greatest German literary works, but von Goethe’s interests were all over the place. He was a bit of a polymath, so he was naturally curious about lots of subjects.

As fate would have it, von Goethe met a talented young German chemist named Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, and the two really hit it off when von Goethe convinced Runge to study coffee beans in his lab.

Runge successfully isolated caffeine from the coffee beans, probably by way of grinding the beans and soaking them in a solvent like water or alcohol. This sludge that contained the caffeine and other soluble compounds count then be filtered to remove the particles of bean, leaving behind a thick liquid that Runge could experiment with.

Ultimately, he found that he could add lead acetate to this extract, and that would cause the caffeine to bond to the lead, creating what’s called a precipitate—clumps of a solid substance inside a liquid, in this case.

Runge still had to remove the lead to get pure caffeine, but this step was the key to being able to see the white crystals we call caffeine today.

Runge didn’t give the name to caffeine, though. That came about later, where the French word cafe was combined with the chemical suffix -ine. “Ine” words are generally alkaloids—naturally occurring compounds that are rich in nitrogen.

It is nitrogen that made our apocryphal goat jump up, jump up, and get down. No nitrogen, no alkaloids, and no -ine ending. It is this molecular structure that allows caffeine to interact with adenosine receptors in the brain.

There’s that -ine ending again!

Think about other words with that ending for a moment: Cocaine. Morphine. Nicotine. It’s not a coincidence that those substances are, like caffeine, psychoactive. They sneak into our brains and bond with those same adenosine receptors, giving us a more alert feeling (in the case of caffeine, anyway) and a mild feeling of euphoria.

Caffeine isn’t just for coffee beans, of course. Tea goes back thousands of years in Ancient China. Cacao, too, contains a healthy amount of caffeine. If you ever feel energized after eating chocolate, the psychoactive component is part of the reason why.

I’ve consumed caffeine in lots of different ways during my own lifetime, including guarana in Brazil (very good in açaí with banana, granola, and honey), plenty of caffeine-infused sodas, and a relative handful of energy drinks. I’m drinking coffee right now as I pause for a slow sip before finishing this sentence.

Caffeine’s psychoactive effects surely help me stay focused when I’m writing, but I also make sure to drink plenty of water as I pour myself another cup of Joe. Coffee is mostly water, but if you drink enough caffeine, the diuretic component will make you have to pee more than usual. This will dehydrate you if you’re not careful.

With great power comes great responsibility!

What about you—do you drink coffee, or do you get your caffeine consumption another way? Are you a unicorn who doesn’t consume any caffeine? If so, what’s the reason? Let’s talk!