The other day, I enjoyed an excellent latte at a local coffee shop. The presentation of the latte, combined with its wonderful taste, really made my afternoon.
The latte also got me to thinking about how many people the world over like coffee. Millions of people, in every country of the world, on every continent of the world (including Antarctica), and from every culture enjoy coffee. Is the reason for such a tremendous number of people enjoying coffee the result of some essential and (practically) undeniably good element of coffee or … is it more the shared qualities of our humanity that induces so many people to like the same thing?
I remember a study of odors that they had people from all over the world smell. The most liked one was Vicks Vaporub which was liked by over 90% of the people. There were some which had a fair bit of cultural deviance (there was one that westerners thought smelled like old sneakers(?), but asians liked because it smelled like durian). There’s also the question of whether they like coffee because they associate it with the caffeine. If alcohol didn’t do fun things, how many people would develop a taste for beer/wine/spirits?
I’ve always thought it was the caffeine addiction.
I too always assumed it was directly related to caffeine.
What I don’t understand is why coffee never tastes as wonderful as it smells. I drink coffee, but not much (maybe a cup a day) and I tend to add plenty of sugar. But when I open the bag I’m totally in love with the odour. Rich. Heavy. But the taste of the coffee is far less flattering.
At least for me.
@ Jordan,
With coffee, the caffeine may help explain why we like it so much (also noted by @antfaber in connection with booze), but how should we think about things like cookies or apples? Cookies and apples don’t have the same sort of ‘happy’ effect as coffee or alcohol, but they still possess a very wide, international and multicultural appeal.
@ Forkboy
Totally agree! How does the wonderful smell of freshly ground coffee beans come out tasting like pine-tar when filtered through boiling water? I bet the first person to ever grind coffee beans and make coffee had a right sour face at the first ever sip!
I’m curious to know the correlation of sugar added and other aspects of a particular culture? Furthermore, what lends countries to drinking black coffee vs spiced coffee vs coffee and cream, etc?