There are tons of coffee web pages, no doubt, but I humbly offer these few links to get you started.

1. Malcolm Gladwell shows you all the ways coffee made us what we are today. His discussion includes (but is not limited to) the science of caffeine as a stimulant, subversive caf?? culture, and how caffeine continues to drive modern intellectual discovery. This is great article.

2. The New York Times gives you the first chapter of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, by Mark Pendergrast. Here is everything you wanted to know about the origins of coffee drinking, and maybe a few things you didn???t. If you like what you read, you can get the whole book.

3. This is NPR???s brief history of the coffee break, which wasn???t invented until the early 1900s. It makes you wonder how people in the 19th century found the time to gossip about their coworkers at the daguerreotype factory. This page also has links to other essays and audio clips.

Enjoy!

I began my search at Coffee People in Portland, Oregon, for a pre-errand-running pick-me-up. Coffee People is a local chain and their signature drink is Black Tiger espresso which boasts 30% more caffeine than their regular espresso. And that???s not all I learned. The cashiers are so excited to talk about Black Tiger, they will answer questions you didn???t even ask. For instance, did you know that Black Tiger espresso is made with a combination of Arabica and Robusta beans so it is less acidic than most espressos? Now you do.

You can ingest your Black Tiger espresso in the form of a Mocha, a Mindsweeper (Latte), Slammahamma (Mocha with Mexican Chocolate), as well as a shake, a smoothie, or you can cut the nonsense and take it straight up. I opted for the Slammahamma and enjoyed the spicy chocolate as I waited for results. I fidget naturally, but by minute three my fidgeting had intensified considerably. By minute seven, I felt thrilled, ecstatic. By minute eleven I could think of no higher pursuits than buying stamps and going to the office supply store. Black Tiger espresso was an enormous success.

Now, we???ve established that Black Tiger espresso has a higher percentage of caffeine than Coffee People???s regular espresso, but how does it compare to espresso at other coffee shops? I went back to double check, and the cashier assured me that their regular espresso is comparable to espressos at most coffee shops. He went on to explain that since Coffee People adds more shots of espresso per drink (2, 3, 4 instead of 1, 2, 3), the Black Tiger coffee drinks have an even higher percentage of caffeine compared to espressos at other coffee shops. I nodded as if I understood, but by that time the neurons in my brain were traveling faster than the speed of math.

You can get Black Tiger on Coffee People???s website or by relocating to the Pacific Northwest. It might just be worth it.