This Is Your Mind on Plants

Pollan reports that after a few weeks of forgoing caffeine his withdrawal symptoms decrease, but he feels left out of cafe culture and rituals and the caffeine-fueled energy of those around him. On the other hand, he is sleeping better and feeling more refreshed when he wakes up. He also feels a sense of pride that he is not reliant on caffeine, which he credits to the “echoes of Puritanism” in American culture that equate addiction with mental frailty (116). Pollan turns his attention to the scientific literature on caffeine, which shows how it can boost “memory, focus, alertness, vigilance, attention, and learning” (117). For example, caffeinated chess players performed better than their caffeine-free rivals. Pollan notes that since almost everyone uses caffeine daily these studies are difficult to make fair since uncaffeinated people could be affected by symptoms of withdrawal. While caffeine is shown to improve focus and concentration it may not aid creativity, which Pollan claims requires “the freedom to let the mind off the leash of linear thought” (119). He contrasts two types of consciousness: lantern and spotlight. Lantern consciousness, most often exhibited by children and people using psychedelic drugs, helps you to moderate attention to a variety of things while spotlight consciousness focuses the mind on a single task requiring linear thinking. Pollan connects caffeine with spotlight consciousness, arguing that this kind of thought fostered the Enlightenment as well as the rise of capitalism.

The author returns to the history of the coffee trade, explaining how the trade in coffee beans did little for European traders since Arab growers and merchants had a total monopoly on access to the coffee plant; they even roasted the beans before selling them to ensure that Europeans could not successfully plant their own coffee crop. However, one Dutchman smuggled live coffee plants out of Yemen and transplanted them into his greenhouse in the Netherlands. After further propagating these plants, they were taken to the Dutch colony of Java, Indonesia and grown for the Dutch East India Company. King Louis of France was also given one of these plants, which resulted in coffee plantations in French Caribbean colonies.

Before the arrival of coffee, Europeans drank alcohol at all times of the day. Since most of the population was preoccupied with doing physical labor, being mentally sharp was not a concern, but for other professionals frequent beer breaks represented a hazard and an obstacle to consistent productivity. Pollan writes that coffee consumption “helped disperse Europe’s alcoholic fog,” impressing 17th century thinkers such as James Howell, who noted that it encouraged sobriety among the English by replacing it with a “wakeful and civil drink” (121-22). Additionally, workers now had a tool to fight tiredness, which used to make night shifts difficult or impossible.

Pollan argues that tea has different reputations and associations in the East and the West. In Asian philosophies, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, tea was an “instrument of the spiritual life” (123). The Chinese celebrated tea and enjoyed its usefulness as an aid to staying alert as well as a source of vitamins, minerals, and fluoride. Drinking tea was elevated to a spiritual practice that philosophers extolled as an essential part of living well.

When Europeans encountered Asian tea through international trade, they brought it home with them; it quickly grew in popularity and went from an upper-class beverage in 1700 to a ubiquitous drink by 1800. This growing reliance on tea was made possible by Britain’s theft of tea-growing secrets as well as their violent conquest of India, where they transplanted tea bushes and forced Indian farmers to labor for them. Pollan explains, “The introduction of tea to the West was all about exploitation, the extraction of surplus value from labor, not only in its production in India but in its consumption in England as well” (125). Similarly to coffee, English workers enjoyed tea for its caffeine, which became essential to the working class who endured the strenuous and dangerous jobs of the Industrial Revolution.

Pollan revisits his question of whether caffeine was a benefit or detriment to building our society. Because it increases our speed and focus, it helps us “keep pace with the man-made machinery of modern life,” but this can occur at the expense of an individual’s health (127). During the American Civil War, the Union Army ensured each soldier received a ration of 36 pounds of coffee each year while the Confederate soldiers likely lagged from their lack of access to the drink. The modern U.S. Army continues to make caffeine available to soldiers in the form of gum and tablets. By the 1950s employers noticed that allowing their employees a work break and providing them with coffee resulted in an increase in productivity. Soon, coffee breaks were a regular feature of American work culture.

Pollan raises the question of how caffeine can give us energy without providing us with any calories. This molecule blocks another compound, adenosine, from the brain’s receptors, meaning the brain cannot register its depressive or soporific effect. Adenosine continues to increase and circulate in our brains, but we are not affected by it when caffeine is blocking its reception. Ever since coffee and tea’s introduction to Western society, common people and scientists have questioned their healthfulness, speculating about these drinks’ connection to everything from infertility to cancer and mental illness. For the most part, modern science has clarified that, when consumed in moderation, caffeinated coffees and teas have some health benefits, including antioxidants. However, one way they are detrimental to our health is by interrupting our natural circadian rhythms, causing us to sleep less. Pollan cites sleep scientist Matt Walker, who argues that the average person is not enjoying the necessary deep sleep required for optimal health. Walker attributes this to caffeine’s long life in our bodies—it can take 12 hours for our bodies to completely process caffeine. According to Walker, even if people can fall asleep while caffeinated, they will not experience as deep of a sleep. Pollan points out that this can create a vicious cycle: People use caffeine to feel less tired, but they are tired because they continue to use caffeine. He claims that this shows there is no “free lunch” from caffeine, only energy that is “borrowed, from the future, and must eventually be paid back” and that the interest we pay on this loan is the amount and quality of our sleep (137).

The explosion in popularity in coffee, tea, and the sugar people added to it, only fueled the “brutal rationality” of Britain’s imperialist conquests and enslavement of African peoples in North America and the Caribbean (138). The British East India Company also enslaved Indian farmers to grow tea plants, which the British had smuggled out of China to sell it directly to European merchants and avoid adding to their trade debts to the Chinese. They also grew their own opium in India, which they directed to China with disastrous results for the Chinese, many of whom became addicted to this drug. This opium trade was wildly successful for the British, and when the Chinese emperor called for opium shops to shut down in 1839, the British waged war and claimed several ports, including Hong Kong. As a result, the British were able to continue to profit from selling Indian opium to Chinese consumers. Pollan argues that today’s global system of coffee and tea production remains exploitative; farmers in tropical countries generally receive a tiny fraction of the cost the consumer pays for their product.

Pollan admits that he has primarily analyzed coffee and tea through the lens of their economy and brain chemistry. He acknowledges that both hold significant cultural weight and ponders why coffee has a reputation for being masculine and powerful while tea is considered more feminine and refined. Unlike drinks like milk or juice that do not change consciousness, coffee and tea cultures both have aficionados who can dissect their exact tasting notes, which Pollan calls “rococo structures of meaning” (145). He credits our tendency to analyze and celebrate the flavor of coffees and teas due to their ability to make us feel awake and happy. Pollan cites research showing that, while caffeine itself does not have any taste, people reliably prefer the taste of caffeinated beverages since our brains learn to associate the pleasant effects of caffeine with the taste we experienced consuming it. This is why soda makers make sure they add caffeine to their products even though it is a tasteless substance.

Pollan transitions to discussing his own experiences with quitting caffeine, curious to see how a fully caffeinated espresso would affect him after three months of abstaining. He considers visiting Peet’s, which was established in 1966 as one of the first coffee shops in Berkeley, California. He credits the founder of Peet’s, Alfred Peet, with changing America’s coffee culture by improving the standard of flavor and roasting and encouraging customers to pay more for a better product. Pollan decides to visit The Cheese Board coffee shop for a flat white coffee. The author is amazed by the euphoria he gets from his cup of coffee and reflects on how quickly the human brain becomes acclimatized to receiving it daily. This euphoria morphs into an uncomfortable hypervigilance and agitation. When he arrives home Pollan feels motivated to clear out his email inbox until he’s too fidgety to remain at his desk, then he goes through his closet for clothes donations, surprised by his willingness and focus to complete a task he usually hates. He manically takes care of a number of other tasks, and when he starts to consider getting another cup, he recognizes “the clever and sinuous voice of the addict” and resists (151).

Interested in seeing coffee plantations in person, Pollan travels to Columbia. There he visits Cafe de la Cima, a coffee farm close to Fredonia. The owner, Humberto, gives Pollan a tour of his farm where he grows 12,000 coffee plants in the ideal tropical conditions: high elevation, full sun, generous rainfall, and good drainage. Pollan picks coffee beans himself and finds working on the steep hillsides difficult and painful. He contemplates how traditional coffee harvesting is still done, with beans picked by hand and flushed downhill in a concrete tube to the processing center. He observes how completely different the tropical Andes mountains are to his usual home but notes that both landscapes are irrevocably intertwined. Pollan reiterates the astonishing success of the coffee plant, to which humans have dedicated 27 million acres of new habitat, or coffee farms. He again expresses amazement at the fact that “a secondary metabolite produced by plants to poison insects would also deliver an energizing bolt of pleasure to a human brain, and then turn out to alter that brain’s neurochemistry in a way that made these plants indispensable” (157). He concludes that while humans often think we are the beneficiaries of our interactions with plants, he feels that the history of caffeine would seem different if the plants could express themselves. Pollan shares that he tries to now use caffeinated coffee and tea only occasionally, “rather than let coffee and tea use me” (159). However, he does sometimes find himself involuntarily drawn to a real cup of coffee.