Why Does Caffeine Exist?

Why do plants do anything? Either to attract bugs or kill bugs 🐛

Fun fact that I learned on academy: we are so linked to caffeine comsuption that we can actually use the molecule concentration as an indication of domestic sewer contamination on natural waters.

What gets me about the cacao plant is that it generally is poisonous to most animals but one day, a human looked at it and said, “I’m gonna eat it.” And then didn’t die!

My favorite little tidbit I discovered when researching the history of the cacao was finding out about a tribe in South America that became a huge "empire", for lack of a better word, by diplomacy with a lot of smaller tribes. Archaeologists found pottery that had traces of a cacao mixture laced with another chemical that could induce hallucinations. Basically, these guys were inviting their rivals over, drinking this hallucinogenic hot cocoa and then making a deal while they're all friendly and high.

The connections that Eons makes between evolution, biology, human culture, and history are what makes this one of my favorite channels on YouTube.

Fun fact: if we take equal quantities, tea leaves contain more caffeine than coffee beans but coffee beans releases more caffeine than the tea leaves.

Fascinating to learn just HOW many different plants make caffeine - but I'm not really surprised that everywhere such plants exist, humans have found ways to consume them, haha. We like our mind-altering chemicals!

First time I had caffeine was a pill, 200mg. I didn't know what that would do. I ended up running several miles because it felt like what my body wanted to do. Years later, i would drink a cup before writing papers. Years later than that, it can clear my mind a bit, but has nothing close to the same impact it did when I was younger. The body certainly adapts and changes.

I was wondering this literally yesterday. Thanks for checking in with my internal narrative, PBS, and impressive turnaround.

When they were first investigating the stimulant in tea, they named it 'theanine' because it worked a whole lot like the 'caffeine' they'd already investigated. It was only later that they realized it was chemically identical.

Nicotine is also a naturally occurring alkaloid that acts as a stimulant for humans, so we also have a long history of tobacco usage due to this.

So this is why grandmas put coffee grounds on their prize roses: fertilizer, insecticide, and pollenator encouraging.

caffeine: exists PBS Eons: “but why?”

"makes our brains go zoom zoom" Epic quote

When I worked in a coffee roasters in college I had to inform new customers of Kaldi's story anytime I sold them our Kaldi's blend, which is ironic that we would name a blend after Kaldi as they would have just been using a single sourced bean.

i love the connection to anthropology and human evolution in this episode. would love to see more like this! the line in particular stood out to me: "Just like different kinds of plants convergently evolved to produce caffeine, many cultures on different continents independently converged on using it."

That caffeinated "species of North American holly" is called Yaupon. It's native to the Southeast and is commercially available as "Yaupon Tea" from various sellers online. I strongly recommend it for North American viewers as an alternative to shipping tea leaves across the globe.

"caffeine makes your brain go zoom" Me: "caffeine makes my heart go boom"

I love how plants produce chemicals entirely for their own benefit that end up creating an entirely different chemical reaction in humans. We then cultivate these plants, making them grow and proliferate more than the chemical's intended purpose ever could. And this isn't just for caffeine-bearing plants, too. Capsaicin in chili was made to deter all pests but birds, where the seeds pass through their digestive tracts unharmed. We said "nah, we like the burn", and proceeded to spread the chili further than any bird could. And it's not just plants we cultivate for food, either. There's cannabis and tobacco, which are billion-dollar industries.

The Adenosine explanation was cool and unexpected!