The Coffee Habit in America
The United States and Coffee. — In the international commerce of the world there is two and a half billion pounds of coffee handled yearly. The United States consumes more than one third of it all, more than twice as much as Germany, three times as much as the Netherlands, four times that of France, ten times that of Great Britain, and half as much as all Europe. It is not a hopeful sign. The real hold that coffee has is on account of the poison that it contains in caffein, and the large drinking of coffee must affect the nerves of those who use it. Then, too, it is not needed — utterly useless. Those who do not use it get along even better than those who do. The coffee habit is a mild slavery, but it is slavery nevertheless.