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New Coffee Slogan© 2006 Stuart Daw While it may be difficult to prove or to quantify for the world’s business administrators, there can now be no doubt that coffee enhances the work performance of employees, and may indeed produce more economic benefit that it costs to provide. Thus it may be time to coin a new slogan that will inspire bosses to serve high quality coffee to everyone in their employ. How about this, as a kind of algebraic equation: In respect to any employee: “Work performance increases in direct proportion to the volume of coffee consumed – (the time spent in coffee breaks and potty stops x the employee’s hourly wage) – the pro rata time and expense allocable to employee’s consumption of tea, chocolate and other allied products.” I am very happy at this whole change in direction. For many years I have been trying to defend coffee against the plethora of negative charges leveled by various elements in society. The main source of these charges was usually various universities where “studies” were being done on the evils of coffee and its effect on the human body. My spiel essentially went like this: “coffee has many positive attributes, such as thiamin, riboflavin, and other B-complex vitamins. It is a mild mood altering drug, but legal and inexpensive. It is a gentle diuretic and body regulator, and stimulates the central nervous system in a very positive way, getting us 'up' for a good day’s work. And some unusual properties are being discovered; for example, one study found that American women who drink at least two cups of coffee per day are only half as likely to become pregnant, yet it has been found to be a mild sexual stimulant in Canadian rats. I mean, this drink has everything. “Now Chinese authorities are recommending a daily therapy of ‘coffee enemas,’ suggesting as much as six quarts of brewed coffee per day. Just imagine! With a population of over one billion people, what would happen if only ten percent used this therapy? It would mean around 100-million people using 600-million quarts, or 150-million gallons per day. That would take, even with weak coffee at three gallons to the pound, 50-million pounds of coffee daily. What a boon for the poor people of the coffee growing world.” This whole pitch was intended to assuage the guilt that most coffee people felt in light of all the adverse publicity raining down on the product. It seemed at least once per year some new study would accuse coffee of causing terrible physical harm to those drinking it. One that especially frightened me was the authoritative-sounding announcement back around 1978 that coffee caused pancreatic cancer. But of course the main motive in that and most such studies was to garner additional funding for further research. After all, a negative report would require more research, while a positive one would likely terminate the program. But even without proof, for me the ace in the hole, the trump card that transcended all the dire predictions of physical harm, was the fact that every coffee man I ever knew (present company included) lived to be old. But for people who have trouble “connecting the dots,” the great news nowadays is the mounting evidence that coffee, far from being harmful to the human body, may indeed be one of nature’s greatest gifts. And for further proof we need only to read the most recent issue of Time Magazine, in which an article by William D. Lemonick extols the virtues of our favorite beverage. Just read this excerpt dealing in the field of cognition: “Caffeine’s boosting your brainpower has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt. ‘As a research psychologist,’ says Harris Lieberman, who works in the Military Nutrition Division of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass., ‘I use the word intelligence as an inherent trait, something permanently part of your makeup.’ Caffeine can’t change that, Lieberman says. But what it can do, he says, is heighten your mental performance. If you’re well rested, it tends to improve rudimentary brain functions, like keeping your attention focused on boring, repetitive tasks for long periods. ‘It also tends to improve mood,’ he says, and makes people feel more energetic, generally better overall.” So we in the coffee trade should ensure that business management be made aware of all this, thus showing the cost/benefit advantage of having high quality coffee at hand at all times, and for all employees.
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