>I have heard that the switch from the main consumed beverage from alcohol based drinks to caffeine based drinks may have possibly contributed to the Enlightenment.

Why didn't the caffeinated beverages stimulate the advancement of science in the countries where those plants are native from?

It possible did. I think coffee was created in Arabia in the 900s. Wasn’t the Arabic countries way ahead of Europe in terms of technology for those several hundred years?

Not in that way. Arabic expansion grew a new layer above cultural heritage of East Mediterranian region, and Persia, and its most important centers were exactly there, showing a lot of continuity with their "pre-coffee" roots. Which I think contradicts your theory.

Perhaps it did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

Coffee really became common beverage in Islamic world about 3 centuries after the "golden age" finished

If that was the case, then the enlightenment would have occurred in north africa first, then the middle east and then eastern europe. Western europe was centuries late to coffee consumption. Also, how do you explain the renaissance?

The enlightenment happened for the same reason that the renaissance happened. Exploration and introduction to new lands, knowledge, goods, wealth, etc. The renaissance was the result of western europe's direct connection to east ( china, india, etc ) via the mongol empire in the 1200s. The enlightenment is the result of western europe's direct connection to the americas via columbus in the late 1400s. It's not an accident that most scholars use 1500 as the boundary between the renaissance and the enlightenment.

Isn't this exactly what happened? My understanding of history is that up until like the 16th century North Africa, the Middle East, and India were global leaders in science and industry.

> Isn't this exactly what happened?

No.

> My understanding of history is that up until like the 16th century North Africa, the Middle East, and India were global leaders in science and industry.

If anyone were 'global leaders' back then it was probably india and china but both were predominantly tea drinking societies. But there were no real global leaders of 'science and industry' back then because 'science and industry' didn't exist as we define it today and nobody had global influence. North africa hadn't been a leader of anything since the fall of ancient egypt. The middle east had it's moments of glory but far more moments of embarrassment ( european, mongol, turkish, etc conquest ).

Arguing coffee was behind the enlightenment is as silly as arguing tea is why britain conquered the world.

Okay, thanks for explaining!

> North africa hadn't been a leader of anything since the fall of ancient egypt.

Not true; see Carthage. They dominated trade and seafaring, and were even the first to sail around Africa (as opposed to the Portuguese, 2,000 years later). Ancient Egypt was in its heydey 2,000 years before Carthage.

Some podcast I was listening to made an interesting argument along these lines around tea, although more in the context of the industrial revolution. Their point was that tea, a stimulant, was absolutely central in motivating workers to get up at the crack of dawn and work long hours doing precise, grueling work. So much so that it became a strategic necessity for the English economy, leading to much of their colonial policy in China and India. Not sure exactly how "valid" this reading is, but it's definitely interesting to think about coffee and tea as actual stimulant drugs with economic consequences. Certainly today tea has a very benign reputation

Plentiful, low cost sugar also might have been a contributing factor, being a quick source of calories and energy, combined with the caffeine.

If your daily diet was previously primarily vegetables with some meat and in season fruits, and then suddenly you're having sugar with every meal, you would probably have more energy to work harder with the extra focus the caffeine provides.

You left out grains, which were the majority of Europe's diet for the majority of the written history of Europe. The sugar hypothesis doesn't make such sense in light of (cheaper, more plentiful, and calorie-dense) grains.

We really are what we eat.

Michael Pollan wrote about it:

https://michaelpollan.com/books/caffeine-how-coffee-and-tea-....

It's guaranteed to be false for the simple fact of human organism adaptability to caffeine. You certainly feel increased alertness after a cup of coffee, so subjectively it may feel very empowering. But if you're a long-time caffeine consumer your baseline (no caffeine alertness) goes down, and in the long run coffee just brings you up to the same level non-consumers have for free. So let's not fool ourselves, coffee is primaryly for pleasure, it doesn't make any miracles for productivity

> But if you're a long-time caffeine consumer your baseline (no caffeine alertness) goes down, and in the long run coffee just brings you up to the same level non-consumers have for free

Citation? It sounds a lot like that's something that you find convenient to believe, perhaps because you gave up coffee and you want to tell yourself you did something good for yourself.

Coffee is essential for my productivity, not for pleasure.

There was just a study published which proposed to show amphetamines of all kinds, actually decreased productivity, and significantly delayed time-to-resolution of cognitive problem solving tests...it also did show the people on the amphetamines vastly overestimate their productivity "boost" from the drugs. Obviously, devil's in the details.

Yes, please: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23108937/

>Coffee is essential for my productivity, not for pleasure.

For sure it is (for the reasons I described above). As for pleasure: I don't know, maybe you are the one who hates its smell, and taste, and just takes it as a medecine. It's not impossible, but it would make you an outlier.

Btw, I do consume caffeine, nicotine, and sometimes alcohol. I'm just conscious nothing of those gives me a superpower. Even though they can give a subjective feeling of superpower sometimes.

To me it seems like it's more about control: Before coffee you are tired and sleep well, then "flip a switch" (drink coffee) and you are alert and ready for the day. And you can do this even if perhaps you didn't sleep well, or not enough, or you just take a while to wake up, because otherwise you are not productive for a while.

Yes, the baseline is unchanged - but it's controlled and on demand.