Hacker News Reader

Comment by ptaffs | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone else get sarcastic "what's the point?" comments when ordering or serving decaf? How do you deal with it? I would drink coffee during the work week and have nausea headaches at the weekend, once i established the cause and effect here I stopped the coffee habit. What I find tiresome are the macho comments about being a real coffee drinker. Yes, I also love the double-shot whatever, but dependency isn't cool and I don't want to have coffee at the weekend just to avoid headaches.

View on HN

Maybe I’ve been lucky, but when I get “what’s the point” comments it’s usually in a good-natured, just-making-conversation way, and a response like “I know, right?” is all that’s required. I try not to say uninteresting stuff that people are likely tired of hearing (_new haircut?_) but I mess it up all the time.

If a barista or anyone else was truly trying to shame me for drinking decaf, I think I’d find another place for coffee. Back before the virus, when I worked in an office, half (or more) of the pleasure of going for coffee was friendly human contact. Or, bonus points if you want to gently correct the person; as I said above I mess stuff up all the time and appreciate when a friend makes me see when I’ve been unintentionally rude.

I smile and explain that I like the flavor.

It turns the conversation upside down and makes the other person sound like a junkie.

Same thing applies to when I drink non-alcoholic beer. Sometimes I just want another beer without getting drunk.

Beer contains dozens of flavonoids (from hops) which act as reversible monoamine oxidase inhibitors.

Alcohol is thus not essential for the feeling from drinking a good beer: MAO-B inhibition alone tends to produce euphoria.

Isn’t it interesting that all our legal drugs contain MAOIs? Coffee, tobacco, tea, beer, wine, even energy drinks...

People don’t ”like the flavor”; rather, they tend to misattribute to flavor the craving they have for the neuropsychiatric state produced by their substance of choice.

In your case, both the taste and effects are produced by certain monoamine oxidase inhibitors (Harmala alkaloids) created in pyrolysis of L-tryptophan during the roasting and brewing of coffee.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com