The script, just in case you can’t watch the movie,

Every day the world consumes 300 tones of caffeine – enough for one cup of coffee for every man, woman and child.

The world’s largest buyer of coffee, the US, has to import nearly all of this as the coffee trees from which caffeine is harvested will only grow at commercial levels between the tropic of cancer and the tropic of capricorn in an area called the coffee belt. Only a single state, Hawaii, is within the belt.

However, the United States is only the largest buyer because it’s so populous. The most enthusiastic coffee drinkers per capita are, in increasing order, the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and, the world champions, Finland, where they drink three times as much coffee a day as the average American. All of these countries are outside of the coffee belt and must import 100% of their caffeine supply.

To get this caffeine, first bees must pollinate the flowers of a coffee tree and these flowers develop into bright red berries. Unlike more cooperative domesticated plants, the coffee tree does not ripen all its berries at the same time so they need to be hand picked and sorted.

Once picked, the coffee bean is removed from inside the berry. This young seedling of the tree is then dried, heated, ground and submersed in boiling water to get out the precious, precious caffeine. It takes about 40 coffee beans to make one shot of espresso.

But why is caffeine in the coffee beans in the first place? It’s not like the coffee trees want to have humans cutting bits of them off and committing a holocaust of their offspring.

Well, the trees, of course, don’t want or feel anything and originally evolved caffeine for their own benefit. Caffeine is an insecticide that effectively paralyzes or kills bugs chomping on the tree.

Whether or not the insects go out experiencing the greatest caffeine high ever is not known.

While caffeine is technically lethal, it’s adapted for for 1g bugs, not monkeys 100,000 times more massive. So you’d really have to try to win this Darwin Award.

But, if you must: to calculate the dose of caffeine you’ll need to ingest to have a 50% of death, take your mass in kilograms and multiply it by 150mg.

Or in terms of coffee, for every kilogram of mass you have you need to drink one latte to get a visit from the grim reaper.

That’s a lot of coffee so it’s not surprising that there are no recored deaths in healthy adults from this method and it’s doubtful that it’s even possible. Because, while you’re busy getting the coffee in, your body is busy getting it out by one way or another.

The rare recorded deaths from caffeine are from diet pills, pep pills and crazy people who eat the drug in its pure form.

Poison though caffeine is, you do still develop addiction to the stuff. And it’s is a real physiological addiction not a wimpy psychological addition like people claim for videos games and the internet.

But caffeine isn’t heroine – rapid withdrawal won’t kill you – it might make you cranky and give you a wicked headache – but since caffeine releases dopamine to make you happy and it gets rid of headaches there’s really no reason to ever stop using it.

And who would want to give up the stuff anyway? I mean, aside from converts to Mormonism and Rastafarianism. Caffeine is the world’s most used psychoactive drug – and with good reason it’s pure awesome.

It increases concentration, decreases fatigue and gives you better memory.

This isn’t just a placebo – these are real effects replicable in a laboratory.

And, contrary to popular belief, drinking coffee isn’t a faustian bargain where the devil gives you the ability to work faster but in exchange makes your life shorter.

For normal, healthy humans there are no medical concerns. Coffee and the caffeine within it may even has medical benefits such as protection from cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s.

Caffeine can even get rid of migraines, but the amount required and the and method of ingestion is… uncomfortable.

Moving right along…

You know what else you can thank caffeine for? A little thing called the enlightenment. In the 1600s people drank more beer and gin than water. But with the introduction of coffee and tea, people switched from a depressant to a stimulant. It’s not surprising then that this time was an intellectual boon compared to earlier centuries.

Ben Franklin and Edward Lloyd loved their coffee for the same reason that modern workers and students do. It’s invaluable for staying awake and concentrating when you need to finish a TPS report or to get through that boring physics class.

Coffee is the fuel of the modern world, so go grab a cup guilt-free and get working smarter and faster.

Minuman kombinasi ini terkenal dengan nama Yuanyang, konon dikatakan minuman ini terkenal di Hongkong, bahkan di Starbuck Hongkong dan Macau sampai membuat minuman ini dalam versi Frappucinno-nya, “Yuen Yeung Frappuccino Blended Cream”.

Rasa dari Yuanyang ini mengkombinasikan keharuman kopi dengan rasa “nendang” dari teh hitam/merah yang kaya dipadukan dengan krim dari susu yang lezat. Sensasinya memang penuh dan menyegarkan. Akan tetapi semuanya harus seimbang, jangan sampai wangi kopi terlalu dominan sehingga rasa teh yang penuh jadi tertutupi ataupun rasa kopi terlalu lemah sehingga tidak harum.

Saya mencoba membuat dengan bahan yang mudah didapat di Indonesia dan juga tidak mahal. Berikut ini bahan-bahannya:

• 1/2 sendok makan teh hitam bubuk, seduh juga boleh mungkin perlu 2 bag agar lebih terasa. Rekomendasi: teh cap Bendera
• 1/4 sendok makan kopi bubuk, merek apa saja boleh
• 3 sendok makan susu kental manis. Rekomendasi: Cap Bunga (Carnation)
• Air secukupnya

Cara pembuatan:

• Seduh kopi dan teh dalam gelas terpisah dengan air 1/2 mug
• Tuangkan susu kental manis ke dalam masing-masing mug. Jika anda memiliki frother, susu kental manis dilarutkan menjadi 1/4 mug lalu di-”froth”-kan menjadi 1/2 mug
• Saring dan tuangkan kopi-teh tersebut kedalam gelas yang berisi larutan susu kental manis.
• Aduk dan selamat menikmati

Untuk versi dingin dengan es, bisa dibuat lebih kental. Setelah siap bisa dituang kedalam gelas yang penuh dengan es batu. Kira-kira ratio 1.5 resep dengan air yang sama.

We were greeted by an mid aged Australian male which I assume is the owner and it is pretty rarely the owner would serve the customers directly. It’s a big plus for hospitality. After seated outside, while we browsing the menu, my two kids were greeted with complimentary a scoop of ice cream each by the owner. Amazed us even more.

I have to admit, they have many pancake variations. From desert like pancakes to meal pancakes with meats. They are serving salads an pastas too.

After took a while browsing the long menu with tempting photos, we decided to order a Chocolate Delight (26 K), Fettucini with mushrooms (32 K) and two iced tea (8 K each).

It was not too crowded, only half seats were seated. It took about 15 minutes before our order served. Their cook only 1 with the owner’s wife dressing the pancakes. Not fast but not too long too.

The ordered pancake was not as expected. It’s smaller than in the picture ). The fettucini was served in large plate. The iced tea like any regular iced tea and come with a small jug of liquid cane sugar.

About taste, the fettucini with fungi in cream is not the best I ever had. The cream is too runny and not creamy enough. The pancakes were the one I most regretted. I thought it’s supposed to be THE place to get the best tasting pancake in town. The pancakes is just like any homemade pancakes with syrups and ice cream, very disappointing.

My wife and kids didn’t want to touch the pancakes at all. I have to finish it by myself.

The verdict is 2 out of 5 stars. Expensive price for below average taste food.

Nowadays, people start to be more health concious. They start to leave soft drink aka junk drink, water with excessive sugar and flavor. Maybe It’s the trend and CCBI adapting with the market by switching to non soft drink product.

Before Minute Maid launched, CCBI tried to penetrate tea segment that was dominated by Sosro using frestea. It’s quite successful and got positive public response. After that, when isotonic and green tea took turn “on” in the market, CCBI and other competitors followed.

Now CCBI took one step further by launching fruit juices. Fruit juices that generally have “healthy” image is very promising segment. CCBI aggressive move should alarmed their competitors. Now they have wide range of products from the classic soft drinks, isotonics, teas and now fruit juices. 

This product price is around 3K rupiah. The taste for me is a bit tasteless in term of orange flavor, just like a thin juice with orange pulp and excessive sugar in it. Remind me of the taste of an imported canned juice, Go-Go but with cheaper price since it’s not imported.

Minute maid surely will get higher priority compared to other traditional sparkling soda drink, but won’t be my daily beverage. For juice I’ll go for sugarless products from other competitors.