13 June 2008

Smell the Coffee, Wake Up

I've been saying for months that it isn't the caffeine in my morning espresso that perks me up, and now it seems I may have been right to say that the smell of coffee is enough to get me going in the morning, even on those absent-minded occasions when I forget to drink the beverage itself.

Is a sniff of coffee as good as a sip? asks New Scientist, reporting on a Japanese study into the effect of that coffee aroma on sleep deprived individuals. OK, so they used rats in the study rather than people, but if the researchers are looking for people to participate in a next stage involving humans, they should really contact me. Being paid to caffeinate myself doesn't sound so bad, although the suggestion of pumping the smell of freshly-roasted coffee beans into factories where workers are unable to drink a cup of joe sounds a bit too dystopian to me. Obviously, I wouldn't object to the smell of coffee but many people strongly dislike it (like Maman, who was a big coffee drinker until my brother arrived; now she hates the smell and the taste, although is one of the best cappuccino makers I know, having made at least one per day for Papa for about 20 years).

The solution to my tiredness, then, is to open a coffee shop in the back garden and to roast my own beans, in-house. Then, the delicious smell of coffee beans would waft throughout the house and keep me constantly alert and raring to go. I'd better not tell Doktor Landlord about this plan.

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