How Much Coffee is Too Much?

Tracking My Daily Caffeine Consumption

Facebook recently reminded me of a little experiment I ran on myself three years ago.

Back then I was really into coffee. I still love coffee now of course, but at that time the black gold was pretty much at the centre of my life.

My tiny flat in London was full of coffee brewing equipment and other coffee related stuff. Almost my entire first month’s worth of PhD salary went into a nice espresso machine and grinder, which came to dominate my very limited kitchen space.

I gave talks about the science of coffee. I spent more time in London’s many coffee shops than at my office. I even seriously considered starting two coffee related businesses, one hardware related, a smart espresso tamper, and the other software, a kind of LinkedIn centered around meeting up for coffee.

Thanks to the freedom I got as a PhD student I also had ample time to experiment on myself, from unusual “supplementation” to weird sleeping patterns, and I was very interested in the Quantified Self movement.

I kept detailed logs of what food I ate, what supplements I took and in which quantity, and even measured details like my blood sugar levels and blood oxygenation several times a day.