There are several things about coffee that Starbucks has changed as they expanded franchise all over the world. First, at Starbucks, a cup of coffee costs 3 dollars for short and 5, 6 dollars for tall size. This price proves that Americans have become to spend incredibly more money for a cup of coffee compared to a decade ago. Before Starbucks, Americans only knew light and unscented coffee served at family restaurants and coffee shops for only 50 or 60 cents. They used to be able to drink coffee at one-sixth price of what it is now. “Americans don’t know what coffee is,” this used to be a common impression Japanese people had when they went to the U.S..
Another feature of Starbucks coffee is its caffeine amount. There is no doubt its strong caffeine has produced massive caffeine-addicted Americans. In fact, Starbucks increased the earnings from 170 billion yen in 1999 to 530 billion yen in 2004. This is a breath-taking number.
Also, we have to pay attention to coke and other caffeine-containing beverages. While a 340 grams can of coke contains 34 milligrams of caffeine, Red Bull, an energy drink that is very popular among young people in the U.S., contains 80 milligrams. Rockstar Zero Carb has 120 milligrams. Moreover, a new energy drink released in 2007 contains even 280 milligrams of caffeine.
Caffeine has many effects on human body like activating brain, or producing adrenaline that makes us hard to sleep at night. However, it is a problem that so much caffeine is contained in beverages that kids can buy easily at convenience stores.
When you intake caffeine, adrenaline is produced in your body. Adrenaline supplies enough sugar glucose to the brain without having any food, by releasing glycogen in the liver to the blood, and keeps you in an extremely high condition. But you get low blood sugar after a couple of hours, and start to want caffeinated drink again. This is the caffeine-addiction. If you continue this habit, your liver and kidney will be especially damaged; antioxidant vitamins and minerals needed there will become zero; the cells will get holes as they don’t have enough nutrition to regenerate; and these organs stop functioning eventually.
Caffeine-addicted people make this situation even worse by themselves as they tend to have little nutrition. Sometimes they die from liver disorders like cirrhosis. I can only hope that these “new” beverages will not land on Japan.
By the way, Denmark and France stopped sales of these beverages in 2004, concerning the health risk of large-dosing caffeine with alcohol. It might be only a difference in health consciousness between Europe and the U.S., but we should be sensitive to these risky products in order to protect our children.
