Get your favorite beverage, sit back, and join in the discussion
You are not logged in.
Okay, but here's the question you're raising: If we "learned long ago" to sweeten bitter chocolate, why did we not "learn long ago" to sweeten bitter coffee? They are both amazingly bitter substances on their own. Why did we choose to sweeten one and "acquire a taste" for the other?
It should be mentioned that, since chocolate was originally so expensive that only kings and princes could possibly have drunk hot chocolate, this demotion of the drink has to have happened at some point after chocolate became mass-produced. When it first reached England, it spawned "Chocolate Houses", just like coffee spawned Coffee Houses. Chocolate was sweetened by the Spaniards when they first were introduced to it, because they didn't like the taste of the Aztec version. So chocolate was never enjoyed - at least not in Europe or N. America - as a bitter drink at all. And yet it was originally an adult beverage. So what's the deal with its demotion to kiddie drink?
The commercials can't explain it. Marketers target an audience, they rarely create one. So if they're putting kids in hot cocoa commercials, it's because kids are the ones drinking hot cocoa. So, we're still stuck with, "At what point did cocoa become kid food?"
Net Wolf
Offline
Doesn't coffee have more caffeine than chocolate? If it's more practical as a stimulant, it doesn't have to taste good.
(edit) Theobromine (the stimulant in chocolate) isn't as powerful as caffeine, according to this page.
Last edited by Imagineer (2007-08-09 05:10:21)
Offline
straight coffee tastes like a kick to the crotch
Offline
I drink coffee for the taste, smell, and caffeine. With or without flavorings.
Hot chocolate is good too.
I guess since I'm in Montana there's no stigma...
-The N Storm
Offline
Okay, granted, coffee is a better stimulant.
On the other hand, cocoa is a much better relaxant and anti-depressant.
Net Wolf
Offline
What about just a little coffee in a mocha?
-The N Storm
Offline
Hard to be relaxed and wired at the same time...
Net Wolf
Offline
Wired!? Who's wired!?
~looks around for more caffeine~ Anyone seen an energy drink around?
-The N Storm
Offline
Interesting how little cacao is actually in most forms of chocolate we consume. (See original link.) I will be hunting for some proper chocolate now.
Offline
You want "proper" chocolate?
Go buy some cocoa powder. That's pretty much all it is: pure cacao beans, ground up and with the cocoa butter removed.
Net Wolf
Chocolate Trivia: Legally, "White Chocolate"... isn't chocolate, because it contains no cocoa solids, only cocoa butter.
Offline
The only thing i wonder about white chocolate is why that flavor of ice cream tasted like teramasu(sp)
But speaking of caffeine did u know red bull glows in the dark?
Offline
thats because it tastes like radioactive waste
Offline
yea. ant it cool
Offline
The one and only time I tried Red Bull I managed to force myself to drink perhaps half of it before my uncontrollable urge to puke just about took over.
Offline
Red Bull sugar free tastes drinkable to me. It tastes a little medicinal, but not quite bad.
Offline
I think it is the active ingredient that acts as the stimulant that turns me off so sugar free likely would not help.
Offline
The active ingredient being Taurine? Guess what that's extracted from... taurine... taurus... bull... yes, that's right. Taurine is extracted from bull semen. Lovely, huh? XD
CSquared
Offline
Actually, taurine was named such because it was originally extracted from ox bile, not bull semen.
It should also be noted that taurine has never been shown to actually increase anyone's energy level.
Net Wolf
Offline
I stand corrected. I should know better than to present something I heard somewhere as fact. XD
CSquared
Offline
I thought the active ingredient was gurana extract?
Anyway i use to despise it till i out of desperation i drank a can that was warm
I've dug it ever since
* OK I'm wrong it is taurine there is one brand that uses gurana but i forget which one (i thought so/be but its not listed)
btw taurine is a neurotransmitter and nets right it was originally made from Ox Bile (wikipedias article on this is surprisingly well done)
gurana is a berry who's juice is chemically identical to caffeine (but has a different chemical name)
Last edited by Neitherspace (2007-08-14 03:41:11)
Offline