Riverside Community College
Moreno Valley Campus
Administration of Justice – ADJ 15
Narcotics
Spring 2012

Caffeine

By:
Dennis Bustamante

With revenues of over 11 billion dollars last year alone and nearly seventeen thousand shops in 40 countries, Starbucks is clearly the world's top coffee retailer. The coffee house has become so well known by their endless list of delicious drink that they no longer have to print their name on the cups and people will still know the logo. The average Starbucks customer visits the store 6 times per month while a loyal 20% of customers go to the stores 16 times per month. But what is it about this coffee that has customers constantly coming back for more? It’s not only the delightful taste, or the pick-me-up that it provides, but it’s addictive use of caffeine in the ingredients. Caffeine is a bitter, white crystalline xanthine alkaloid that acts as a stimulant drug. Caffeine is found in many plant and seed species such as the cocoa leaf, coffee beans, and tea leaves which explains why it is found in many drinks such as coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks and even chocolate. Caffeine has been found to have addictive tendencies and can also lead to different psychological illnesses. Caffeine was first isolated from coffee in 1820 by the German chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge, and then independently in 1821 by French chemists Pierre Robiquet. Although caffeine was discovered in early 1800’s people have been drinking coffee as far back as the early ninth century. During that time, coffee beans were only available from where they originated from, Ethiopia. Legends trace the discovery of coffee either to a Sufi dervish named Omar, or to a goatherder named Kaldi, who observed goats become elated and sleepless at night after grazing on coffee shrubs and, upon trying the berries the goats had been eating, experienced the