Coffee
Arabic qahwah; Italian caffè
- Known today as
- The roasted seeds of Coffea arabica; the drink began in Yemen, reached Istanbul by the early sixteenth century, and came to Europe through Venetian merchants.
- Kind
- Food & Drink, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- caffeine, chlorogenic acid, cafestol
- Earliest authority here
- Pasqua Rosée
- Qualities
- Cold and dry, by Rosée’s handbill; Lémery kept it from those of “thick and hot Blood.” What the degrees mean
- In other databases
- GBIF search · Wikidata search
Revised October 3, 2026: Checked against its sources, each read in full, in part, or in its abstract. Version 1, first published September 30, 2026.
Coffee: what was it used for?
Sold first as a medicine: against drowsiness, for the head, the stomach, and the dropsy, and to dry up rheums.
Coffee: what does modern science say?
Caffeine is a true stimulant; large studies link moderate coffee drinking with lower risk of several diseases.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- Caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors of the brain, where adenosine builds up the longer one stays awake; its half-life in healthy adults is three to seven hours. Rosée warned that it “will hinder sleep for 3 or 4 hours.”
- Checked against ChEMBL
- caffeine: ChEMBL’s curated mechanism: antagonist Adenosine receptor.
- Toxic dose
- Lethal doses are over 10 g a day for an adult, against a usual intake of under 500 mg.
- Standing
- The umbrella review of 2017 found the largest relative reduction in risk, all-cause mortality included, at three to four cups a day; by the reference article’s account, the European Food Safety Authority found up to 400 mg a day to raise no safety concerns for non-pregnant adults.
- Poole, R., et al. (2017). “Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review.” BMJ 359. Read in full · the text read
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Coffee: what lore surrounds it?
London’s first coffee house opened in 1652, and a pamphlet of 1674, The Women’s Petition Against Coffee, complained that by “Drying up the Radical Moisture” it left husbands “as unfruitful as those Desarts whence that unhappy Berry is said to be brought.”
Coffee: what did the older authorities say?
- Pasqua Rosée
- The merchant’s servant who ran London’s first coffee house printed a handbill, The Vertue of the Coffee Drink, listing its cures.
Sources
- Rosée, P. (c. 1652). The Vertue of the Coffee Drink. Read in full · the text read
- The Women’s Petition Against Coffee (1674). Read in full · the text read
- “Pasqua Rosée.” Wikipedia (read 2 October 2026). Read in full · the text read
- “History of coffee.” Wikipedia (read 2 October 2026). Read in part · the text read
- “Caffeine.” Wikipedia (read 2 October 2026). Read in part · the text read
- “Cafestol.” Wikipedia (read 2 October 2026). Read in full · the text read
- “Chlorogenic acid.” Wikipedia (read 2 October 2026). Read in full · the text read
- Lémery, L. (1745). A Treatise of All Sorts of Foods, both Animal and Vegetable; also of Drinkables, trans. D. Hay. London: T. Osborne. Read in part · the text read
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026, and October 3, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Every source read, in full, in part, or in its abstract, and every sentence checked against what was read (October 3, 2026)
- Sources
- 9 cited: 6 read in full, 3 read in part.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 30, 2026 · last revised October 3, 2026
- Chicago
“Coffee.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 3, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/coffee.
- MLA
“Coffee.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 3 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/coffee. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Coffee. (2026, October 3). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/coffee
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See Also
Sharing caffeine, chlorogenic acid
Of the same qualities: hot and dry
Cumin · Cinnamon · Elecampane · Cardamom · Frankincense · Black pepper · what the degrees mean →
Nearby in the alphabet
Colocynth (The dried pulp of Citrullus colocynthis) · Cochineal (a parasite of the prickly-pear cactus of Mexico and South America) · Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) · Cochia pills · Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) · Clove · Common earthball (yellow-brown ball with a black interior, of acid woodland) · Clary, garden (Salvia sclarea)
Historical description, not medical advice.