This fitted in in multiple threads, so…
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Brewed awakening
If you think coffee is expensive now, you’d better get used to it, the founders of a small roastery told Hufvudstadsbladet, as climate change continues to impact the industry.In stores, the price of coffee has now exceeded 10 euros per package, but a group of Helsinki-based coffee roasters said consumers should brace for this as the new normal.
“It’s actually crazy that you can still buy a cup of coffee for 3.50,” Kevin Kainulainen of Dash coffee & Zestii Kitchens told HBL, noting the brew’s labour-intensive journey from bean to cup.
"The beans are grown for several months, hand-picked high up in the mountains, transported across land and sea, and then they have to be roasted, ground and brewed,“ Kainulainen said, adding that he believes more people are starting to appreciate the drink as a luxury experience, and not just as wake-up juice.
Cruise is reportedly visiting Jakobstad.
Media outlets have reported that Cruise was planning to spend a couple of hours in the town, where he was believed to be shopping for a sailboat.
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Can you grow coffee in an apartment?
Asking for a friend’s survival.
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I’ve never been more sad to be known as the “plant killer” in a family full of folks with green thumbs 
After 5 years free of having anything to do with Microsoft, I might have to trade tech support for my morning brew. It’s like all those OT hours of coding were designed to get us hooked on purpose. 
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I’m screwed.
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Spouse has started growing tea camellias in the backyard to fill the caffeine gap once the inevitable coffeepocalypse happens.
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Tea, guarana and chocolate (though that’s nearly as doomed) also have a decent amount of caffeine.
Guarana is 2x per gram!
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So, how does a team of chemists create synthetic caffeine in a lab?
They start with ammonia. Yes, that ammonia - the pungent caustic chemical used as a fertilizer, a cleaning agent, and as a precursor to nitrogenous compounds. It’s that last item that’s relevant to caffeine synthesis, for the ammonia must be converted to urea. Yes, that urea - the same chemical found in human urine. This urea is combined with chloroacetic acid to create uracil, which is then converted to theophylline.
Like caffeine, theophylline is a xanthine, and is often found alongside caffeine in cocoa beans, guarana, and kola nuts. Finally, the addition of methyl chloride transforms the theophylline into methylated theophylline - synthetic caffeine, at long last.
Actually, there is one more step: synthetic caffeine glows blue and must be washed with sodium nitrite, acetic acid, sodium carbonate, and chloroform to remove the blue phosphorescence, resulting in a generic white powder
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Growing it as a houseplant is not too difficult. Getting it to fruit, and getting sufficient quantity to brew, is rather more of an issue. I would suggest looking into Yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) as a temperate zone caffeine source. I have one growing here. It is very slow growing (at least here in zone 7a) but it has survived a few winters now and seems pretty well acclimatized. I am not aware of any other caffeine-containing plants that will grow this far north. Food (or drink!) for thought.
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If anything goes in the Survival thread, it’s probably this crucial info!
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Laugh/cries in Zone 5.
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Where are my Star Trek replicators?!!
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Some folks recommend Ephedra (Mormon Tea) for 4b-6a, but there are a lot of cautions involved such that I would not recommend it.
Information about the chemistry of this species is contradictory. James D. Adams, Jr. and Cecilia Garcia claim it contains no ephedrine, but that it does contain pseudoephedrine.[4] However, a gas chromatograph analysis of samples conducted by Richard F. Keeler found no measurable amount of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, norephedrine, or norpseudoephedrine. The toxic symptoms found in his study were consistent with a high tannin content rather than with alkaloid poisoning.[5]
So yeah, not so good…
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Especially for those of us who have an adverse reaction to actual pseudoephedrine products!
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