The researchers looked for chemical features that varied in the samples that induced the biggest fear responses.

This relatively new technique for comparing chemical profiles, called metabolomics, revealed two important chemical signals: trigonelline and homarine. These molecules are common products of animal metabolism and are also found in some plants. Trigonelline in coffee beans contributes to their aroma when roasted. It’s not clear if humans can actually smell the substance by itself. But mud crabs do — it’s just not clear how.

Life snapped into focus for Alkhanshali when he learned that coffee was originally cultivated in Yemen, some 500 years ago. Today, however, Yemeni coffee is regarded as some of the worst in the world. It became Alkhanshali’s obsession to restore its honor — never mind that he was broke, knew nothing about coffee and, frankly, didn’t much care for the taste. Never mind Yemen’s seething civil war.

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Before you can say Horatio Alger, Alkhanshali was assessing coffee crops in Yemen with seasoned disdain and wearing, as you do, a garland of grenades that signaled his “willingness to take any argument to its logical conclusion.” His mission culminated in the most harrowing return journey this side of the “Odyssey” — but time and time again, he talked himself out of trouble; he has a preternatural gift for persuading others to join his cause.

In “The Monk of Mokha,” he moves lightly between story and analysis, and between brisk histories of Yemeni immigration to America; gentrifying San Francisco; coffee cultivation (“quite possibly the most complex journey from farm to consumption of any foodstuff known to humankind”); and the saints and thieves who dispersed the beans around the world.

fransg schreef: wo 31 jan 2018, 23:22 Koffie kan ongezond zijn, bijvoorbeeld als je het ZEER ZEER heet drinkt, of als je ineens duizend tot honderdduizend keer zoveel koffie gaat drinken als normaal:

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/31/heal ... index.html

Denk dus na! Een espresso, of drie of vijf, geen probleem, maar als je merkt dat je alweer aan je vijfduizendste espresso van de dag zit, dan moet je de dagen daarna echt even kalm aan doen want anders zou je op de lange termijn last kunnen krijgen.