The credit boom was of course (and dont listen to what they say in the news) fueled by one key ingredient: (no no, not booze) caffeine.
Coffee and Coke is what made investment banking analysts click away at computer screens despite the (in)famous 110 hour working weeks. And apparently, in London (no only place i've personally worked) things were better than in the US. in any case - coffee played a very important role in keeping us awake/alive notwithstanding the vicious cycle of caffeine tolerance that soon set in. and look what all those overdosed, twitching bankers managed to do to the world.
at some point, me and then eventually the cubicle monkey who sat beside me (a very cool frenchman who had spent the last 2 years of his life travellindg the world, including a stint as a bollywood dancer) discovered tea. At first, this was whatever was around at the local supermarket, but after many trials we settled on the house blend, the Clipper Lemon green tea made in the tepid water from the coffee machine.
Of all the ones we tried these were the best (though the twinings jasmine were nice too), plus the lemon helped and more importantly these are made of unbleached paper, an important consideration which isnt given enough thought. why would you pour bleach in your tea?
what was even cooler were the silk full leaf tea bags our bank used to import from the US (i forget the name). this stuff was awesome, and even thought i dont generally like dried mint tea (prefer fresh mint sprigs) i remember their's was awesome. must have cost a fortune. as i said, this was still in the good old days of the credit boom.
once i cut down my coffee consumption (and just to give you an idea of its importance, of all of the banks i have worked for, none have had less that 5 separate coffee shops + free coffee/brown sludge vending machines - some even had starbucks AND/OR an inhouse neros.) i soon discovered green tea kept me awake just about as well, once id calibrated to the lower caffeine content. it might sound pathetic, but really at the time the only thing i judged a beverage by was how long it could keep me awake without sleep. and then, somehow (it was a discreete inflexion point) i discovered the wonders of loose leaf tea - and thats been an exciting discovery for me, perhaps a future post on it someday.
an honorable mention also must go to a largely undiscovered gem:
yerba mate. of which i became curious after reading Che Guevara's motorcycle diaries - which mentions them getting offered mate constantly. so i found some in bourough market strangely enough and after an initial mishap or two with the brewing, i've found it an interesting (if acquired) tase. apparently because of a different chemical composition, its able to sidestep caffeine tolerance, amongst caffeine nuts like me. the irrepressable, if sometimes tangential wikipedia has this to sat on the subject:
Caffeine
Mate contains xanthines, which are alkaloids such as caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine, well-known stimulants also found in coffee and chocolate. Caffeine content varies between 0.2% and 2% of dry weight (compared with 0.3–9% for tea leaves, 2.5-7.5% in guarana, and up to 3.2% for ground coffee)
Stereoisomer claims
However, caffeine is not chiral, and thus cannot have a stereoisomer, and "mateine" is an official synonym of caffeine in the chemical databases.
[caption id="attachment_901" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Argentinian yerba mate from borough market (london)"]
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Studies of mate, though very limited, have shown preliminary evidence[citation needed] that the mate xanthine cocktail is different from other plants containing caffeine most significantly in its effects on muscle tissue, as opposed to those on the central nervous system, which are similar to those of other natural stimulants. The three xanthines[which?] present in mate have been shown to have a relaxing effect on smooth muscle tissue, and a stimulating effect on myocardial (heart) tissue[citation needed] .
Comparison of effects with coffee
Mate's negative effects are anecdotally claimed to be of a lesser degree than those of coffee, though no explanation for this is offered or even credibly postulated, except for its potential as a placebo effect.[16] Some users report that drinking yerba mate does not prevent them from being able to fall asleep, as is often the case with some more common stimulating beverages, while still enhancing their energy and ability to remain awake at will.
However, the net amount of caffeine in one preparation of yerba mate is typically quite high, in large part because the repeated filling of the mate with hot water is able to extract the xanthines very effectively[citation needed]. It is for this reason that one mate may be shared among several people and yet produce the desired stimulating effect in all of them.
Yerba mate soda
From reports of personal experience with mate[which?], its physiological effects are similar to (yet distinct from) more widespread caffeinated beverages like coffee, tea, or guarana drinks[citation needed]. Some users[which?] report a mental state of wakefulness, focus and alertness reminiscent of most stimulants, but often remark on mate's unique lack of the negative effects typically created by other such compounds, such as anxiety, "jitteriness", and heart palpitations.
Now the question is: just how different would the credit boom have been if bankers had had tea instead of coffee. based on years of empirical evidence of jittery coffee fueled cubicle monkeys wreaking havoc with excel valuation models, i would argue:
very.
Of all the ones we tried these were the best (though the twinings jasmine were nice too), plus the lemon helped and more importantly these are made of unbleached paper, an important consideration which isnt given enough thought. why would you pour bleach in your tea?
what was even cooler were the silk full leaf tea bags our bank used to import from the US (i forget the name). this stuff was awesome, and even thought i dont generally like dried mint tea (prefer fresh mint sprigs) i remember their's was awesome. must have cost a fortune. as i said, this was still in the good old days of the credit boom.
once i cut down my coffee consumption (and just to give you an idea of its importance, of all of the banks i have worked for, none have had less that 5 separate coffee shops + free coffee/brown sludge vending machines - some even had starbucks AND/OR an inhouse neros.) i soon discovered green tea kept me awake just about as well, once id calibrated to the lower caffeine content. it might sound pathetic, but really at the time the only thing i judged a beverage by was how long it could keep me awake without sleep. and then, somehow (it was a discreete inflexion point) i discovered the wonders of loose leaf tea - and thats been an exciting discovery for me, perhaps a future post on it someday.
an honorable mention also must go to a largely undiscovered gem: yerba mate. of which i became curious after reading Che Guevara's motorcycle diaries - which mentions them getting offered mate constantly. so i found some in bourough market strangely enough and after an initial mishap or two with the brewing, i've found it an interesting (if acquired) tase. apparently because of a different chemical composition, its able to sidestep caffeine tolerance, amongst caffeine nuts like me. the irrepressable, if sometimes tangential wikipedia has this to sat on the subject:
