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Honoré de Balzac: The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee

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on this subject Brillat-Savarin is far from complete. I can add something to what he has said because coffee is a great power in my life; I have observed its effects on an epic scale. Coffee roasts your insides. Many people claim coffee inspires them; but as everybody likewise knows, coffee only makes boring people even more boring. Think about it: although more grocery stores are staying open in Paris until midnight, few writers are actually becoming more spiritual. But as Brillat-Savarin has correctly observed, coffee sets the blood in motion and stimulates the muscles; it accelerates the digestive processes, chases away sleep, and gives us the capacity to engage a little longer in the exercise of our intellects. It is on this last point, in particular, that I want to add my personal experience to Brillat-Savarin’s observations, and to add some remarks about coffee from the great sages. Coffee affects the diaphragm and the plexus of the stomach, from which it reaches the brain by bar

Honoré de Balzac: The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee Honoré de Balzac Translated from the French by Robert Onopa Originally published in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Volume XXXV, Issue: 2, Spring 1996, pp. 273-277. Translator's note: This essay was written in the 1830s by the great French novelist as part of an appendix to an "enhanced" edition of La Physiologie du Gout by Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. The full appendix, subtitled Traité des Excitants Modernes, deals with coffee, wine, and tobacco. The translation is based on the authoritativ

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