During May of this year, Buzzfeed released this video of people trying the world's strongest coffee. As a frequent Buzzfeed and coffee user, this video immediately caught my attention and I knew that I had to get my hands on this coffee. Lucky for me, a close friend of mine ended up purchasing a bag of the sacred grinds from Death Wish Coffee over the summer and promised me they'd let me have some. Months later, I finally, finally had my hands on the strongest coffee in the world. After trying the coffee for myself, I'm ready to share my experience through this article which catalogues my thoughts and feelings throughout the day after drinking one cup of Death Wish Coffee at 9 AM on a normal Tuesday.
Before I go any further, it is important to prime the catalogue of this experience with some background information. Death Wish Coffee is notable for the high caffeine content in their coffees, hence the title "World's Strongest Coffee". The particular Death Wish blend cited in this article is the Valhalla Java Odinforce Blend that has a smooth, nutty, chocolatey taste according to the coffee notes listed on their website. Throughout the course of a typical day, I consume anywhere between one to three cups of coffee. I've been an avid coffee drinker since high school and have probably built up quite a tolerance to caffeine at this point, as I have been known to drink a full cup of black coffee and fall asleep shortly thereafter. Currently, I use my roommate's Keurig to brew Vanilla Caramel Creme k-cups in the morning, I make lattes out of the coffee machines in the dining halls, and drink iced coffee or lattes from our campus' coffee shop.
Now that that's all out of the way, let's move on to actually seeing what the coffee tasted like and how it affected me throughout the day. The Valhalla Java Odinforce I had was in a 12 ounce bag of grinds; this presented quite an issue for me as I only had access to a Keurig in my apartment, didn't have one of those k-cups that lets you put in your own coffee, and was too broke to go buy a coffee pot just for this little experiment. So, I brewed this coffee the old fashioned way: with some boiled water in a pan. Once brewed, I put it in one of my Dollar Tree styrofoam cups, added some Pumpkin Spice creamer, and merrily walked to class. I sipped on the coffee from 9:15 AM until around 10 AM. I started feeling the effects of the coffee shortly thereafter.
Alertness
About halfway through my 75-minute class, I felt like I was more awake than I've ever been before. I felt more or less reborn and was able to actually pay attention during class without feeling bored or groggy like I usually do. I actually really enjoy this particular class, so I was thankful to actually be able to pay attention. During this class, I also started remembering assignments I had forgotten about or subconsciously put off and started making arrangements to get those completed.
Jitteriness
At the conclusion of my class (around 11 AM), I headed to the library to get some work done for a few hours. I started feeling very jittery, couldn't quite get a hold on anything, and felt like every single person in a ten-foot radius could hear my heartbeat. In a span of 30 seconds, I dropped my phone on the keyboard of a school computer and clumsily put my rather expensive laptop on a desk because my hands were too unstable to keep a hold on anything. Once I made a thorough scene of myself, I flopped down in a creaky office chair to get some work done. About a minute later, I packed everything up to relocate to a more satisfactory work area. Once settled again, I proceeded to try to complete three tasks at once when I usually can't even complete one task at a time. I felt strangely scattered and astutely focused at the exact same time. Needless to say, I was a mess, making a scene of myself, and horribly confused, but somehow I was in a very agreeable mood and having the greatest time ever in the library. Calculating the economic order quantity in relation to inventory management has never, ever been that fun and probably will never be that entertaining again.
And then...nothing?
Shortly after the jitters subsided (about 30 minutes later), I began to feel...tired. I even yawned while I was in the library. YAWNED. I wasn't exhausted or anything, but definitely not as alert as I had been just a few hours prior. I felt like I needed another cup of coffee after I ate lunch at 12:15 PM, but I resisted and decided to keep letting the Death Wish run its course. I went back to the library and continued to do some work.
The rest of my day was pretty mediocre. I didn't have another cup of coffee, but I probably could have used one around 4 PM. I was able to stay focused most of the day and had a pretty productive day, which was really awesome, but I didn't really have a prolonged, highly caffeinated day as described in Buzzfeed's video.
All in all, I ended my day feeling a little disappointed. After watching Buzzfeed's video about Death Wish Coffee, I had very high hopes, but maybe I got my hopes up a little too high. There are many things that could contribute to my slight disappointment that are outside of the coffee's control, however: how the coffee was brewed, how much of it was consumed, already present physiological factors within myself, psychological factors regarding my expectations, etc. I can say that the coffee was delicious and very, very smooth and I can say that I'd be willing to try the coffee again at a later date, and maybe even purchasing a bag of my own. So, even though I didn't have groundbreaking caffeinated results, I think I do have a newfound coffee Death Wish.
