A new study has proved what we always knew: U of C students excel all others in caffeine intake.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/university-of-chicago-students-among-most-caffeinated-in-america-441819433.html?amp=y.
That’s as good a proxy as I can think of for intensity of effort. I never drank or even liked coffee before arriving at the University. Then suddenly I couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Maybe I was simply running scared and self-medicating, but I prefer to think there’s a positive correlation between academic achievement and caffeine (as against the inverse one with fine cuisine!).
Drinking coffee with others (and, in my day, having a smoke to boot) was also an important social activity. I hope that ritual, at least the first part of it, still happens with the same frequency and intensity as it ever did.
A couple of coffee shops closed last year - Classics and another whose name eludes me. But we’ve also had a couple of recent openings here and/or in the surrounding blocks.
Dollop moved in when North opened, and Build Coffee recently opened at 6100 S. Blackstone (one of the first areas realtors started calling “Hyde Park South”). I believe Café Shira opened in 2015, though I could be wrong.
Tragically, C-Shop has closed. A perfectly nice Einstein Bros. was replaced by a Prêt à Manger that just opened a few days ago. They’ve thrown us a bone by preserving $1 shake Wednesdays, but the bagel aficionados on campus now face a Sophie’s choice between tasteless dining hall bagels and eating a balanced breakfast for once in our lives.
Coffee consumption, as this article shows, has remained alive and well through all the above changes. Whatever happens to the supply, the demand is there. When the sun clears the horizon and finds you still typing a mostly-coherent essay, even dining-hall coffee tastes good.
It was Stuart Cafe in the basement of Stuart that closed. RIP.
Remember Stuart Cafe very well as a bus. student in the early 90’s (Stuart was the main building for the GSB in those days - before it became Booth). There used to be a cafe in the basement of the Reg but that might have moved out as well. What about the Div. School cafe - is that gone? That was also in the basement.
My husband never drank coffee before he arrived on campus. He’s had a two-cup-a-day habit ever since.
@Dunboyer and @HydeSnark I count on you guys to introduce the incoming class to this old and apparently thriving UChicago tradition. There’s more to this matter than chemistry. Explain to them the somewhat existential connection between caffeine and thinking. Esthetics are also to be considered: There’s a proper way to grasp one’s mug - or Styrofoam cup - and pause between gulps so as to indicate you are pondering the big questions. Holding all other factors constant, I find no other way to account for the U of C’s pre-eminence!
Marlowe it’s a shame you can no longer embellish the esthetic by puffing on an attractive briar pipe burning a nice aromatic tobacco.
Agree with @kaukauna. That vine-covered greystone just screams for the old traditions.
^^ there you go, @Cue7 - finally, top 10.
While my father doesn’t drink coffee, needless to say he does consume a lot of caffeine via soda
Here is something to consider, as you down cup after cup: “If you’ve never met a student from the University of Chicago, I’ll describe him to you. If you give him a glass of water, he says: ‘This is a glass of water. But is it a glass of water? And if it is a glass of water, why is it a glass of water?’ And eventually he dies of thirst.” --Quip of alumnus Shelley Berman, quoted in his obituary in today’s New York Times.
I would add, “Not while there’s still coffee in the pot.”
Berman was also quoted as saying that his humor was sometimes so oblique that he himself couldn’t quite follow it. Where did he get that habit, I wonder?
All the study indicates is they excel at ordering caffeinated beverages to be delivered by Grubhub. Who orders a coffee from Grubhub? Given that UChicago didn’t make their top 50 caffeinated list in 2015, seems like the list probably says more about Grubhub’s market niche in various areas than about campus food cultures.
Dang, another myth explodes. Or could this data be tweaked? UChicago students are disproportionally forced by pressure of their studies to order their coffee in?
UChicago students order coffee everywhere, including, like, Giordanos or the UChicago Bookstore. I’ve tried to count every coffee shop in Hyde Park and lost count in the 20s. On campus the farthest you have to travel to a coffee shop is literally half a block. And that’s just shops that exclusively sell coffee! You can get it at many more places. People are upset over the closing of Classics Cafe despite the existence, in the same quad of Cobb Cafe, Harper Cafe, and Grounds of Being.
So this is completely believable. From what I’ve seen at other schools I think we have a reasonable claim to be most caffeinated.
Well, given that Harold’s now condescends to deliver, anything is possible when it comes to “ordering in” at UChicago.
I bet this are mostly late night coffees, not daytime cofees when there are so many options available. (It could be wintertime cofees too when its too cold to put on your coat and walk a block for coffee)
Don’t people have kuerigs in their rooms?
I wonder if they allow coffee-making devices in dorm rooms. I don’t seem to remember any such in BJ once upon a time. It must have been one of the reasons I felt I had to make the move, shedding many tears, from those hallowed precincts to an apartment with friends off-campus.
@marlowe1 you are correct! D17 doesn’t drink coffee or tea so we never looked into it but the “don’t” list apparently includes electric coffee makers and tea kettles. Wow. Shocked that a proper caffeine habit can even be developed in such a restrictive environment LOL. But it does explain HubGrub.
Not sure what I would have done once upon a time at another college in another state w/o my electric pot to boil water - for our INSTANT coffee (this was awhile ago). Night time coffee has come a long way since those days.