As you sip your hot coffee, the intense rush of caffeine and flavors makes your mind wander. But what if you take too long to drink your coffee?
Should you drink that way? Is there a right way to drink? In this post, we’ll find out!
Key Takeaways:
Generally, caffeine levels will rise and fall at almost similar rates if you drink coffee slowly or quickly for a few minutes because there won’t be much difference. However, if you consume coffee slowly, drinking the same cup over several hours, you’ll experience a gentler or likely, no caffeine crash.
The faster the caffeine enters your system, the faster it will be absorbed and metabolized. And as its effects fade, we experience a caffeine crash. So let’s dive deeper and discuss each aspect of this topic for better understanding.
How Long Do People Normally Take To Drink Coffee?
As a general rule, most coffee drinkers would drink a cup in under 5 minutes if they are not busy with other tasks. However, some can even take 15-30 minutes if they are sipping slowly or wait a long time until the coffee gets cold enough for them to drink.
Some may even take up to a few hours, but that’s less common. If the coffee is cold enough not to burn your tongue, it shouldn’t take long to sip a standard cup of coffee.
How Does The Body Process Coffee?
If you are a coffee geek, you know the main reason that makes you a coffee addict – the caffeine that hits and keeps you energized.
According to studies, you can notice the effects of a cup of coffee you sip within 10 minutes of drinking. However, the caffeine concentration in the blood reaches its peak 45 minutes after you drink the coffee.
Now here’s the thing:
When you are tired, your brain produces the chemical – “Adenosine,” which makes you feel sleepy. It’s an essential chemical and mechanism of the brain to influence you to take enough rest once you are tired.
But when you consume coffee, caffeine enters your body. And the caffeine molecules are responsible for not allowing the adenosine molecules to attach themselves to the concerned receptors in the brain.
And the result:
Your brain is tricked, and you feel more alert and energetic. As a result, you can now focus on your work more easily than before. (But wait, that only lasts for a few hours.)
In the meantime, the adenosine keeps building up in that area – increasing in number.
Now remember, caffeine will only last in your body for a while. Usually, the half-life of caffeine in the human body is about 5 hours. And it generally takes up to 10 hours for the body to completely remove the caffeine from the bloodstream.
When caffeine is metabolized totally by the body, its masking effects start to diminish. And a time comes when the caffeine doesn’t prevent the adenosine from attaching to the receptors. And this leads to the adenosine molecules flooding the receptors and telling your body to feel asleep.
Recommended Resource:
One of the goals of our website is to demystify ingredients such as caffeine. We create fun-to-read, in-depth, and medically-backed topics that our users love. Here’s another super helpful resource when you’re done reading this article.
Furthermore, the signaling effect is stronger than in the normal case. So this is when you experience a caffeine crash – its symptoms include tiredness, irritability, and lack of concentration.
Please note that not just coffee but any caffeine-containing beverage, like even energy drinks, can make you crash.
Does Drinking Coffee Slowly Help You Prevent Caffeine Crash?
Technically, it won’t make any major difference if you drink coffee slowly, just after a few minutes.
With every sip of coffee, some levels of caffeine enter your body, and the body starts metabolizing it.
If you drink caffeine slowly, the body will metabolize it more slowly than it would normally. So the resulting spike and fall in caffeine levels will also be slower.
However, as we have seen, the effects of coffee start within 10 minutes of drinking. And the caffeine concentration goes to the maximum level after 45 minutes.
So think about it:
Usually, you take 5 minutes to sip down a coffee. But after reading this post, let’s suppose you decide to sip the coffee slowly. So instead of only 5 minutes, let’s say you take 30 minutes to complete the same cup of coffee.
Does that make any difference to you?
The short answer is NO! For your body to experience the caffeine crash, it takes 3-4 hours after consuming moderate to high caffeine levels.
And a caffeine crash happens when the caffeine level falls in your body. In short, it takes a couple of hours for that to happen. And just spending a few more minutes to gulp a cup of coffee won’t make any significant difference.
Can Drinking Coffee Too Fast Make You Sick?
Drinking coffee too fast won’t have any bad health impact unless it’s too hot to harm your tongue or internal body tissues.
The difference won’t be significant if you consume coffee at normal consumable temperature (whether you take 5 minutes or 30 minutes to finish the cup).
As you drink coffee faster, the caffeine will get absorbed faster than it would normally. As a result, you start to experience the effect of coffee a little bit quicker than you would have gotten in a normal situation.
What Is The Best Way To Drink Coffee?
The best way to drink coffee is to spread the time you drink.
Instead of drinking one cup in the morning and filling yourself with loaded caffeine levels, it’s good to drink a single cup throughout the entire day.
Or else, you can take one cup in the morning and one in the afternoon. Following either routine will help you to prevent the dreaded caffeine crash.
Also, try to remain hydrated as much as possible throughout the day because otherwise, you will experience the stronger impact of a caffeine crash with a dehydrated body.
How Should You Drink Coffee? Reddit Community Consensus!
Nowadays, knowing the thoughts of Redditors is also quite helpful – after all, it has become the online social hangout and information hangout [lace for many people.
We checked a post on Reddit to know the thoughts of the Redditors. And the consensus among them is that they drink a cup of coffee in 5-30 minutes.
Some users say that they drink their first cup in 5 minutes, but the rest cups of coffee slowly. Another Redditor highlights that it takes 5 minutes for the coffee to cool down to the desired temperature and 5-10 minutes for the user to sip down the coffee.
Although thoughts are mixed, they mostly align with the idea of completing a cup of coffee within a few minutes.
Further Reading: Red Bull Vs. Coffee: Which Is Better For Studying?
Photo altered by dejittr.com | Photo attribution: John Fornander
