Caffeine
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What is caffeine?
Caffeine is a drug that is found in tea, coffee, cocoa, many soft drinks such as colas and some chocolates. It is also used in a wide variety of medicines especially cold remedies.
Caffeine can be manufactured in a laboratory but it mainly comes from the Arabian coffee shrub, commercial tea plants, cocoa beans and kola nuts. Coffee is grown in many areas of the world including Africa, Arabia, Central and South America, Java and Sumatra and the West Indies. Tea is mainly grown in eastern Asia and South America especially India, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Japan. Most of the world’s cocoa is grown in West Africa.
On average in the UK, we drink nearly 100 million cups of tea per day, each cup containing about 40mg of caffeine, but more if the tea is left to brew longer.
Coffee is almost as popular with 95 million cups of coffee consumed a day. About 80% of coffee drunk at home is instant coffee containing around 60mg of caffeine per cup.
History
Tea and cocoa have...
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