I think in American society, we place a lot of emphasis on staying forever young and forever active. However, are only so many hours in the day and because of this, people tend to place a lot of emphasis on coffee intake, and you know what? They're absolutely correct and justified in doing so.
I used to thin that coffee was just the hip thing to do, especially as a college student with a Starbucks cafe and a Au Bon Pan cafe readily on campus. I can think of a couple instances per year, perhaps even per semester where I drank coffee out of necessity -- those were those nights I was pulling all-nighters finishing homework and papers and studying for back-to-back final examinations -- however, 9 times out of 10, I drank coffee because it was the 'cool' thing to do.
All of that changed when I started grad school. I was no longer drinking coffee because I wanted to. Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd go without coffee on a regular basis. Especially since the taste of pure coffee has never been that great to me. But, I learned the hard way that I cannot do that if I want to be somewhat coherent on a regular basis. I recently bought a coffee maker because the price of on campus coffee and Starbucks is steadily increasing. Not sure why or how coffee became a necessity for me. Yet, I'm incredibly grateful because I'm not sure I'd be able to make it through grad school and whatever else life throws at me without my coffee.
