But like the caffeine molecule itself, which rapidly reaches virtually every cell of the body that ingests it, the changes wrought by coffee and tea occurred at a more fundamental level—at the level of the human mind. Coffee and tea ushered in a shift in the mental weather, sharpening minds that had been fogged by alcohol, freeing people from the natural rhythms of the body and the sun, thus making possible whole new kinds of work and, arguably, new kinds of thought, too.
