Coffee and life

This week’s most surprising coffee quote award goes to the Federal Office for National Economic Supply of Switzerland. The agency has justified the exclusion of coffee from national stockpiling requirements by stating that “coffee ... is not essential for life. Coffee has almost no calories and subsequently does not contribute, from the physiological perspective, to safeguarding nutrition.”

All of which may be true, but the bureaucrats missed the whole point: coffee may not be essential for life, but it is for living. Coffee is the social drink par excellence and Switzerland is a great example: our Swiss friends enjoy one the highest per capita consumptions in the world.