“Spill the Beans” Coffee Quiz

Think you know coffee and how it can help or hinder your health? Here’s a quiz to test your caffeinated knowledge. Answer five questions right and you’re a bona-fide barista. Get three to four questions right, and you’re an average cup-o-Joe regular. Get fewer than two questions right, and you go can back to drinking your tea.

by Bethany Lye for MSN Health & Fitness

Results

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You’re exhausted, but it’s only noon. You pop into the local coffee shop in search of a massive energy jolt. Do you know which type of roast contains the most caffeine?

The Correct Answer:

Your Answer:

Surprise! In general, lighter roasts have the highest caffeine contents. This is because roasting burns the caffeine out of the bean, and the longer the beans roast, the darker they get. So, the next time you’re looking to jump-start your day, order a light blend! Typical variations of this roast include: Cinnamon, Half City, Light City and New England.

Source: The National Coffee Association of U.S.A

OK, all you smug coffee snobs: What’s a ristretto?

The Correct Answer:

Your Answer:

A regular espresso is about 1 ounce of dark, concentrated coffee. In comparison, a ristretto—also called a restricted shot—is just half an ounce, but with the same caffeine content as a regular espresso. The opposite of the ristretto is the lungo (also called a “long” shot). A lungo espresso has the same amount of caffeine as a regular espresso, but double the volume.

Source: Coffee Geek

Ordering whipped cream on your midday grande mocha adds an extra ____ calories to your daily diet.

The Correct Answer:

Your Answer:

This number is true for any hot, Venti- or grande-sized Starbucks creation. Order your drink cold, and it gets worse (30 calories worse, with 110 from fat!). No matter who you are, do your body a favor and skip the whip, OK?

Source: Starbucks

Coffee is more than just a liquid pick-me-up. In fact, three of the four entries listed below are on the bean’s brag sheet. But which is the chore coffee can’t do?

The Correct Answer:

Your Answer:

A company called Java Products Corp. sells the Java-Log, a combination of ground coffee and wax that burns like real wood, but with fewer harmful emissions and prettier flames. A line of coffee-based body products, aptly named Body Coffee, uses ground coffee to “gently exfoliate pore-clogging dead skin cells.” The coffee’s oils also “soothe and moisturize” the skin, according to the product’s description. Last but not least, anyone with spoiled, frozen food can clear the air by placing several bowls of ground coffee in their freezer overnight (the grounds can be fresh or used, according to the people at Reader’s Digest). But what about that tarnished silverware? Rumor has it a combination of aluminum foil, warm water and baking soda does the trick.

Sources: Java-Logs, Body Coffee and Reader’s Digest Living

On average, an 8-ounce cup of decaf coffee contains _____ milligrams of caffeine? (A typical 8-ounce cup of drip coffee has anywhere from 104-192 milligrams of caffeine, according to the American Beverage Association.)

The Correct Answer:

Your Answer:

In general, decaffeinated coffee is supposed to have just 5 milligrams of caffeine or less. But this isn’t always the case. To prove this, researchers at the University of Florida recently ordered 16-ounce decaf coffees from a variety of coffee shops and tested each drink for caffeine. The scientists also studied the caffeine content in decaf espressos. What did they find? Some decaf coffee drinks contained as much as 13.4 milligrams of caffeine and one of the decaf espresso shots contained 15.8 milligrams of caffeine. At these levels, drinking six or more cups of decaf coffee daily is the same, caffeine-wise, as downing a small cup of regular coffee.

Sources: The Center for Science in the Human Interest, The American Beverage Association, and "Technical Note: Caffeine Content of Decaffeinated Coffee," McCusker, R. et al in the October Journal of Analytical Toxicology

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Last Updated: 2006-01-12

Bethany Lye is a freelance health writer for MSN Health & Fitness, People and Health Magazine.

“Spill the Beans” Coffee Quiz

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