Those of us who work long hours at work or business, realize the value and & importance in our daily coffee breaks. Well, it turns out that our coffee breaks have its very capitalist history, according to Madeleine Davies of the Eater website.

Though I don’t drink coffee anymore, but when was a student and working long hours as a researcher, I used to survive on caffeinated coffee. Once, I realized that I had caffeine addiction, I started weaning off myself with decaffeinated coffee. It’s a relaxing pass time of many or energy hack for others.

“Capitalism and caffeine are hand in hand. If you want any proof of that, just look at the institution of the coffee break… Your employer not only gives you a free drug at the at the workplace, but gives you a place and time in which to enjoy it twice a day, in most places. Why would employers do that if it didn’t offer them more benefit than cost? And clearly it does. They get more work out of people.”

– Michael Pollan, a noted journalist & caffeine fiend on his a episode of Gastropod (source: Eater)

Madeleine writes there was a court case in the US about the “coffee break” in 1955 “the United States vs. Phil Greinetz of Los Wigwam Weavers”.

Greinetz owned the Denver tie factory Los Wigwam Weavers and, after World War II, struggled to find staff up for the surprisingly arduous task of tie making. To encourage productivity, he introduced mandatory coffee breaks so that workers would have the energy to make it through their shifts fully alert. One problem, though. Like bad bosses throughout history, Greinetz didn’t want to pay his employees for the time he demanded they spend drinking coffee. Eventually, the U.S. Department of Labor became involved, with the court ultimately deciding, in a rare win for the working person, that employers had to cover coffee breaks since the business was positively affected by employees being jacked up on caffeine.

– Madeleine Davies, from the Eater website

To learn more about the history of coffee, from its use in Islamic prayer in the Middle East, its role in the Age of Enlightenment and U.S. immigration, and how it became the quintessential American beverage, Medaleine recommends listening to this Gastropod.