This is an all ears English podcast, episode 15 40 Why Coffee is the Ultimate Connector and How to Talk About It in English.

Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts. Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York Radio Girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City U.

S a do you drink coffee today?

Find out about Lindsays and Michel's coffee drinking habit, how it can affect us and how to talk about it when you meet with a native speaker in English.

Hey, Michelle, how are you doing today?

Excited to see that video over on YouTube, right, Michelle? Hey, yes. Good to see you, Lindsay. I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good.

Actually, I heard we were talking about coffee today, and coffee is one of my favorites, you know, right here. I have a mug, actually.

Can you see it? Can you see that mug one second? Let's say yes.

Oh, is that a three keys. Yeah, we yeah. It's so crazy. We actually had a student that made these an old student in our eye, of course, and he sent them to us, our lovely student go, oh it's so funny.

But yeah. So that's what that is. Clearly I have a large collection of coffee cups. What about you.

I do. I have a lot of coffee mugs as well and yeah.

Then I don't know, I feel like the dishwasher doesn't get to them enough though. I don't know. That's got kind of gross.

Do you have that problem. I don't, but I noticed a few years ago that there started being the double sized mugs, and that's trouble for me just because, you know, they're like twice as big as this. They're the most common kind now that you find in the store. And I end up drinking so much coffee just because the mugs are so huge. Oh, that's funny.

That's really funny. Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

So, yeah, today we're going to be talking about coffee. Right. So I mean, I know like how much do you drink a day, Lindsay? I know you're quite a coffee drinker.

I guess I probably drink like, OK, are we talking about measurement cups or cups like cups of coffee or measuring coffee? Like which do I have to reveal because it changes the deal. Give it to me. Announces if you can. And what. And what. And ounces if you can. Oh jeez. I don't know.

I guess it's about six cups of coffee, if I'm going to be honest.

Oh, I know it's pretty bad, Michel, but it only amounts to two cups. It only amounts to two actually pouring of the thing, you know what I mean? Like, it's measured cups because this is probably more than a cup, is what I'm saying. Right. Like, this is probably a little more than a cup.

I'm not a scientist, but what about how much do you drink? Do you think I drink one cup a day and I know I have I have a karaoke machine, which I know people have mixed feelings about, but it's easy for me and I drink exactly 10 to 12 ounces every day. OK, so now I feel really bad.

I don't feel bad. Dendrite, so much coffee. I'm I'm there's a reason we'll get more into it why I don't really drink that much coffee. So yeah.

I mean that's, that's kind of my situation with coffee but we'll get into that, into that more in a second. But let's see, what do we want to tell our listeners about before we get going?

Well, we just want you guys to know that you can find your fluency score, right? We have this quiz that we designed. It's available online. You can get it at all in English, dot com slash fluency. Score one word and go and answer seven questions and you'll get your fluency score whether you are fifty percent fluency, sixty five percent fluency or eighty percent fluency. And then you'll get resources on how to bump up to that next level.

Michelle, it's so cool that as awesome guys.

So go on over and get that English Dotcom's fluency score.

Yes. Let's talk not about coffee, but let's talk about more about the caffeine part for a second. I mean, how does caffeine affect you, Lindsay, or do you ever drink decaf?

I do if I try to have a coffee after 6:00 or so, but that's rare that I would want one at that time. But if I do go for that, I would try to have a decaf coffee most of the time. Caffeine. How does it affect me? Is that what you're asking, Michel? Sure, yeah. OK, no, I honestly don't think it affects me that much. Either that or I'm very non self aware because I don't really feel that much of a difference unless I've already developed like a bar where I'm used to it and I just act crazy all the time.

I don't know. That's funny. No, I don't think you act crazy all the time. I'm not with you all the time. But you seem you seem calm. I seem normal.

OK, what about you, Michelle? How does caffeine affect you?

You know, I don't I it's funny. I'm not sure which comes first. I mean, because, you know, like I have some trouble sleeping. Yeah. So I'm pretty strict about what time I cut off caffeine, but I've been doing that for a really long time, so.

But what I will say. So I only have it in the morning. I'm really careful about it. But recently I did add a little bit more coffee. It wasn't just this. So I don't know why we were doing this, but I had the carrot. I had like my cup of coffee and then I put in extra coffee and I it was first of all, that's only for emergencies.

And I stir it in. And it was terrible. I noticed that my heart was racing and I almost I felt sick. Now that I think was because it was way too much an overload. I needed it. Yeah, I needed to drink water. I ate pasta. I like I felt like absolutely sick from it, like dizzy and so much more coffee.

Did you have like how far over the line did you go? I don't know. I just like a few heaping tip taste. Interesting. Wow. Yeah. So I had, I had that happened a couple of days and now like so again I don't know if like the normal amount affect me that much, but when I overdo it, especially All-In-One, that was probably the worry. It was like, no, no, you're not supposed to do that.

But have you ever had something like that with caffeine?

Hum for me, it really depends on what I've eaten that day. And sometimes caffeine will hit me the wrong way. Yeah. And I'll get a little shaky. So I will say that will happen if I don't have like a good base of food in my stomach. That's what. Seems like it's happening and I get a little bit shaky and I see a little bit that rarely happens, but it does happen sometimes. But if I follow my normal routine, like I eat a good breakfast and then I have a coffee, I feel totally normal.

So, yeah, I don't know.

I'm tired of good guys. A lot of listeners are taking this fluency quiz that we have created. They want to know their fluency score. Is it 50 percent fluency? Sixty five percent fluency or 80 percent fluency? Find out your own score right now at all is English dot com forward slash fluency score.

Yeah, I mean, so I actually I found after this happened, I found an article about anxiety and caffeine, so and it was after this experience and the article is from Huffington Post. It's our coffee and caffeine making your anxiety worst worse.

So this is by Kelsey Barazan and this is from a November 3rd. Twenty twenty. So I was interested in this article because I really noticed that it made me a lot more anxious in that moment doing so.

Yeah. And it talks about, you know, how people handle coffee differently, like so for example, Dan can drink a coffee at night right before bed. I mean, it's unbelievable. And I had no trouble sleeping. I'm afraid to have hot chocolate at night. I'm afraid to eat ice cream at night or now I'm afraid to have any any, like, chocolate dessert whatsoever because I'm so I have trouble sleeping and I don't want to mess it up even more.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That makes sense. It really does affect everyone differently. And I wonder about our listeners because, you know, I personally had my first cup of coffee in Columbia. I never drank coffee before then. But when I was traveling in South America, we went to a cafe and all the locals were having it. It was a very local place. And I got into the habit through travel. And I know there's a huge coffee culture. And obviously, like Western Europe, Italy, right.

Espresso culture, Columbia, even Japan, there's a coffee culture that I discovered when I was there. So I wonder what our listeners would have to say about this. I feel like this is a universal topic, Michel, right?

Definitely. Definitely. Exactly. And don't drink so much coffee that my son, like, is like obsessed with it, too. He'll say, want a coffee, want a coffee? And like, he wants to try and drink it and even like so like the other day we got a coffee from a shop and, you know, he had like the paper cups and my son just started screaming like started crying and screaming. And it's because he wants to carry the cup.

He doesn't drink it, but he likes he likes the feeling. So then Dan had to drink his espresso, like really, really fast. And then you had to get the cup so he could walk around with it. And he was like, why coffee?

It's like so funny. So we're starting I mean, I know he's not actually having coffee. They want to mimic their parents.

Right? They want to do exactly what their parents are doing. That's so cute. That's so cute.

Right. It's pretty funny. Yeah. So but this article talks about how well I'm going to I'm going to read one quote. OK, so it's cocaine is thought to trigger the release of adrenaline. Right. The fight or flight hormone which could be contributing to those feelings of anxiousness. So and it mentions if you're somebody with anxiety, if you have an anxiety disorder, you actually may be affected more by caffeine. So the other thing that's hard is that they talk about how, depending on where you got your coffee from, do you really know how much caffeine you're getting?

Lindsy know that's a terrifying thing. Yeah. And I also like dark growth and I don't know, a lot of people say that dark roast is like the worst is like the lowest quality of coffee because it's when the burn the the beans are over roasted. But I actually like that and not sure of that has more caffeine or not. Maybe some of our listeners could correct me, but we don't know. There's no label where you go to the cafe is a cafe right across the street from my apartment, which is bad.

And they're not like there's a label is has this amount of caffeine and you've gone over just like we have with sugar. Right? I mean, I monitor my sugar. I don't go over, you know, twenty or thirty grams of sugar a day because you're not supposed to what you shouldn't write in a day. Women shouldn't have more. I think it's 26 grams of sugar. And in our diet, in our culture, things have massive amounts of sugar, everything, sugar.

So I'm really careful about that. But then you think about caffeine. I don't have any way to know. That's the crazy part, right?

I mean, and that's why for me, I'm also I'm so strict that I don't even I hardly have a coffee out anymore. Like, I pretty much just have my at home and and like, that's it. And it's not even it's also it's because I don't want too much, but I also don't want to let like I I know what it takes to make me feel good, to make me feel good. It sounds like it's an actual drug for you to show.

You have to do your drug in secretly.

I do it.

I don't do I need the right dose. The exactly right dose.

I like an addict. Oh my God. I'm gonna call you out. Oh my gosh. There's over money. Oh, my God, guys. Wow. OK, I'm now I'm embarrassed. No, but it but it is July six cups of coffee a day, so it's OK.

Right. And I just I have it down to a science. What does that mean, Lindsay. That's a good expression. I like the. It's down to a science. You have created a formula that works for you and you just repeat it kind of ad nauseum, right every day, and it's always exactly that way. So you can't deviate from it because it's what works for you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, right.

Right, right. Exactly. And also, there's a lot of sources for kef of caffeine like. Yeah. People like innocently have, you know, all this like dessert and chocolate stuff and that's, that's caffeine too.

So that's true. A lot of times chocolate has caffeine or espresso beans will be on a piece of cake or something. Chocolate espresso. OK, and you have caffeine in there. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, exactly.

And it actually the article talked about keeping like a journal or diary and putting in your anxious feelings like like and caffeine and kind of monitoring like do you feel, you know, how do you feel depending on how much caffeine you have, Lindsey? Is that something you would ever do?

Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense. You know, I honestly, if I were, I do now that I think about it, when I if I'm going to go give a big presentation or have an important meeting, I will avoid having a cup of coffee before that because I'm worried that it'll trigger more anxiety. I don't think it does, but I don't let it happen. Like, I will avoid it just so that it doesn't happen.

If that makes sense or then you might have to go to the it might have to go to the bathroom. It's true.

Yeah. That's also not very convenient. But yeah. I mean, in an odd way, this also just makes me think of life, not just with caffeine take because intake because I think it can be easy to do too much of something. We think we need more of the things we lack all the time, but sometimes we can overdo it. So that's something that we could talk about another time, but just kind of a random thought that I had in there.

Yeah, it's very true. It's very true. As and I love this topic just because it's so it's such a great way to to talk to a native speaker. Many of our listeners, they might do a language exchange in a Starbucks or in a cafe where they're meeting with a native speaker. And a good opener for a conversation would be asking them about their coffee habits, right?

Yeah, exactly. Oh, my gosh. People love to talk about I mean, look at Lindsay. We're having so much fun with this discussion. Oh, you sound like it's a draw down. But I'm like we're like we're laughing. It's like it's a it's a fun kind of it's a fun topic. And to share information maybe about your cultures, coffee, things like that, it's just a lot of fun things to connect over because I think everybody, even if you hate coffee, right, there are people who hate coffee.

My mom hates coffee and even those people would like to talk about it. Oh, I hate coffee.

So you people tend to have very strong opinions about coffee because usually the people that hate coffee will be tea drinkers. And I'm personally not a big fan. I find it to be kind of a let down. But there's actually so many more kinds of tea around the world than coffee.

So people do have a lot to say about this topic. So guys, make sure you're able to go into it. I mean, do we want to do a role play for our listeners here to show them how to have this kind of conversation or what? Michel?

Yeah, well, we were going to teach quickly a couple of words before we do that. So the first word is jittery, right. Which means I'm nervous moving around a lot more and then nervous energy. Exactly. And a nervous energy, right?

Yeah. So the idea of having it right. Right. You are nervous, right. So nervous energy. I understand that feeling. Right. Your heart's racing.

Mm. Yeah, for sure, and then caffeine intake, which we mentioned before, which is how much caffeine you have, hmm. Yeah, exactly. So it's a chunk guys, you know something intake, sugar intake. Fat intake. Right. Caffeine intake. These are all chunks that we can use. We talk about food and nutrition. OK, cool. Absolutely.

So here we are at a coffee shop. Lindsay, when I get started.

All right. So this comment looks at Fehling or looks fitting. I think I'll get a triple espresso.

Really. Lindsay, you seem kind of jittery already. I know.

It's just that I'm exhausted. I've already had three cups today.

Yeah, but you really should watch your caffeine intake. You're right. I do have a lot of nervous energy right now. Meanwhile, I'm like jittery, right? I'm kind of.

Yeah, we have to be self-aware when it comes to these moments. Exactly.

Exactly. So let's go through it. So I said you seem kind of jittery, right? You're were kind of moving around a little bit, feel like seem like very nervous. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

And then you said, yeah, but you should really watch your caffeine intake again, guys. That is a chunk. OK, cool. Absolutely.

And then you said I do have a lot of nervous energy right now. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. What a fun topic. Lindsay, what do we want to leave our listeners with?

Well, like I said, guys, caffeine and coffee while coffee and tea like these social drinks are the things that bring us together as human beings. Right. We know that you guys have opinions on coffee, some of your coffee drinkers, some of your tea drinkers. But it's a great way to start a conversation. So any time you're in a cafe with a native speaker or anywhere on the street going out for a walking date, whatever it is, you can strike up this conversation.

It's the ultimate connector, right, Michel, between you both. So you need the language for it. Absolutely.

I love it. Oh, my gosh. Lindsey, thank you so much for chatting about this with me today. And let's keep each other posted on our caffeine intake. But, guys, remember, we head over at all these English dotcoms fluency stock score to get your fluency score. All right.

Sounds good, Michelle. Talk to you soon. Take care. Bye bye.

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