I drank my first cup of coffee, black, when I was 19. It tasted like poison, but it seemed like the right time to graduate from tea to coffee, and it’s held my hand for 24 years and counting.
I’ve never put cream or sugar in the beverage that I've consumed almost every day since June of 1994, and, to the best of my knowledge, I’m not a psychopath.
That’s why I took a little umbrage to a new study published in the journal Appetite, which cited a connection between black coffee drinkers and sadists, psychopaths and narcissists.
According to the University of Innsbruck research project:
"In two studies, we investigated how bitter taste preferences might be associated with antisocial personality traits. Two U.S. American community samples (total N = 953; mean age = 35.65 years; 48% females) self-reported their taste preferences using two complementary preference measures and answered a number of personality questionnaires assessing Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, everyday sadism, trait aggression, and the Big Five factors of personality. The results of both studies confirmed the hypothesis that bitter taste preferences are positively associated with malevolent personality traits, with the most robust relation to everyday sadism and psychopathy."
Apparently, the study also found a connection with antisocial traits and people who enjoy radishes, tonic water and celery. Fortunately, I don’t really like those three things, so maybe I’m not as evil as some others.
However, if you try to take away my black coffee, I will kill you.
Just kidding, although I might get a little grumpy. I mean, save for a few road rage incidents, I’ve never actually wanted to kill anyone – at least, not for more than a few seconds – and I don’t think I was under-caffeinated when any fleeting homicidal ideas crossed my mind.
I just think cream and sugar make coffee gross. I like it strong and black (insert joke here). So, I don’t know; this study of only 1,000 people seems pretty bogus.
On the other hand, I don’t know any psychopaths that I’m aware of. But I do know people, like me, who only take their coffee black. Generally speaking, they seem like nice people.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
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