The Coffee Expert: The Surprising Link Between Coffee, Mental Health, Depression & Heart Disease! James Hoffmann

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
You're the former World Barista Champion. So we have cups of coffee here from different suppliers. So coffee number one.

**James Hoffmann** (0:07)
Yeah, I'd be surprised if that was expensive. I'd be a little bit outraged if that was expensive. That's kind of weird. That's really interesting. If you want the best experience for coffee, this one.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:19)
I can reveal that is James Hoffmann.

**James Hoffmann** (0:22)
The most famous people in the world when it comes to coffee.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:25)
James has close to two million subscribers on YouTube. The most popular piece of coffee broadcasting on the planet. You've committed a huge portion of your life to coffee. What advice have you got for me? OK.

**James Hoffmann** (0:37)
London has some of the best coffee shops in the world. Don't get on the spurs machine for help.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:40)
Coffee pods.

**James Hoffmann** (0:41)
They're a microwave meal.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:42)
How long does it take to decay?

**James Hoffmann** (0:44)
The minute you open that bag, it's on its way out, and it will happen really quickly.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:47)
You walk into the Starbucks, what do you order?

**James Hoffmann** (0:48)
If I'm being fully weird.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:50)
Be fully weird.

**James Hoffmann** (0:50)
Fine. Then I'm going to...

**Steven Bartlett** (0:53)
Say I've got 100 pounds for the machinery.

**James Hoffmann** (0:55)
Coffee grinders are the right investment. They are more important than the machine.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:59)
What's your favorite cup of coffee?

**James Hoffmann** (1:01)
If I'm honest, it is...

**Steven Bartlett** (1:03)
Are we addicted?

**James Hoffmann** (1:05)
It's the world's most popular psychoactive drug. But if you look at the science, coffee seems to be healthy and have a really positive impact wherever it's been measured. It's a great source of fiber. It is like having another vegetable in your diet. People tend to perform better on cognitive tests. It looks like coffee drinkers survive longer. The problem with it is that coffee has this really depressing future.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:24)
Why? James, you've committed a huge portion of your life to a drink, to a bean, to coffee. Yeah. Why?

**James Hoffmann** (1:47)
I love it. It brings me intense pleasure, like the whole thing. I think I fell in love with it 20 years ago, and I tried working in wine. People get falling in love with wine, right? Like people with the drink, with the culture, with where it's grown, all that stuff. The same can be true with coffee and turned out to be true for me. And I'm kind of obsessed with learning, and coffee is so big. People see it as kind of a niche. What I do is a niche, but it's this global thing. It's in every culture. There's everything from botany to science to like health. All the rest of it's wrapped in this one thing, so I can spend lifetimes learning about it and never be done.
It's just huge fun, and it's one of those things that's capable of an incredible surprise. People's expectations of coffee are very low often, and when you show them what it can be, that's a very satisfying moment that never gets tiring.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:36)
I just thought of coffee as a drink that everyone seems to be pretty addicted to, but I imagine your perspective on that is a little bit more artistic and expansive.

**James Hoffmann** (2:47)
Yes and no. Coffee's existence blows my mind. It's the thing that we all do, that for over 100 years now, it's been normal to have the ground up seeds of a tropical fruit plant just sitting in your cupboard, and you're going to steep that in water and drink it. That's a weird human thing that we do, and it's just been a part of everyone's lives for as long as they can remember. Coffee is just there. But it turns out in the last 20 years, we've had this boom of specialty coffee, but we've showcased how interesting it can be. It's not just this commoditized thing. I think that bit has changed consumption around the world now, actually, I see it in every country. People's opinions and expectations of coffee have shifted massively.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:26)
When I first started drinking coffee, which I think I was quite late to coffee, and I think I'm quite a low-level consumer of coffee, part of the reason I was put off drinking coffee was because it appears that the entirety of society are addicted to it. It might have this first principle belief that anything that has a significant upside must come with a significant downside. Sure. No one can tell me what the downside was, so I was just very reluctant to engage in an addiction. When I can see the upside, I can see people are more focused, they seem to be higher in energy. That's the appearance I have, but the downside was never clear. We are addicted, aren't we?