We all know that chocolate and coffee contain caffeine. It is the result of that caffeine ‘jolt’ we get first thing in the morning when we draw our first cup of coffee from the Coffee maker that wakes us up and sends us on our way. It’s also why it is not uncommon to reach for a chocolate bar or another cup of coffee midday to provide an afternoon pick me up to get through the rest of the day.
But what if you were to combine chocolate and coffee into a mocha latte? You would think that the double dose of caffeine should do something amazing with your brain and at the very least make you alert enough to do more. There was a time when college and university students used to dose up on caffeine to pull all-nighters when it came to studying for exams. Or was that just an urban myth?
Ali Boolani
Well, as it turns out, Clarkson University in New York set out to prove once and for all whether or not throwing back a loaded mocha would produce any kind of positive effect. Researcher Ali Boolani from Clarkson joined forces with the University of Georgia to tackle this interesting study. The findings were equally as interesting.
The Study
The study was designed to look into “the acute effects of brewed cocoa consumption” and how it reacted “on attention, motivation to perform cognitive work” and “feelings of anxiety, energy, and fatigue.” In other words, does the caffeine in mocha lattes make you alert or make you jittery? What Boolani found pretty much removes the whole idea from the category of urban legend and puts it in the confirmed column.
The cocoa actually increased cerebral blood flow. This increases attention and cognition but caffeine alone showed increase anxiety levels. With the two combined, Boolani says that the cocoa worked to dull the caffeine’s anxiety-producing effects.
In case you’re wondering, the study took almost a year and the participants were in different groups according to the beverages they were drinking. One group drank brewed cocoa, one had cocoa with caffeine, another drank caffeine without cheap topamax online cocoa and the final group consumed a placebo hot drink without caffeine or cocoa.
Once they had finished their chosen beverage, the study participants were subjected to various tasks which allowed the researchers to record and determine cognitive function and the mood of each.
So what exactly does the study prove?
If you push aside the scientific discoveries about increased blood flow to the brain and how cocoa can reduce the anxiety that may be produced by 
caffeine, it does give legs to the concept of working on late night projects with a jolt of a mocha latte to keep you focused and not worked up about having to stay up so late to finish. It also means that college and university students who like to cram exam study sessions into a couple of nights before the actual test day may have found an affordable – and tasty/enjoyable – way to cram.
Oddly enough, my wife and I frequent coffee shops whenever we travel out of town. Our usual choice of hot beverage when we go to one is a mocha latte. For both of
For both of us, we enjoy the taste and flavor of chocolate mixed with coffee. It’s also something which, until now, we rarely prepare for ourselves at home. With the results of this study as ammunition, it may be worth our while to Mocha Latte to our options for our morning coffee. Ii we have a big day planned that requires us to be focused and attentive.
If we have a big day planned that requires us to be focused and attentive, this would be a very good use of our new Espresso machine, don’t you think?
What’s next?
The next study could be even interesting. How about someone look at the exam results achieved by students who did a Mocha Latte “cram night’, compared to those who did not. Or how about one measuring the effect of mocha lattes on productivity on the job or whether or not construction workers reduce their accident rate if they have mocha lattes before going to the job site. That would be a subject well worth looking into.