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Some people manage to juggle tasks and check off to-do lists pretty efficiently.

Except, in doing so, they might consistently forget to drink that cup of coffee while it is still sufficiently hot.

Enter the microwave and a nuke session, time and time again, to get their brew back on track.

It works, but in terms of the taste and the desired effect you want to get out of your cuppa, is that the right thing to do?

There are those who believe that reheating can actually reduce the beloved caffeine content.

What would the point of this morning elixir be then? We shudder to think.

To get to the bottom of this very important scientific quest, Inverse brought in Christopher “Dr Coffee” Hendon, a renowned coffee chemist, who has the answers we need.

In one sentence, he pretty much puts the caffeine fears to bed:

“Coffee goes into the roaster with a finite amount of caffeine available,” explains Hendon.

“Once it’s extracted in the water “caffeine isn’t going anywhere,” he says.

Basically, under almost all circumstances, reheating coffee won’t cause it to lose caffeine, whether by being bombarded with microwaves or via the slower touch of a stovetop.

Caffeine, he notes, is a “pretty stable organic molecule” and because of this, the total number of caffeine molecules in your cup is unlikely to change over the course of cooling and/or being reheated.

The only possible way for the caffeine molecule to break down would be through a process known as sublimation, where solids turn into vapour.

This will require an intense temperature of 177 degrees Celcius, which is not possible in a microwave.

Dr Coffee posits that this coffee myth may be due to our perception of how coffee affects us throughout the day:

“Where the myth might come from is that when you drink a hot cup of coffee for the very first time through the buzz that you get from a hot cup of coffee — when you know it’s freshly brewed and all that — affects you in ways that are intangible and not related necessarily to what the chemistry is that you’re actually consuming,” Hendon explains.

He equates it to smelling bacon at dinner smacked on some cheeseburger versus the fresh smell of morning bacon.

Mmm, bacon.

It’s a tight call between bacon and a freshly brewed cup of quality coffee for my favourite morning smell.

The reduced caffeine myth might also have something to do with the fact that one often reheats their second and third cup of coffee, which are known to have a lesser, if not reversible, effect on your alertness.

So caffeine won’t go anywhere by microwaving, but that doesn’t mean the flavour will remain as steadfast:

Like any fresh food item, coffee is only headed towards tasting worse the further it strays from fresh, and reheating speeds up this process by shedding the volatile flavour compounds more quickly.

It is possible that your coffee may taste worse after it’s been nuked, Hendon says. But you can rest easy knowing that there’s likely nothing actually dangerous about this habit.

In fact, Dr Hendon suggests using the microwave as opposed to the stovetop if you’re going to reheat your coffee, because it will heat it up more quickly, allowing less time for the volatile compounds to degrade.

Or you could just drink the entire cup in one shot because it is delicious and magical, and letting even a drop become cool or get nuked just feels like some kind of travesty.

Luckily, the incredible selection of coffees over at Terbodore makes you want to savour every coffee drinking moment, no matter how many chores, lists, and responsibilities are vying for your attention.

It helps that they also have a neat MiiR Vacuum Insulated Stainless Steel Tumbler to keep your coffee warmer for longer without needing any microwave.

I’m definitely not against using a proper tumbler at home, both to keep the coffee piping hot and to give one that sense of camping outdoors.

Anyway, you’re now armed with enough knowledge to shoot down some caffeine-related fake news.

Go forth and be smug.

[source:inverse]