Must Have Caffeine

aka: Must Have Coffee

"Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee--"

Captain Janeway: Coffee. Black.
Neelix: I'm sorry, Captain, we lost two more replicators this morning—
Janeway: Listen to me VERY carefully, because I'm only going to say this once: Coffee. Black.
Neelix: Yes, ma'am.

— Star Trek: Voyager, "Bride of Chaotica!"

Ah, caffeine! Truly one of the greatest gifts of nature. It allows us humans to surpass the limits of our endurance when we need it most, and it has become a sort of lifestyle for a lot of us.

As a result of these special qualities, coffee and associated paraphernalia like coffeepots, coffee mugs and paper coffee cups with plastic covers have become a ubiquitous feature of every office setting, particularly at the start of the day. Oftentimes when points are being discussed, one or more of the participants will have a mug in hand. Important things happen around the office coffeemaker, and the number of paper cups at an employee's desk (or coffee rings on a draft report) are used as a visual indicator of how much stress they are under, and how hard they are working. In a stressful, busy law firm, the Disposable Intern or Sexy Secretary will be sent to get a tray of Starbucks coffees. For some reason, other drinks are not considered to be as representative of our reliance on caffeine as good, strong coffee, even if some teas and soft drinks actually have more caffeine.

Outside of the office, people of all professions have also been depicted as being dependent on caffeine — to the point where attempts to drop the habit are used as a dramatic device. Construction workers and sailors drink coffee from battered metal thermoses and cowboys and the Mountain Man make coffee over a campfire. In some works, something other than coffee may be used (such as soda), including obvious stand-ins used where real caffeinated beverages would be out of place. For example, in science fiction, colonists on a distant planet may drink "Venusian coffee" or some similar brewed hot drink.

Sudden and unexpected deprivation of this essential substance, on the other hand, is sometimes depicted with comedic consequences, such as sleeping or lobotomized workers, or a riot in the lunchroom.

There are some theories that the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution only occurred because the Western world discovered coffee. The stimulating brew helped workers to stay alert longer and it gave a boost to innovators and thinkers trying to change the world. As well, the trend of 1700s and 1800s coffee houses created a social forum where political ideas could be debated.

People who actually dislike coffee generally only turn up in fiction as a literal punchline to the old "do you want to come in for coffee" joke. Or they're British or Asian.

In the real world, the effect of caffeine on people can differ greatly based on individual genetics. Some people react very strongly to even small amounts of caffeine with jitters, racing heartbeat, and anxiety. In contrast, an estimated 10% of all people metabolize caffeine so quickly that they don't experience any effects at all.

Compare: Brits Love Tea, Asians Love Tea, G-Rated Drug, Klatchian Coffee. See also Gigantic Gulp. Often the only means of defying Not a Morning Person. This trope is usually the only reason people tolerate coffee that's Bad to the Last Drop. Caffeine Failure is when the caffeine won't work for one reason or another. It's often treated as an antidote for Sleep Deprivation — or a way to cause it.

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Example subpages:

• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Real Life

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Other examples

Advertising

• In ads for McDonalds Premium Roast Coffee we see a man who says to everyone who tries to interact with him, "not before I have my coffee." Including the person at the fast food restaurant he goes to, presumably to buy coffee.
• A 1979 ad for 7-11 showed a growling werewolf driving a car, who only turned back into a normal man when he'd gotten his morning cup of coffee. ("Brings out the best of the beast in you.")

Anime & Manga

• As though Negi, an English tea drinker, didn't have enough reasons to hate his Arch-Enemy Fate in Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Fate turned out to be an avid fan of coffee as well, drinking seven cups per day. The two almost came to blows having a serious debate about the quality of milk tea and coffee. This has its roots in a rather tragic story, when Fate was rescued and cared for by Shiori's older sister. She gave him coffee during this time, and he liked it. She died before she could make it for him a second time, and he constantly drinks coffee to find a cup that gives him the same feeling.
• In Aoi House, Elle Mathers is seen with a cup of coffee or a Frappucino in her hand.
• Yu Hansung from Tower of God. Favourite brand: Maxim instant coffee. Seen: More than every second panel he's in. In-Series Nickname: Coffee Machine.
• BJ from Soul Eater. The man drinks it 24/7, carries a brewing pot in his travel case, and made a deal with the (benevolent) God of Death in exchange for coffee-related paraphenalia. Not to mention (he claims) his work suffered because his favorite coffee shop was no longer open.
• Andrew Waltfeld from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is legendary for his fondness for coffee, to the point that his XO once suggests ventilating his office.
• L from Death Note is very often seen with coffee or tea, perhaps even more than the trademark desserts. He also seems to have a dubious relationship with sleep. Although his sugar obsession crosses over to his coffee and tea (6 cubes or more, every time without fail), he has been known to be so deep in thought that his cup has overflowed with sugar.
• Case Closed: Fanon always like to depict Conan Edogawa as one, who supposedly brews coffee so strong that only policemen and detectives can drink it... and he drinks it whenever he can. This is probably a Shout-Out to Sherlock Holmes' addictions.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Mamoru is a coffee drinker, to the point where he interrupts a romantic moment with Usagi to get a cup. In The '90s North American English dub, his preference was changed to cocoa.
  • Villainous Professor Tomoe shares this preference, which was likewise altered.
• When not Dueling, Jack Atlas from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds is seen at a coffee shop often, especially after the Dark Signers arc. He usually drinks Blue Eyes coffee, a shout out to Seto Kaiba's favorite card. And it's expensive as all hell. (3,000 yen per cup, or about $30 USD currently; note, however, this takes place a few decades into the future, so some inflation might have occurred by then.) Lampshaded and mocked to hell and back in "Tag Force 5".
  Jack: Do you know my favorite coffee, Blue Eyes Mountain, do you know how much it costs?
  Correct Answer: Three Thousand DP!^note  The ATK of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the standard ATK of a Yu-Gi-Oh! Rival's ace, and the ATK of his Signer dragon, Red Dragon Archfiend.
  Jack: Exactly! You know, that number somehow puts my mind at ease...
  • He tries making his own coffee in one episode; its okay, although Stephanie, the waitress at the shop, is very unhappy when he doesn't show up.
  • In the original version, it's a different caffeinated drink — tea, but that's apparently not manly enough for an American audience.
• Chaud/Enzan from MegaMan NT Warrior (2002) is seen drinking coffee quite frequently throughout the series. As in, it's the only thing we actually see him consume on screen until the 2nd season, Axess, and even then that piece of cake was pushed on him by Lan/Netto's mom. We don't see him consume anything other than coffee of his own accord until the 5th season, Beast.
• Yoshimori Sumimura from Kekkaishi is a bit more G-rated — since he's a Triple Shifter, he needs a lot of coffee milk to get him through the day.
• Since Tachibana of Gate 7 is Not a Morning Person, he's useless (and scary) at morning until he drinks at least one cup of tea.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: After Kaji's death, Hard-Drinking Party Girl Misato switches to copious amounts of canned coffee, perhaps because she's now motivated to work all hours to find the truth about NERV.
• In Tokyo Ghoul, coffee is literally the only thing Ghouls can consume besides human flesh. As a direct result, they are as a species insanely fond of drinking coffee and much of the series centers around a cafe run by a group of peaceful Ghouls. The protagonist is greatly relieved to discover he can still drink coffee, after his transformation into a Half-Human Hybrid.
• Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: Due to chronic sleep deprivation, Shirogane has to have at least one cup of coffee every 3 hours or he will instantly pass out... Which comes to be problematic when the council room's stock was breifly switched to decaf.
• New Game! is a Work Com about a game studio, and of course this persists in real-life video game studios. There are however a few specific examples:
  • In the anime Kou appears to be drinking a large amount of energy drinks, particularly Red Gull. This is very subdued in the manga.
  • Chapter 22 is basically about Umiko asking Nene (and Aoba) to buy energy drinks for the whole debug team, since Umiko expects the entire team to work overnight.
• Cells at Work! CODE BLACK contains an unusual Played for Drama version in Chapter 12. The host body has energy drink regularly, making his red blood cells feel revitalized... Until caffeine withdrawal sets in, at which point they collapse on the floor shivering and begging for more caffeine. One senior blood cell reveals to the rookies that caffeine jolts are the only way to keep up with overwork in this badly-maintained body.

Card Games

• Flavor text for the Netrunner card "Jack 'n' Joe":
  There's too much blood in my caffeine system.
• In the Magic: The Gathering story "Catching Up, the Living Guildpact Jace Beleren, after being told to get some rest by his bailiff after a long day of arbitrating disputes between the guilds, responds thusly:
  The Living Guildpact rules that coffee is an acceptable substitution for rest, as specified in subsection...whatever.

Comedy

• On FM & AM's "Drugs," we hear this from George Carlin:
  When they talk about drugs, they don't talk about all of them, that's the problem. They don't mention coffee. (Chuckles) The low end of the speed spectrum, I grant you. But there are coffee freaks. And they're walkin' around, and nobody, y'know, worried about it or anything. Mrs. Olson^note  in their old advertisements, a Swedish neighbor who invariably recommended a cup of Folgers coffee for the characters in the commercial. Played by Virginia Christine, who might be best known to you as Princess Ananka in The Mummy's Curse. never tells you about that mild speed lift, y'know? She's shooting freeze-dried Folgers, right? But you've seen the coffee freak in the office, haven't you? The guy who drops eight or nine cups every morning, and always in a good mood: (rapidly) "Hi! How are ya? Warm that up for ya? OK, yeah! Hi, how are ya, good to see ya." Always in a nice mood. Until the coffee urn breaks, man. Then he's the first guy to: (more rapidly) "Whaddaya mean broken, man? Wha'? Plug it in, man! Turn it around! Never mind, man! Put some water in. Holy shit, man! Turn the plug around!" Then he goes out and scores, 'cause he's the one who's hooked.

Comic Books

• Downplayed in Dan In Space, where Dan Johnson always likes having coffee on hand to drink.
• Too Much Coffee Man is a superhero whose power is that he drinks too much coffee. The addictive side of this means it is a weakness, too.
• The Question's mentor, Aristotle "Tot" Rodor, had quite a thing for coffee in the O'Neil/Cowan series.
• Iron Man: A surprising amount of Tony Stark Fanon holds that, having put alcoholic addiction behind him, Tony has turned to coffee.
  • Truth in Television: This is actually very common among recovering alcoholics, exchanging an extremely harmful addiction for a (relatively) harmless and socially acceptable one.
  • Given the fact that practically all he drinks in the movie is either alcoholic or coffee (except for that weird green concoction during the painting decision for the armor), this may be veering into canon in at least one medium.
  • He spends much of the second movie chugging various green concoctions, presumably to alleviate the paladium poisoning.
  • There's also a scene in one comic◊ — Iron Man #1 of the Extremis arc — where Tony is woken by a call from one of his many secretaries, who is entirely unsympathetic to his grogginess. Defeated, he requests that she at least hook him up with "the gallon drum of coffee. And possibly some kind of intravenous drip."
• Hawkeye: Clint Barton, especially in Hawkeye (2012). He has a terrible sleep cycle, is constantly exhausted as a Badass Normal trying to keep up with superheroes, and depends on caffeine to function in daytime; he's seen chugging coffee directly from the percolator jug at one point. Then there's the heartrending "Aw, coffee, no..." panel showing Clint ruefully discovering a serious spillage.
• Practically all of the cast in Gotham Central runs on caffeine, being cops. The coffee machine holds a very important place in the MCU's interaction life. Seriously, how hard is it to fill the coffee maker again when you finish the damn coffee?!
• The Flash: In the 2010 comic book, Iris Allen is seldom seen without a coffee cup in hand. Her IM icon is even a cup of coffee.
• Invoked by the villainous Neutron Bum in issue #4 The Awesome Slapstick, who goes on a city-destroying rampage when no-one can give him some money to buy a cup of coffee.
• Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman (cited as an inspiration for Too Much Coffee Man) is not a morning person, and his need for coffee is great.
• Abby from Love and Capes. It becomes especially apparent in What to Expect when she has to have to give up coffee while pregnant.
• Many Warren Ellis protagonists live on caffeine. The man himself purports to be quite an example.
  • For example, Jacklyn King in The Wildstorm requires coffee first thing on arriving at work in the morning. She doesn't accept explanations like "there were people ahead of me" as reasons for there not being any.
    King: (to her assistant) You are allowed to shoot people who get between me and my coffee.
• In The Multiversity #2, thanks to Annataz of Earth-13, the Blood League of Earth-43 are now vampires who feed on coffee instead of blood.

Comic Strips

• A Running Gag in Adam@home deals with Adam's fondness for coffee.
• Scott Adams is very fond of using playing with this trope in Dilbert, perhaps more so than in most series. He takes it to both logical ends by showing the workers suffering when the secretary replaces their regular supply with decaf, as well as his title character gaining Psychic Powers when given an unlimited supply of coffee. Wally is the most extreme example. When Catbert and the boss order him to cut down to 40 cups a day, Wally screams "Not Double Digits!". The strip that best illustrates the Pointy-Haired Boss' evil? The one where he finishes the coffee without refilling the pot.
• Garfield
  • Quite a few strips, especially later ones, sometimes use coffee-addiction gags. Usually, adding that Garfield likes the strongest blend possible. A funny variation is when Jon was sitting calmly, while all of a sudden a clearly unhinged Garfield slams a mug on the table and screams "BEAN ME!" Jon simply notes that Garfield's probably had more than one cup of coffee that day.
  • And there was a Flash "game" on the official site where you can feed Garfield coffee and watch him wake up and become more and more unhinged. It's aptly named Bean Me! (You can see a playthrough in the Video Examples.)
  • In another strip, Garfield is literally bouncing off the walls at high speed after eating Jon's bag of chocolate covered coffee beans.
  • On the other hand, this strip shows how he reacts to insufficient amount of caffeine.
    Jon: How's the decaf?
  • The easiest way of putting it is this: If the coffee isn't ready, pray your funeral is.
  • Jon has had his moments just as much as his cat. In one strip, Jon goes to pick up a cup of coffee; Garfield screams frantically for him not to drink it, but he's too late. Jon drinks it, and then falls asleep. "That coffee was decaffeinated, you fool!" shouts Garfield.
• Foxtrot
  • A Running Gag in the comic involves Roger, the head of the Fox household, being rather non-functional— well, more than usual— without his morning coffee.
  • One arc had Andy decide Roger was depending too much on coffee and cut him off cold turkey. After a hearty breakfast of raw macaroni in vinegar (thanks to Jason), he crashes down the basement stairs. When he arrives at work, he manages to attend several meetings, take part in a conference call, and give a lecture to younger employees on key company policies. Around two in the afternoon, he realizes he's in the wrong building.
  • Another comic has Peter weaning himself off of coffee, remarking that he drank so much during finals, if he went cold turkey, he'd die. When asked if he was drinking half-decaf, half-regular, he remarked "quintuple espresso".
  • Another of Peter's stay awake at all costs brews is coffee-tea (tea brewed with coffee), which is apparently just this side of a controlled substance.
  • In one arc, Paige uses coffee-tea in quantities that shock even her brother, which is quite a feat.
  • Speaking of Roger, on one occasion he was so out of it that he tried to pour his coffee into an upside-down mug. When Paige helpfully pointed out his mistake, he flipped both mug and coffeepot.
  • Paige herself is rather inept at the concepts involved in the culinary arts, even to such a degree that she uses a cup of grounds to a teaspoon of water. I'll give it one thing, it wakes her folks up.
  • "The pot's over by the fridge... The fridge is over there... See that thing with the blinking red light?... Roger, that's the answering machine." The last line said as we hear slurping sounds from off-panel.
  • In one strip, Peter comments that you know you've made coffee right when it's the fumes that wake you up.
  • In another strip, Peter drinks a whole pot of coffee to give him an edge in math test he's dreading. In the last panel, he's trying to take the test, but sweating, red in the face, and thinking, "If the boy's bathroom is one-thousand feet away and I run at a rate of a hundred feet per second..."
  • In one strip, Roger takes a sip in the first panel, followed by a Beat Panel, then a look of absolute, complete shock. In the last panel, Jason is holding the coffee pot, and says, "You said to make it strong," followed by Roger - from the ceiling - saying, "Funny, I wouldn't have thought my fingers could grip like this..."
  • At one point, Roger goes in for a physical. When the doctor asks how much coffee he drinks in the morning and he replies "a coupla things of coffee." The doctor says "Two cups of coffee is OK. What else?" "Pots, not Cups."
  • One of Peter's bright ideas to stay up long enough to finish a book report was to mix an entire jar of coffee crystals with hot water and drink it all at once.
  • One more: One Sunday strip showed Roger making several back-and-forth trips to the coffee maker before revealing that he's dumping pot after pot into a gigantic mug the size of a large bucket. He completely dismisses the notion that said mug was just a novelty gag gift the kids gave him for Father's Day.
• Subverted in one Bloom County strip, with vice-presidential candidate Opus stumbling around in a morning stupor, mumbling about needing coffee. Then he reads a newspaper. BOING! "Who needs coffee when you've got the latest poll results?"
• Phoebe from Zits, who list "caffeine" as her religion when she applies for a job at Fourbucks Coffee. And has an espresso machine in her locker. In one strip, Jeremy taps her on the shoulder to ask her something and she hits the ceiling - literally - in shock, having drunk more than usual for finals.
  • Subverted with Jeremy, who'd like to be a coffee-drinker to show how adult he is, but who hates the taste so much that the most he can stomach is a cup of cream and sugar with a tiny squirt of coffee at the bottom.
• One early The Far Side cartoon showed an angry man holding a smoking shotgun, having killed two people with it, while his wife behind him angrily says, "That settles it, Carl! From now on, you're only getting decaffeinated coffee!"
• In Peanuts, Linus' "Blanket Hating Grandmother" likely qualifies, seeing as in one storyline, she drank 32 cups of coffee in one sitting! Unfortunately, Linus got the entire family angry at him for saying her dependence on caffeine was the same as how he depended on his blanket, leading him to seriously regret saying it and going to apologize to his grandmother.

Fan Works

• This thread, which quickly turns into a story about how far Tim Drake would go to to keep the rest of the Batfamily from confiscating his precious Death Wish coffee. It ends with him becoming the consort of the goddess of coffee. Yes, really.
• The massive, slowly progressing novel A Real Sky (formerly Look for the Sky), written by tori_siikanen (ceeainthereforthat), addresses several things that Tanith Lee left out of her original Four BEE novels. One is coffee, or "wine of Kaf". It comes with breakfast food, or mornings after drug/alcohol indulgence, so you know that's what it is.
• In Project Tatterdemalion, a quirk of genetically engineered biology means that people with Psychic Powers- shinigami and Quincies- really do need caffeine as a basic nutrient, especially when they use their powers a lot. Shinigami in particular also like it because it makes their hearts beat faster- the process that makes them shinigami slows their heartbeats way down, and caffeine brings it back to normal.
  • A Moment of Awesome from Isane is driven by her need to get coffee - in her first appearance no less! She just woke up as a Shinigami, isn't very coherent and just wants coffee. A Hollow gets in her way. You can guess what happens next...
• A Certain Droll Hivemind: Misaka-10901 mentions that the researchers who conducted the experiments where twenty thousand clones were murdered constantly complained about the city's bad coffee. Apparently, if a city can master human cloning, they should spend some money on mastering coffee.
  One of them proposed using the Testament machine to programme Misaka-19999 to make coffee, so they could have better non-instant coffee all the way through the experiments. The scientists argued that this would increase morale and make them more productive workers. This proposal was under consideration when the sequence was terminated. We are unclear as to whether the Accelerator would have also been allowed Misaka-19999's coffee under this model.
• CDRR fanfic authors generally love to give Gadget an addiction to caffeine which is not even hinted at in the show. Examples include John Nowak's stories.
• In The Butcher Bird, Kaneki, being a ghoul, can only drink coffee and water without becoming ill. Not only does he develop a massive caffeine habit, but so do most of his friends. At one point, after several days without coffee, they come across a Paramecia user who can produce and control coffee who is part of a Marine contingent hunting them. The Marine wisely decides to run for it.
• In The Magic of Torchwood, Owen runs on coffee. He is annoyed when he is without it. He spreads this irritation around. It is generally considered best to give him coffee to avert this.
• Child of the Storm has most of the Avengers fitting this trope, with one of Loki's more marketable skills being an excellent coffee maker - and Asgard gets so hooked to it that some characters joke that Nick Fury could get concessions from Asgard if he threatened to cut off all coffee trade. Another notable example is Carol, who is really Not a Morning Person, requires caffeine to function, and is prone to stealing any unattended coffee mug. She's also capable of downing a steaming hot mug of coffee in one.
• Part 2 of Turnabout Storm starts with Phoenix craving for coffee after an almost sleepless night, followed by Twilight telling him nopony has any.
• Ferris: Bradford loves his coffee. It's later revealed he was in the Navy.
• In the remake of Battle Fantasia Project, interfering with exports of Turk, Finnish and Italian coffee to Equestria is considered attempted murder of Twilight Sparkle, implying she is this. On the other hand, Pinkie Pie is banned from having any coffee whenever she visits Earth.
• The Next Frontier: Bob Kerman gets through a quite staggering amount of "a liquid it is convenient to call coffee". No wonder he's so anxious all the time...
• A Spark of Genius: Xander creates a Starbucks Expy in the Justice League Earth, using his Spark knowledge to make that coffee extra strong. The Flash gets hooked to an ultra-concentrated version of this, enough to make him even more hyperactive than in the series - and when Xander closes down the shops, Flash has to go cold-turkey while the entire world feels the hit (it is mentioned that Xander's company has rapidly become the mayor buyer of coffee beans and purveyor of coffee and coffee-derived products).
• A Spark of Ice and Fire: After Agatha discovers wakebean, she creates the Coffee Engine - which soon becomes a staple of any court meeting.
• In Thieves Can Be Heroes!, Izuku has gotten into the habit of drinking black coffee every morning as part of the workout regimen he developed in hopes of becoming a hero. His guardian, Sojiro, is surprised by this and asks of Izuku was just trying to look tough.
• Universe Falls: In "To Con a Clod", while trying to butter up Peridot Grunkle Stan lets her try some coffee. Peridot quickly becomes obsessed with the stuff, demanding five pots as payment for telling our heroes what she knows about the Cluster.
• In Amazing Fantasy, Izuku ends up installing a coffee machine in his room while trying to cram college-level physics, chemistry, and engineering into his head in time to build his own web-shooters. It's still running by the time he's so tired that he falls asleep with his face in his textbook.
• In the AU Those Who Stand for Nothing Fall for Anything, Light and L stop for coffee in almost every chapter. Light tends to sack people when he's deprived of his coffee. Also coffee is apparently so important to L that when they run out he rushes out to get more—leaving Light alone in the house with B.
• Light is a caffeine junkie again in To Feel Alive until Ryuk points out that it could have a negative effect on his lifespan.
• In Origin of the Pixies, Fergus is very dependent upon his morning coffee and struggles with withdrawal when he goes to long without it.
• In 3 Slytherin Marauders Harry gave Snape a joke T-shirt one Christmas that sported a caricature drawn by Nymphadora Tonks and the caption "World's Best Father - After Three Cups of Coffee."
• Downplayed example, as befits the relevant character, in a million miles of fun: P'Li, at three in the morning and after driving for altogether too long, really wants some chi-enhancing tea.
• Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail: Bucky Barnes dearly loves white mochas.
• Even Wrex gets addicted to coffee in Newton's First Law.
• A cultural trait of the reindeer in Under the Northern Lights. It is also Klatchian Coffee, at least according to Spike. This is of course because their real life counterparts, the Scandinavians, are heavy coffee drinkers.
• There's also a fic called "Pinkie Pie Discovers Coffee". It does nothing to Pinkie, but Hilarity Ensues when Twilight drinks a mocha and ends up just as hyper as her friend.
• Sunset's Little Twilight: The human Pinkie Pie just can't get going in the morning without that first cup of coffee. Ironically, it makes her pony counterpart lethargic, so she drinks decaf instead.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: The human Pinkie is essentially a zombie before that first cup. Yes, it's a Shout-Out to Sunset's Little Twilight.
• Escape from the Moon: In the sequel The Mare From the Moon, Spliced is this in the morning, since she doesn't get a lot of sleep due to her nightmares.
• In Estee's Triptych Continuum, coffee is occasionally drank, but most ponies go with a similar beverage simply called 'wake-up juice'. Its effects, and those of deprivation therefrom, are quite akin to coffee's. (In A Total Eclipse of the Fun, the Brinner Brigade use it to excess.)
• RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse: Due to Princess Luna being nocturnal, the Night Court has to be as well, as does the small army of public servants and assorted castle staff who work under them. Since most ponies are not nocturnal, this means Canterlot as a whole requires vast amounts of caffeine just to keep running.
• A Moon and World Apart: Sunset has to drink an entire cup just to have the energy to make it the rest of the way to the breakfast table in the morning, as seen in chapter 11.
• Her Royal Morning Coffee starts with Princess Twilight sleepwalking to Java Le Choza, ordering coffee, and thanking the proprietor with a kiss. And then her friends find out. Her family has known for ages that she used to sleepwalk in search of coffee as a child, but she insists that they photoshopped the evidence.
• In the cracky fanfic Reload, a "Groundhog Day" Loop type fic that long ago reached the lets-goof-off stage, we have Sasuke (who is currently female, long story) get up and reach for the nearest cup of coffee. Naruto comments that it was boiling moments ago.
• The Coffee-inator gadget, seen in fanfics connected to the Ships Ahoy! universe, works in place of drinking actual coffee, which some agents like Olive and Dr. O tend to hate because it's a drink for adults. From what we've seen of it, it's very effective, especially when warding off Sleep Deprivation.
• In the Sword and Shield Verse, a crime-based' fanfic, we have Brenda Johnson, our main OC character who's partnered with Mewtwo aka Vahan Smith. Just Brenda, who prefers her coffee "liquid, preferably alive". On the other hand, Mewtwo has stoutly refused to resort to coffee. Brenda considers that a sign of insanity.
• Fanon likes to ascribe this trait to Nabiki in Ranma ½.
• This trait is why Jaune's cafe in Service with a Smile is under the protection of Junior, Roman Torchwick, and Cinder Fall, with Junior and his men ordering fifty coffees twice a day. His is the only coffeehouse in the city that isn't a mediocre franchise and his stock has enough quality and variety to make even coffee hater Ruby visit several times a week for a cup. Understandably, the need for caffeine shows through the most when Team RWBY has to wake up at 3am to help Jaune run his shop for a day.
  Weiss: Coffee.
  Jaune: What kind?
  Weiss: Coffee!
• The French Do It With A Press has Zoisite a cranky, grumbling mess in the mornings until he's had his coffee.
• Harry Kim and the Goblet of Coffee, shows that Janeway really did beat the Borg with coffee!
• The Killer Dame is a parody of the episode "The Killing Game", in which Voyager's crew was brainwashed by the Hirogen into thinking they're characters in a World War II holodeck program. Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs when Captain Janeway finds to her horror that the only coffee available to civilians in German-occupied France is ersatz coffee made of crushed acorns! When American troops arrive, she's willing to violate her Celibate Hero status to get her hands on some real beans (fortunately the Doctor deactivates the brainwashing at that point).
• Rocketship Voyager. Captain Janeway keeps a container of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee in her safe in the Captain's Cabin, and notes that it's a good thing agrifood executives need coffee too or the land would have been used for growing food crops instead for an overpopulated Earth. She's not happy when she's taken prisoner by the Hirogen Alpha who confiscates her thermos and sculls the last coffee in 70,000 light years.
• In Mended, Vanya makes a cup of coffee before sitting down with her ex-boyfriend, and then another one when she hears the apocalypse is hitting in five days.
• ToyHammer: Commissar Tomas Sturm takes a liking to Terran "recaff" (a.k.a. coffee).
• Commissar Steve's entire motivation in A Day in the Life of a Commissar is getting a cup of coffee. Justified, since his room-mate has night terrors and the beds are uncomfortable, so he barely gets any sleep. He goes completely berserk when he finds out Nathan Johnson, the Force Commander of the local chapter of the Blood Ravens, bought all the coffee on the planet. This escalates from teaming up with his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, to challenging Johnson and his two friends ( The Librarian and Chaplain) to a cage match, to demanding the use of a Baneblade Super-Heavy Tank.
• Homecoming, 2026:
  "Who would build a security system into their cooking station?"
  "Someone who was concerned that someone would steal their pizza teleporter or coffee maker.
• Ehren du Chasteler of Harry and the Shipgirls is a shambling mess in the morning until she's had some coffee. This state has been dubbed the "Prussian Kaffee Zombie" in narration.

Films — Animation

• Encanto: Before the Madrigals' breakfast reunion, in a "blink and you miss" moment, Pepa is seen with a cloud in her head (which indicates that she's upset for some reason), holding a cup of coffee. But as soon as she drinks it, she perks up, making the cloud disappear.
• Hoodwinked!'s Twitchy is insanely addicted to caffeine (and in denial too), to which other characters attribute his hyperactive persona. Becomes a Chekhov's Gun near the end when he is given a huge dose of coffee to enable him to outpace and apprehend the villains.
• In Meet the Robinsons, Lewis works all night on his invention, preventing his roommate, Goob — a very short child — from sleeping before his big baseball game. As he's complaining to Mildred the next day, he trades his juice box for her coffee and walks off saying "That's good joe."

Films — Live-Action

• In Airplane II: The Sequel, the spaceship passengers remain totally calm when informed of the various crises facing the flight, but fly into all-out panic when it's also revealed that there is no more coffee.
  Capt. Oveur: Damn! If I've told them once, I've told them a thousand times: load more coffee!
• One of the more famous moments in Men in Black is when Kay, after asking Jay if he wants some coffee, steps into the break room and has a brief argument with the "worm guys" (according to the books their species is Vermar), a group of coffee-and-cigarette-obsessed aliens. The MIB operates on a 37-hour day, so it's not a stretch to imagine that the coffee room is always well-stocked.
• Coffee and Cigarettes is a series of vignettes with various comedians, actors, musicians and artists engaged in dialog over coffee and cigarettes, or about coffee and cigarettes. In one segment, clean and sober Wu Tang Clan advise Bill Murray, obviously attached to both coffee and cigarettes, to give them up for healthy "herbals".
• In the live-action George of the Jungle film, George sees a commercial for coffee on TV and runs through Ursula's San Francisco apartment looking for coffee. When he finds it, he starts eating the ground beans, saying "Javajavajavajavajavajavajavajava!"
• In Moscow on the Hudson Robin Williams' character goes a little bit insane at the supermarket — he's grocery shopping on behalf of his host family and he's supposed to buy "coffee", but there's an entire aisle filled with nothing but coffee. Which one is he supposed to get?!
• Played with in Down Periscope where Lt. Pascal forces Chef Buckman to get rid of all the cooking lard and replace it with lots of coffee.
• There's a part in Repo! The Genetic Opera where Luigi threatens a guy who offers him decaf coffee and, moments later, stabbing some other sap because the likely caffeinated coffee seemed to not be to his likings.
• The Paper has journalists addicted to Coca-Cola (since real life reporters like coffee and cigarettes a lot), complete with a soda machine on the newspaper's building.
  Martha: Why don't you just pour battery acid down your throat?
  Henry: No caffeine.
• Marge Gunderson's diet in Fargo is more or less normal—she might be willing to eat bigger meals, but not excessively so (averting Wacky Cravings). However, it seems that she simply cannot operate without coffee.
• I Remember Mama is about Norwegians, so of course it's full of references to coffee. One of the subplots is about deciding when you're old enough to drink it. Even tiny children get "coffee-sugar", a sugar cube dipped in the sacred brew.
• In PCU Jeremy Piven's character is introduced while sleeping off a hangover. When the main character wakes him up and tries to introduce himself, Piven will only respond with increasingly loud demands of "Coffee!" before finally screaming, "Coffee now!"
• Naturally, coffee becomes a literal survival technique for teenagers in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, who need to stay awake or risk being murdered in their dreams. In the opening sequence of Dream Warriors, Kristen doesn't even bother to brew hers, but spoons instant coffee grounds directly into her mouth and washes them down with a slug of extra-caffeinated soda.
• In You've Got Mail, Joe Fox explains his business plan: "we're going to sell them cheap books and legal addictive stimulants."
• In Godzilla (1998), the lead French investigator drinks the New York coffee his assistant gives him, despite finding it awful.
• In Split Second (1992), homicide detective Harley Stone goes on a diet of coffee and chocolate after his partner is murdered. When he and rookie officer Dick Durkin discover the killer is a supernatural entity, possibly a demon, the rookie is affected the same way.
• In 10 Things I Hate About You, there's a group of students obsessed with coffee. When Michael points them out to Cameron, one can be seen yelling at another for spilling what was apparently a very valuable blend. Michael strongly advises Cameron not to make sudden movements around them.
• In UHF, during the U-62 telethon, the crew is beginning to run out of steam, especially with their big gun, Stanley Spadowski, missing in action. At one point, the cameraman is seen making a pot of coffee, and then taking the whole thing and chugging it.
• The titular character of Pokémon Detective Pikachu is, he assures you, not addicted to coffee, he can stop drinking it any time he wants to. He prefers the stuff from the cafe across the street from his apartment, which conveniently has a Ludicolo barista who can take Pokémon's orders - evidently he's not the only non-human bean fiend in the neighborhood.

Folklore

• According to legend, when coffee arrived in Europe, the Moral Guardians took issue with drinking an Islamic drink. The issue came before The Pope, whereupon he took a whiff and baptized it because good Christians shouldn't be deprived of such an obviously heavenly drink. The real story is even better. It seems that the hard-working scholar-diplomat Pope Clement VIII was already a big fan of coffee, and wasn't about to let some stuffy old-fashioned advisors stand in the way of progress or his all-nighters.

Music

• Older Than Radio: Johann Sebastian Bach, of all people, is the Ur-Example. Coffee addiction was the moral panic du jour in 18th century Leipzig, so Bach wrote a cantata about it (in favor of the stuff, mind you): Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht ("Be still, stop chattering") (BWV 211), better known as the "Coffee Cantata." The story concerns a young woman who is in love with coffee. Her father attempts to bribe her out of the habit by promising to find her a husband if she gives it up, to which she agrees. She ends up getting her way after all, by secretly telling her suitors that she will only marry them if they allow her to drink coffee.
• Devin Townsend's Album Ziltoid the Omniscient is basically a Rock Opera about the title character destroying the Earth because he gets a bad cup of coffee.
• The song "Stress" by Jim's Big Ego:
  I'm trying to cut down on my caffeine consumption
  So when I get up I just have one cup of coffee
  And I like to have another cup of coffee with my breakfast
  And on the way to work I like to get a cup of coffee
  Like the kind of cup of coffee that you get with the donuts
  But I never get the donut, I just have the cup of coffee
  And when I get to work I like to have a cup of coffee
  'Cause I like to have a coffee when I'm talking on the phone
  But it usually goes cold and I need to get another cup of coffee
  And it's lunch, and I have an espresso
• Them Crooked Vultures has the video "FRESH POTS!", which shows Dave Grohl regularly having five (fresh) pots of coffee a day. Two weeks after the video was shot, he was taken to the hospital for a caffeine overdose. Since then, he has cut back on how much coffee he has.
• A French example — "Un petit café" by Oldelaf. The music video really pulls it off, though. Rather scarily, in fact— the coffee addict becomes Ax-Crazy and eventually dissolves from drinking too much of the stuff.
• They Might Be Giants are so devoted to coffee that they actually devoted an entire segment to it in Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns. Coffee is also mentioned in enough songs that the fan-made wiki chronicles all its mentions in songs. The inevitable result was the band writing and singing several songs promoting Dunkin' Donuts coffee.
• The song called "Caffeine" by Taxi is about exactly what you think, and notable for the singer, while graduating with each verse from Coca-Cola to coffee to caffeine pills instead of food, being reduced to unintelligible screaming and gibbering by the song's end.
• There's also "The Java Jive", originally by The Ink Spots, but covered by many others (including, oddly, Richard Thompson), since.
• Trout Fishing in America sang about this in the song "What I Want Is a Proper Cup of Coffee".
• Jars of Clay has "The Coffee Song (Good Coffee, Strong Coffee)", which they only play at live shows.
• "Caffeine" by comedy metal band Psychostick. ENERGY DRINKS REPLACE WATER!
• Dutch band V.O.F. De Kunst had "Eén Kopje Koffie" ("One Cup of Coffee") in the '80s, which describes how our whole civilisation runs on coffee, and how users have a drug-like attitude towards it.
  Ja ik ben een gebruiker (Yes I am a user (/ abuser))
  Het pure spul dus zonder de suiker (The pure stuff, so no sugar)
  Ik giet het zwarte goud in een kop, en ik leef weer op... (I pour the black gold in a cup, and I thrive again...)
• Mitch Benn's ''Caffeine":
  I got caffeine, caffeine, running through my veins.
  Got me going like the clappers, and it's driving me insane.
  I got caffeine, caffeine, am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?
  I have no need for your human sleep, I have caffeine.
• "Espresso" by Todd Rundgren.
  Let's go get a hot espresso
  Or maybe a cappuccino
  So get me a caffe latte
  Make it with lots of chocolate-e!
• Norah Jones has "In the Morning", which sounds like a breakup song, but is really about trying to kick a coffee addiction.
• The Anthrax song "Cupajoe" has the singer saying they really need a cup of coffee, go get him a cup of joe. BLACK AND STRONG.
• The Beastie Boys mention their fondness for coffee several times, including in Super Disco Breakin' , which starts with the line "Fifty cups of coffee and you know it's on". Coupled with Intergalactic's claim that "I like my sugar with coffee and cream", one can conclude that the boys' partying lifestyle requires a lot of energy.
• Inverted in "The Coffee Song", in which it's the producers who have a problem.
  Way down among Brazilians
  Coffee beans grow by the billions,
  So they've got to find those extra cups to fill.
  They've got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil.

Print Media

• The 50th anniversary cover of Private Eye showed two versions of their mascot Gnitty, surrounded by the essential paraphernalia of journalism in 1961 and 2011. Prominently displayed are a cup and saucer (1961) and a Starbucks paper cup (2011).

Radio

• Martin/Molloy: The "Coffee Squad" sketch was a parody of The Bill, in which a police team dealing with a hostage situation spends the entire time working out the best way to get coffee.

Pro-Wrestling

• Claudio Castagnoli was known for drinking coffee during his promos and had a blog which documented his coffee intake.
• David Otunga would constantly have a full travel mug of coffee while he was Johnny Ace's assistant.
• This post from Holidead's Instagram reads:
  "I run on caffeine, sarcasm, lifting weights and inappropriate thoughts."

Software

• In Microsoft Bob, Java the dinosaur, personal guide and friend of Bob, is always seen with a coffee mug in hand and will replace his mug if it breaks for some reason. Espresso bars are Java's natural habitat.
• Caffeine is such an integral component of software development that the creators of a certain programming language named it after their favorite coffee: Java.

Tabletop Games

• In Twilight: 2000, the coffee production and distribution infrastructure was one of the first things to be repaired After the End.
• Conversely in Shadowrun, a blight has made real coffee a ridiculously expensive luxury item, the masses are stuck drinking "Soykaf" as just one of the little details to sell the Crapsack World nature of the setting.

Theater

• The musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying includes the song "Coffee Break".
• In The Book of Mormon, Elder Price, bordering on Drunk on Milk, drowns his sorrows in coffee. This is because coffee is forbidden by the LDS church.

Toys

• On the original Japanese Tamagotchi handheld devices, Oyajitchi has a massive obsession with sake and is revealed in the Japan-only film Tamagotchi Honto no Hanashi to have gotten Tamagotchi Planet itself drunk on the stuff. This is changed to an addiction to coffee for the US releases.

Video Games

• Hawke in the Advance Wars series has black coffee on his 'likes' list. It's otherwise not mentioned in-game.
• Amateur Surgeon has Karl Pucchino, who's so obsessed with coffee that he wears a parody of hawaiian tourist shirts with "I ♡ JAVA" mugs instead of flowers, and had a stash of coffee "hidden" inside him to get past customs on his way out of the "coffee capital of the world", and as a result speaks so fast he tells himself to shut up while trying to describe his predicament to you. In fact, his caffeine craze results in the only surgery that can be failed due to a patient's heart rate being too high.
• ANNO: Mutationem: At Noctis City, a civilian who desperately craves caffeine disguises himself as a coffee dispenser to trick people into depositing money so that he could use the cash to buy coffee for himself.
• Enforcer from Arknights is almost always seen with a black coffee in hand and is quite particular about its taste. His Rhodes Island medical file makes an off-hand comment that he needs to start drinking it in moderation.
• BattleTech (2018) has a random event wherein your ship runs out of coffee due to a supply error, and Medusa and Glitch almost come to blows over the last cup.
• As befitting his tech-head position, Reed Wahl of BioShock 2's DLC campaign Minerva's Den is something of a caffeine junkie. His office is littered with unopened bottles of Hop-Up Cola. And yet, he blames the ADAM for his insomnia...
• Borderlands 3: An entire sidequest on Promethea is devoted to getting Lorelei, Rhys's second in command, a cup of coffee, with her growing increasingly agitated as the quest continues.
• Subverted and exploited in Clam Man. Pete drinks lots of coffee, yet he slacks off and sleeps at work a lot. He admits that he only drinks all that coffee to trick his superiors into thinking he's someone who wouldn't sleep at work.
• Coffee Crisis, naturally, since your characters are a pair of coffee baristas inexplicably fending off an Alien Invasion. At the end of each stage, your players (or you and the AI, on single-player mode) get to have a contest on who can drink the most cups of coffee in 15 seconds.
• Coffee Talk:
  • Freya comes to the café almost every night for a triple shot expresso. This habit intensifies the further she gets along her novel draft.
  • Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly: When Lucas was younger and broke, he'd drink lots of Bee'n Buzzy, a highly caffeinated drink that's concentrated with milk and honey, to replace his meals. However, this made his stomach extremely acidic, which is why he can't handle coffee anymore.
• Unsurprisingly, Espresso Cookie in Cookie Run: Kingdom, who consumes a lot of coffee for the sake of experimentation, and has come to be addicted to the substance.
• In Day of the Tentacle, Dr. Fred's hands are jittering constantly since he's on a continuous caffeine high. In fact, he drinks coffee all the time to avoid falling asleep, nightmares and sleepwalking, and hasn't slept for ten years! As a result, when you need him to fall asleep to solve a puzzle, all you have to do is pour some decaf into his mug, and that by itself is enough for Instant Sedation.
• Francis York Morgan in Deadly Premonition relies upon coffee not just for a quick pick-me-up, but to predict the future. Hence the meme, "F...K! In the coffee!"
  • Coffee and caffeinated soft drinks also refill York's sleep meter, so it's possible for him to go the entire game without ever going to sleep outside of a cutscene. Then again, there are consequences to staying up too late...
• In Feral Fury, coffee is a health pickup, which heals all injury. Medkits, for comparison, only heal half of a square.
• In Fire Emblem: Three Houses while not outright addicted, Constance discovers the joys of coffee and introduces it to Hapi. Hapi then immediately craves more and Constance brings some to every meal she and Hapi share together with Byleth.
• In the Galaxy Angel trilogy, the Elsior's resident doctor, Kela Hazel, mentions that she loves how Vanilla prepares the coffee exactly how she likes it, and she drinks around 13.7 cups per day on average.
• Halo: Dr. Catherine Halsey's personal journal (included in the special editions of Halo: Reach) is peppered with amusing one-liners one would expect to hear from Kathryn Janeway, including "Need more DARK coffee. Why can't they grow decent coffee on this planet?!", "No work before coffee" (with all the notes preceding it scratched out), and "She will answer for making me drink decaf." The word "decaf" is underlined in an angry squiggle. In the novels her offices are often littered with days old coffee cups.
• In Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, the Wizard stays up until 2 AM, and is obsessed with stargazing. Not surprisingly, his favorite items are all coffee-related.
• Hi-Fi RUSH:
  • Kale Vandelay treats getting his coffee as Serious Business, seemingly considering it even more important than stopping The Resistance force trying to bring him down. He immediately backtracks his order to shut down the entire campus upon realizing that that includes the café, and is enraged upon learning that the Vandelay building's coffee machines are currently only capable of producing decaf coffee.
  • Korsica, likely due to being a workaholic, is a case of this, though not to the same extent as Kale. She's appalled upon discovering that the Vandelay building's coffee machines are only capable of producing decaf coffee, to the point of using the PA system to complain about the situation. The ending to the game implies that she eventually kicks her caffeine addiction, as she's shown drinking coffee with a coaster that says "System runs on decaf".
• Lola Rembrite in HuniePop 2 is an admitted caffeine junkie, mentioning that she often drinks coffee at nearly every part of the day in order to stay productive. It's even one of her baggage traits.
• KanColle: Most USN ships have hourly lines involving drinking or serving coffee, in line with the real life attitude the navy has towards its coffee.
• Lobotomy Corporation has Chesed, whose sprite is always seen with a mug of coffee, to the point that his corrupted form and his true form as a robot still have it. He also has it in the sequel, albeit with a different logo on the mug.
• Mass Effect: Andromeda: One of the very first things Sara Ryder says in the game is "can't explore space without my coffee." A coffee machine can be found in her quarters on the Tempest. Her brother Scott, conversely, does not share the enthusiasm (it gives him the jitters).
• Jaehee Kang from Mystic Messenger drinks more than her fair share of coffee, since her job as Jumin's Beleaguered Assistant often requires her to pull all-nighters. During her route, if you encourage her to explore any hobbies she might have, she finds that her passion for coffee extends beyond just drinking it, and she begins enthusiastically learning about different brewing practices, how the beans are harvested, etc. Her good ending is her happily leaving her assistant job and opening up a cafe with you.
• In Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Octodad is unable to stand up straight until he's had his morning coffee. A flashback chapter shows drinking coffee somehow gave Octodad the ability to stand up and impersonate a human.
• Prosecutor Godot from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations is obsessed with coffee, it being his "gimmick" of sorts. He often uses obscure coffee metaphors when describing his case, drinks up to seventeen cups in one trial day, has coffee served to him in a mug slid across the prosecutor's desk, does Spit Takes (sometimes even spending several seconds taking a drink for the sole purpose of doing a spit take), and throws his coffee at Phoenix when things aren't looking so good. He was also previously poisoned, which put him into a coma for 5 years. The smell of a doctor's cup of coffee was what woke him up.
  • In Case 4 of Trials and Tribulations, which is set six years before the present it becomes very clear that Diego Armando is Godot when he starts making coffee metaphors to Mia.
  • It also ends up being an important symbol at the end of the game, as when he drinks his One Last Cup before he is arrested for the case's murder, Phoenix drinks one as well, indicating reconciliation.
• In Plants vs. Zombies, mushrooms fall asleep during the day unless they are given a Coffee Bean.
• Pokémon:
  • The old man near the start of Pokémon Red and Blue and remakes is very grumpy until he's had his coffee, and wouldn't let you pass until he's had it.
  • In the original Japanese version, he was drunk and had to sober up. Becomes Fridge Brilliance when you realize that coffee is a popular method of doing this, so the translation still managed to maintain the joke.
  • The titular Detective Pikachu has coffee as his Trademark Favorite Drink and knows a surprisingly good deal about it.
• Potionomics has Luna, a moth marketing guru who's constantly online, constantly monitoring the rapidly shifting developments of her target markets and clients, and constantly high-strung and stressed trying to keep up with it all. She uses a lot of caffeine to keep up with the brisk pace of her chosen business, and one of her two Leitmotifs is even called "Luna's Coffee Break."
• In Rhythm Doctor, Cole comes in very dependent on his coffee to create music. This becomes Deconstructed very quickly, seeing as this behavior brings on significant enough issues with his heart that the Rhythm Doctor treatment is required—and even once this begins, he refuses to set it down even as he launches into an SVT attack. Dr. Ada makes very clear that he needs to find another means of motivation. By the end of act 2, he's switched to decaf.
• Scarlet Nexus: Arashi, who has Super-Speed and a metabolism to match, is always drinking soda, a regular source of additional easily-burned simple carbohydrates and of course, caffeine. Once Yuito’s Relationship Values with her are high enough, forming a Psychic Link with her to borrow her powers often has Yuito saying "I owe you a soda". Once you actually buy Arashi some, the entire Home Base gets littered with the cans. Arashi also has a sponsorship deal with a soda company.
• Mach in SC2VN goes out to buy energy drinks so much that he starts to view the local store clerk as a father figure.
• Kirsten Geary of The Secret World suffers from a crippling addiction to lattes, and requires regular doses of coffee just to keep her in a good mood. Plus, she can only start her day with a very rare and expensive blend brewed from genetically-altered dark roast beans passed through the digestive tract of an endangered wild cat and harvested from its droppings; starting her off on anything else can only end in tears.
• In Shadow of the Wool Ball, coffee pots are pickups that are the equivalent of armor, giving you resistance from damage.
• Shantae: Risky's Revenge has a twist on this. In the first game, Shantae meets a number of zombies, but they don't attack her on sight and are as intelligent and as coherent as any human. Risky's Revenge reveals the reason for this: the zombies drink coffee, and the coffee makes them smart. If they go too long without coffee, however, they degenerate into mindlessly violent zombies. So in their case, caffeine really is a necessity. In Half-Genie Hero, Hypno Baron manages to get his hands on a spell to summon unspeakable evil by trading Abner a large sum of coffee for it (in Abner's defense, they made the trade very early in the morning). Much to Hypno Baron's ultimate frustration and the player's amusement, said "unspeakable evil" is Squid Baron.
• The fan game Space Quest Incinerations opens with Roger Wilco stumbling out of a broom closet in search of coffee. It isn't until he's caffeinated himself that he notices half the kitchen is missing thanks to his ship being under attack.
• In Stardew Valley, coffee gives the player a speed bonus that stacks with other speed bonuses (such as the horse, or spicy food). In the late-game, when energy is not a problem but daylight is, that speed boost can prove so useful that players may wonder how they managed without it. Sebastian can also mention in casual dialogue that coffee might improve his focus (which is the case for some ADHD sufferers).
• In one point in the story of Super Mario RPG, you befriend an innkeeper, who lets you stay the night at her inn. When you wake up, she asks Mario how he's feeling, and you have two ways you can respond:
  1. "Like a new man!"
  2. "Need coffee, keep away...
• This could be true for the Scout in Team Fortress 2. In an early trailer, his motto simply reads "Too. Much. Caffeine." Plus, two of his unlockable weapons are energy drinks.
  • Forget the Scout. The Meet the Sniper video shows him, as the hours go by, drinking cup after cup after cup of coffee. Where else do you think the Jarate comes from? Admittedly, it is decaf, as shown by the coffee pot having an orange handle. It does still explain the Jarate, though.
• Tekken 8's new fighter Azucena lives on a coffee farm and her whole character gimmick is all about spreading the joys of drinking coffee and pursuing the best brew. She even has a bit of a beef with Lili due to Lili's preference for tea.
• In This War of Mine, some of the survivors are addicted to coffee, and their mood will go down if they can't get any.
• An old DOS game Toxic Bunny featured a, well, bunny... obsessed with "weaponry and caffeine". Seriously, it's difficult to find a plot-related speech that doesn't mention coffee.
• Twilight Heroes: Superheroes rely on sugar and caffeine to stay awake while adventuring at night.
  [Geary] reportedly oversaw a wetwork operation while sipping Dunkin' Donuts. There were no survivors.
• Wandersong: The Coffee Pirates love to drink coffee. Deconstructed just a bit in the Playable Epilogue, where Francisco says that it's hard to get any sleep with how much coffee he drinks.

Web Animation

• Blitzo of Helluva Boss is often seen drinking coffee, but this is most notable on his Instagram where Moxxie is often trying to encourage him to have a healthier diet.
• RWBY: Within the space of a single lesson, Doctor Oobleck's lecture is constantly interrupted by him pausing to guzzle coffee after coffee, of several different types, including espresso-shot mugs. He also never stops moving for long and his jittery behaviour indicates he can barely stand still for a moment. His weapon is eventually revealed to be his coffee thermos flask, which morphs into a flamethrower.
• RWBY Chibi: There are two skits involving Nora's addiction to coffee, and how it is very very bad for her. Nora drinking coffee can break down the barriers between entire dimensions.
• Brew, on his YouTube channel and the "On The Hill" channel, is a recluse who loves coffee and will become extremely distressed if deprived of his caffeine.

Web Comics

• Ruth in Altermeta has rarely been seen not holding a cup of coffee. In fact, everyone around him carries emergency caffeine sources, just in case.
• Antihero for Hire normally has the action taking place at night. When the hero has to get up during the day, he needs his coffee. He ends up spending most of the arc looking for some.
• In one contemporary arc strip of Arthur, King of Time and Space, Arthur, who is decidedly Not a Morning Person, is shown pouring coffee on his cereal. It's left ambiguous how intentional this is.
• In Blue Milk Special Darth Vader is addicted to coffee (which he drinks with a straw out of his favorite Star Trek mug), to the point where a) he had a temporary truce with Admiral Ackbar so they could get coffee, b) he placed a higher priority on getting the coffee machine on the second Death Star fixed than the second Death Star, and c) it triggered his Heel–Face Turn, as Palpatine forcing him to fight Luke led to his beloved 'Muggy' getting shattered.
• This strip from the blog of the french cartoonist Boulet.
• A lack of coffee drives Quantum Cop to police brutality.
• What convinces Blaine's employees in Charby the Vampirate that he's been possessed or replaced is his pouring copious amounts of milk into his coffee, since he drinks his black every morning.
• Margaret Browning from College Roomies from Hell!!! is a textbook example, her bucket-sized coffee cup being known as "The Browning" and formerly known as "The Suicide".
• In Cthulhu Slippers, do NOT summon Hastur before he's had his coffee.
• This strip of El Goonish Shive.
• Exterminatus Now: If you touch Inquisitor Eastwood's coffee, he will break your arm.
  • His addiction to caffeine even overcomes his phobia of spiders.
• Freefall:
  • Florence Ambrose tends to take exception to having her coffee taken away, as only a carnivore can. She also explicitly cited the availability of coffee as a benefit of restoring power to Sam's ship. Amusingly, another strip indicates that she can't (or at least shouldn't) actually drink coffee due to her canine physiology, but as an engineer she craves the smell of it.
    Winston: [Thinking] She growls when I get near her coffee. That's almost human.
  • The coffee maker still brewing is implied to be the reason that the compound where Dr. Bowman is being held wasn't able to get above 50% readiness in under 60 seconds.
• In General Protection Fault, part of the test to see if a geek is 'The One' is a test of caffeine addiction. Fooker passed it by enjoying coffee that has congealed to the consistency of tar. Sharon passed it by chewing coffee beans and washing them down with more coffee.
• Girl Genius:
  • Vanamonde von Mekkhan spends all his time in a coffee shop in Mechanicsburg, and certainly does enjoy his coffee. He has even written a textbook on coffee preparation (under a pseudonym): Bean There, Done That.
  • The first time Agatha has coffee, everybody else agrees that she doesn't need a second cup. Ever.
    The second (Heterodyne girl) is making coffee... there have been two explosions already.
  • Lumi von Mekkhan from the Franz Scortchmaw sidestory panics on being told the trackless wastes around a dragon's lair are unlikely to have any coffee shops. She's later dissuaded from attacking the "ghost" Hector when he offers her chocolate-covered coffee beans. Given her surname, it seems like this is a family trait.
• White from Grey is..., especially in the mornings but it seems to be his drink of choice all the time. When he first gets back after two years away, the first thing he does after greeting Black is search the house for coffee.
• Sydney, from Grrl Power; she used to just work in a comic book store, but ended up joining a superhero team that has certain rules in place... such as doing laps at 7 in the morning, no excuse for going to a club the previous night as a P.R. move. One particular morning, she drank so much coffee (and energy drinks, and several bowls of spicy noodles) that the blood pressure cuff exploded. No, the doctor doesn't know how it could happen either- Sydney doesn't have any inherent abilities that could do that.
• Wes in Here There Be Monsters turns in a report that is just scans of a butt after a long night and excuses this by saying:
  "I'm like a zombie without my coffee!"
• In Holiday Wars, Tegan, the comic's protagonist, is a coffee junkie and declares so in this episode.
• Dante, the Head Programmer in Angst Technology, can tell from nearly fifteen feet away if the coffee in the office machine has been replaced with decaf.
• Ada from Jackies Fridge likes her coffee very strong!
• A girl in Mandatory Roller Coaster asks "Have you ever drank so much coffee that your pee smells like coffee?"
• Ralph from Melonpool is an avid drinker of the stuff.
• Subverted in PVP, where Brent Sienna is initially addicted to coffee but has to give it up for health reasons. Then when PVP magazine is in crisis, and Brent insists on coffee to "give him his edge", it turns out it was decaf in a classic example of "the magic was in you all along."
• The Order of the Stick:
  • The prequel book Start of Darkness reveals that before he became a lich, Xykon loved coffee (he even refused to let Redcloak and Right-eye tell them about their plan until he had some), and extolled the virtues of bad coffee (as he puts it, when you drink truly horrible coffee, you force yourself to re-experience every good cup you've ever had to block out the slop you're currently pouring down your throat). When he tries to drink his first cup of coffee after becoming a lich and discovers he no longer has a sense of taste, he reacts... poorly.
  • A strip in the actual comic has Belkar get into this state after waking up with a hangover after a New Year's Celebration. Unfortunately for him, Vaarsuvius not only filtered the coffee through Roy's sweatsocks, but he also rigged the coffee can with Explosive Runes. "Good to the last boom," indeed.
• An early Ozy and Millie strip, from when the writer admits she was going for the newspaper comic audience.
  Millie: I don't care if it does stunt my growth. I. Need. COFFEE.
• This Questionable Content shows a justified example. Really surprising the trope doesn't crop up more often since QC centers around a coffee shop.
  • In another strip, someone offers Faye coffee first thing in the morning, and she drinks it straight from the carafe.
• Rooster Teeth Comics has a Running Gag about Matt having died from lack of caffeine.
• Invoked during the "Glamour Assault" arc of Schlock Mercenary, when Shodan needed to get a building evacuated immediately.
  The coffee guy has jury duty at three, and will be closing for the day in about five minutes.
• Lynette from Sharing a Universe quickly got hooked on the stuff and turned herself into "The Coffee Hunter" stalking the city after those precious beans when Alison decided to intervene and stop supplying her addiction.
• Baby Blue holds it while demonstrating Not a Morning Person in Sinfest. Then, she is disgruntled for additional reasons.
  • Monique moves from "Kill me now." to "I can move mountains!"
• In Sluggy Freelance when Torg and Riff briefly got regular 9-to-5 jobs they became coffee zombies in the morning.
  • Later, making everyone addicted to high-octane "coffee" (that is explosive in its undiluted state) is just one form of Government Drug Enforcement in 4U City. And cutting off the coffee pipeline sets off a massive revolution.
• In Three Jaguars, Business Manager lives on it. She even is drinking coffee in preparation for the actual launch.
• Liam from Tripping Over You is described as "having blood that is more caffeine than plasma", such that his boyfriend gets him a coffeemaker for an Apology Gift instead of wine or flowers. When his host serves him decaf, he takes one polite sip and discreetly pushes the mug away.
• User Friendly uses this trope from time to time, particularly with the Crud Puppy.
  • Early strips of the comic have tech support member Greg harassed by a Kool-Aid Man-esque can of diet cola when he decides to try to cut back on caffeine.
  • "I just rewrote the Linux kernel!" "When did you learn to program?" "This morning!"
  • After attempting to make a truly Uninterruptible Power Supply powered by uranium, Pitr reveals that as of recently he's been making coffee with heavy water.
  • What's the first thing they restore power to after moving their operations into an abandoned nuclear silo? Nope, not lights... "Ahhh, truly dark roast."
• The Whiteboard is a great example. The main character "Doc" brews his own Mt Dew because the normal stuff is too weak.
  • One arc involves Doc drinking energy shots by the quart after he runs out of Dew and coffee, resulting in one of the more "realistic" portrayals of the effects of Klatchian Coffee.
• In Yokoka's Quest, Grace requires a coffee when waking up, and stops at Starbucks for another, before arriving at school. She's also heartbroken to discover that Cisum doesn't have coffee (but later finds out that it does, and Yokoka just had no idea what coffee was).

Web Original

• Virtual vlogger Ami Yamato is a big coffee-drinker, to the extent that her title sequence is just her collecting a coffee from Starbucks. In her very first video, moving back to London after spending two years in Tokyo, she is pleased to note that the greasy-spoon café near her flat has become a Starbucks, but laments this in a later video when suffering from insomnia, which she suspects may be down to having drunk one too many cappuccinos. The pinnacle of her coffee addiction has to be "Waking Bad", where she dreams of herself as Breaking Bad's Gus Fring threatening Walter for failing to bring her the double-shot vanilla latte she ordered.
• In the web-published novel series Shadow of the Templar, team leader Simon is a complete addict, to the point where he took to kissing someone who'd just taken a sip of coffee when, post-surgery, he was banned from the drink, leading to lines like "Oh God, you taste like coffee". The coffee maker in the team's headquarters is named "Mrs. Simon Drake (<3)".
• Deliberately subverted in this podcast where the hosts open every show with "Morning Coffee". To date they have never once had coffee during this segment, with beverages sometimes deeply oddball to avoid it. Also some of the co-hosts do a segment dubbed "Evening Pint" where they drink nothing but coffee.
• Another flavor of "Morning Coffee" comes as a Firefox plugin for pulling up your daily internet dosage of addiction. It's an especially good tool for Web Comics folk, provided your comics all remember to update on time.
• Whateley Universe:
  • In the devisor labs at Whateley Academy, the mad scientists gather every morning over a specially designed brewer to enjoy coffee so strong it's... well, just read the quote.
    "Imagine a twenty-gallon stainless-steel vat of water, heated by a kind of micro-fusion reactor and made to work as a giant engine of percolation. Add to this the whole deal a filter that literally rips every useful bit of anti-nutrient and caffeine in the grounds and you have yourself some potent stuff. Our coffee is considered a deadly weapon in three states."
  • Jericho, one of said devisers, is so addicted to coffee that he has a coffee mug holder. On his power armor.
  • The devisers have a regular coffee chant that's a blatant Shout-Out to the Mentats of Dune.
  • Murphy uses coffee to keep her ADHD under control. It works to a certain extent, but she usually ends up getting her coffee taken away because she's so high on caffeine that she's a jittery, giggling mess.
• In "The Kickassian War" (an extra on the Kickassia DVD), The Nostalgia Chick becomes animalistic when she's deprived of coffee for a couple of days.
• Used in this Lolcats page. A good example that having no coffee can be terrible for some people.
• Dr Kondraki of the SCP Foundation is known to go on mass-shootings if he doesn't get his daily coffee fix.
• Survival Tips for S.H.I.E.L.D. Recruits implies that SHIELD as a whole qualifies for this trope, as it has over a dozen rules associated with coffee. Starting with the Rule #1: Always make more coffee if you empty the pot. You do not want to know what will happen to you if you fail to do so.
• Quite a few of the sporkers at Das Sporking use coffee as a means of staving off boredom or anger at whatever they're working on. Mervin has gone on record a few times as saying she's literally addicted to caffeine, getting intense headaches if she goes without it (although in her case, she drinks soda).
• In The Autobiography of Jane Eyre, Grace Poole's favourite drink is coffee without milk or sugar. She drinks it even at parties, as seen in the episode "A New Age of Aluminium".
  Warren: Grace! Gracie P! Are you having any fun?
  Grace: (on edge) Yes, Warren, thank you. [...] Actually, Warren, I really don't think this is...
  Warren: You know what, Gracie? I don't think you are enjoying yourself properly. What are you drinking? (takes her cup and sniffs it) This is COFFEE!
• The Nostalgia Critic is desperate enough for coffee that he'll even have it before going to sleep.
• In the Home Office video "Me, I'm Not (File 2/15)", Linc is grumpy due to a lack of coffee.
• Reversal of Roll to Breathe is completely overworked balancing his school, work, family, and superhero lives. He never gets enough sleep, and his record for cups of coffee is 18 cups in one day.
• SomecallmeJohnny is a self-proclaimed coffee addict. He's always seen making a cup in every intro, he's usually holding a cup during his reviews, and a lot of jokes surrounding coffee are made in short bursts. This is reflected in his merch, where he has shirts embedded with a coffee mug design, and actual coffee mugs with his logos on them.

Western Animation

• Wyatt from 6teen always has coffee every day. One time he couldn't get coffee, which left him with very little energy.
• Bob's Burgers: A Compressed Vice version of this is shown in the season 3 finale "The Unnatural"; when Bob gets an espresso machine, Tina tries the first cup, and she gets instantly addicted to coffee. While the effects of the caffeine are the usual, her symptoms of withdrawal seem more akin to much harder drugs.
• Danger Mouse: The episode "Ee-Tea!" has society as a global whole ground to a halt after Baron Greenback steals all the tea there is.
• One episode of Dexter's Laboratory shows how Mom and Dad are in the morning before they have their coffee. Once they have their coffee they magically transform into their "normal" selves. And the plot of the episode is, of course, that the kids have stolen their coffee overnight, Dexter being curious how coffee changes them.
• The Fairly OddParents!: Hilarity ensues when Cosmo and Wanda turn into humans and Mr. Crocker introduces them to their first cup of coffee.
• Futurama:
  • "Three Hundred Big Boys" involves Fry's attempt to use his 300 Tricky Dick Funbucks (read: "tax refund") on 100 cups of coffee. Despite getting unbelievably jittery, irascible, and otherwise fucking wired, he arrives at this goal. Somehow. Apparently, when you hit #100, you attain Super-Speed.
  • In The Beast with a Billion Backs, the crew is shown to have a pre-mission ritual of receiving scalding-hot coffee enemas.
• Bobo (especially after a rough night) in Generator Rex. In "Crash and Burn", he finds the coffee maker is empty, so he eats the coffee grounds.
• In Jackie Chan Adventures, Uncle orders either Jackie or Tohru to "Get in kitchen and make coffee! Uncle need caffeine!"
  • He gets very irritable if he doesn't get it. "You forgot to make coffee this morning! Coffee is the only thing keeping Uncle's ancient heart beating! You want dead Uncle?! NO?! THEN YOU MAKE COFFEE!!"
• In the Justice League episode "Only a Dream", Doctor Destiny is able to trap people when they fall asleep. Batman's been up for three days straight, and he needs to stay up long enough to find and defeat DD. He winds up driving to a restaurant and demanding the most caffeine-laden drink they have. The punchline being his earlier statement to Martian Manhunter that he did not use stimulants of any kind... because he was anticipating having to deal with someone who could kill you in your dreams. By abstaining, he avoided building up a tolerance, insuring that caffeine would be fully effective if and when he needed to resort to it.
• Used as a one-scene gag on Kaeloo, where the eponymous character gets addicted to coffee, which is never brought up again.
• Bugs Bunny, of all people, in the The Looney Tunes Show episode "Off Duty Cop". He has at least five cups of coffee a morning, which makes him jittery, high-strung and paranoid, and when his doctor makes him go off caffeine he switches to an energy drink of questionable legality. In The Stinger for the episode, he reveals that the doctor told him one cup a day couldn't hurt...and is shown pouring coffee into a cup the size of a foot bath.
• In Men in Black: The Series, the "worm guys" entire function at MIB seems to involve making coffee (and getting into wacky shenanigans at the worst of times). It is revealed that on their home planet, only royalty can drink coffee, leading to their quick addiction to it once they reached Earth (Forbidden Fruit and all that). One episode has them saving their king's life and requesting the right to freely drink coffee as their reward.
• In The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode "Power Lunch", Lil' Arturo drinks a cup of coffee followed by the whole pot. The revival episode '"Super Sweet 6" has the Professor going on a frantic coffee binge at Princess Morbucks' birthday party.
• The Simpsons:
  • The Simpsons Movie has an AA reunion going berserk after the coffee machine is broken.
  • An episode sees Bart slip into this phase when his parents are away and they're left with Grandpa Simpson to watch them...
    Bart: Hey grandpa, top me off.
    Grandpa Simpson: Are you sure your parents let you kids have coffee?
    Bart: FOR THE LAST TIME, YES!
  • Another one has Barney switch to coffee for a while before inevitably returning to beer.
  • "Mountain of Madness" starts with Mr. Burns arriving at work all chipper and energetic; when Smithers offers him his coffee, he turns it down, saying he doesn't need it. Then, over the span of about five minutes, he slowly nods off, and starts to fall asleep, until he weakly says, "Smithers... cof... fee..." (He snaps back awake when he gets it.)
• Tweek from South Park is absolutely addicted to coffee, and as a result is very twitchy. His parents—who run a coffee shop and think an eight-year-old drinking it is perfectly healthy—think his twitchiness is due to ADD. As a side note, South Park: The Stick of Truth reveals that the secret ingredient to their Coffee is meth.
• In Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Brak famously states "I don't like coffee. It makes me jittery. Here's an impression of me on coffee: DS;5w23LFKJP70IEU@Q)O($*#@05rsldkfjxxx. Hey, whaddayadoinwhaddayadoinwhaddayadoinwhaddayadoin? I don't know what I'm doin', cause I've had too much coffee! AAAAA! Don't drink too much coffee, kids."
  • In the Cartoon Planet episode 'Tom Foolery', Zorak explains that his bad temperment is from giving up coffee;
    Space Ghost: Uh oh.
    Zorak: My whole biosystem is in utter turmoil. There's an all-out war raging inside of this crusty shell and I'M LOSING!!
• In Star Trek: Prodigy, Hologram Janeway carries this trait over from her human counterpart—though in this case, she simply reaches out a hand and conjures a holographic mug from nowhere.
• Star Wars Resistance: In "Signal from Sector Six", Kaz is woken up before dawn and immediately makes a beeline for the caf machine.
• At the start of the Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat episode "Nightmare on Oak Street", Roscoe is trying to drink as much coffee as possible so he won't fall asleep and be at the mercy of the episodes villain, a dream-weaving monster named Jeepers Creepers. It doesn't work though—he ends up falling asleep anyway.
• We Bare Bears: In "Coffee Cave", the bears start a coffee house in their cave. Ice Bear, the one making the coffee, gets worn out, so his brothers give him some of the brew, despite Ice saying the coffee does not agree with him. Soon enough Ice Bear becomes addicted to the point where he starts eating coffee beans whole and eventually tries to kill his own brothers to get more.
  "Ice Bear needs more coffee."
• Dr. Bergs from Ready Jet Go! loves coffee, and is always shown with a cup of it in his hand. It's implied he can't function without it. Also, this exchange from "Comet Fever".
  Sean: You have enough coffee for an army.
  Dr. Bergs: An army of one, my friend. An army of one.
• In an episode of Darkwing Duck, Drake Mallard crawls into the kitchen in a zombie-like state, moaning "COFFEEEEEE! COFFEEEEEEE!" while his eyes are swirling in different colors. His hand can be seen grabbing the pot, and he can be heard drinking the coffee, but it is not shown if he's poured himself a cup or just drinking from the pot itself.

---

It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
The hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.