Coffee, Wakefulness, and Productivity: What Are We Trying to Stay Awake For?

Coffee does more than wake us up. It can help sustain an activity, a ritual, or a routine. Across different periods and contexts, the drink has been associated with the ability to stay alert for longer. What changes is the purpose of that attention.

This is one way to look at coffee’s history: not as a sequence of dates and inventions, but as a story about what we try to do when we push sleep aside.

A Drink for Prolonging Wakefulness

Historical accounts of coffee’s spread in Yemen connect the drink with the practices of Sufi groups. In these communities, coffee was consumed during religious vigils that included recitation and other forms of devotion. The broader history of coffee records this connection between the drink and Sufi practice. (History of coffee)

In this context, staying awake was not an end in itself. Wakefulness served a spiritual practice. Coffee was therefore more than a stimulant: its consumption was part of a collective activity organized around a specific purpose.

This episode offers a compelling image. An everyday drink could help extend the time devoted to a practice. From there, we can ask what other activities have come to depend on this same ability to remain alert.

Coffee Changes Context

Today, coffee accompanies activities that demand focus and stamina. It appears before work, during study sessions, in meetings, and in the breaks that divide the working day. The stimulating effect remains. What changes is what we hope to achieve through it.

In contemporary productivity culture, staying awake is often associated with doing more, keeping up the pace, and extending our capacity to work. The body is still being activated, but the goal has shifted. Instead of sustaining a religious vigil, coffee may sustain a performance-oriented routine.

That does not mean its ritual dimension has disappeared. The first cup of the morning, a mid-afternoon break, or a cup before starting a task can also structure the day. These repeated gestures mark transitions from one moment to the next.

Perhaps the difference lies in the meaning we give those gestures. Increasingly, the ritual points less toward the transcendent and more toward the willingness to keep producing. In that sense, we might call coffee a “sacrament of productivity.” This is a metaphor, not a religious claim. It suggests that the cup can become a symbolic gesture of preparation for work.

New Habits, New Meanings

A G1 report published on October 16, 2024, describes the growth of coffee consumption in China and highlights the expansion of coffee shops and delivery services. (G1 report on coffee consumption in China)

This suggests that coffee’s expansion depends on more than taste. Convenience, access, and changing consumption habits may also be part of the shift. But these examples do not describe every Chinese consumer, nor do they point to a single way of drinking coffee in the country. They show a market in transition, not a homogeneous culture.

In Tibet, a report published by the outlet Kunming on March 26, 2026, says that coffee is gaining popularity. (Kunming report on coffee in Tibet) This account points to the drink’s growing presence in a region where tea has deep cultural roots. But on its own, it does not establish that Tibetan monks have adopted coffee for meditation, or that there is a general Buddhist rule about caffeine consumption. Regional popularity and monastic practice are separate questions.

What Are We Trying to Sustain?

Coffee reveals both continuity and change. The continuity lies in using the drink to accompany periods of wakefulness and attention. The change lies in the purpose assigned to that effort.

In one context, staying awake may support a devotional practice. In another, it may help someone get through a workday, study, or keep up the pace. These experiences are not equivalent. The comparison suggests that stimulants play a role in how different societies organize time, the body, and attention.

Perhaps the question is not simply why we drink coffee. Perhaps it is: what do we hope to achieve when we try to stay awake for longer?