Caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance in the world. Its content in a coffee depends on how it is prepared and, fundamentally, on the type of grain, since even within the same plant its concentration can vary. In general, an espresso (30 ml) has around 40 mg of caffeine, while a Starbucks Venti (almost 600 ml) has more than 400 mg.
The effects of caffeine depend on the person in question: those who drink coffee daily can tolerate much more than those who do it occasionally. But ingesting too much caffeine can cause a host of symptoms, most of them related to the brain and digestive system. In fact, someone can die from a caffeine overdose, but don’t worry, for this it is necessary to drink more than 100 coffees a day.
There is an insect that can laugh at your caffeine tolerance. It is known as the coffee berry borer and its scientific name is Hypothenemus hampei. This beetle is the most caffeinated creature in existence and lives so peacefully on the berries of the coffee plant, where pure caffeine is found at concentrations lethal to most insects and many other animals. If they were humans for a moment, their consumption would be equivalent to drinking more than 200 espressos a day , but this bug does it every day and at all hours.
The trick to surviving this lifestyle lies in your own guts, where up to 14 types of bacteria have been found, with Pseudomonas fulva being the most common. This bacterium has a gene responsible for it being able to break down caffeine so easily and survive solely on it.
Due to their small size, these beetles should not be a great threat, but nevertheless they are the most serious coffee pest in the world and create enormous problems for producers, since they create tunnels in the fruit of the coffee plant and put eggs in it. The life cycle of these insects lasts between 24 and 45 days, being able to house in the same plant more than three generations .
Research done on pests could help find a way to control the insect, no longer attacking it directly with pesticides, but targeting its gut microbiota, for example, by developing a method that alters its bacteria so that caffeine takes them. is toxic, just as it is for other insects.
