Ames, Ia. - In a 400-square-foot storefront across the street from Iowa State University, a peppy woman cooks up a batch of Iowa's newest alternative energy.
Allison Nelson pulls a sheet of brownies from the oven, lets it cool, then slices the sheet into 4-inch-long treats. Baked inside each is the magic ingredient of Nelson's business, a fledgling bakery called A Snack in the Face: 200 milligrams of pharmaceutical-grade caffeine.
"Iowa's the capital of alternative energies: wind, ethanol, biodiesel," Nelson said.
And now this - the tastiest alternative energy yet, and another step in the modern world becoming the most caffeinated society known to man.
The nation's first caffeine bakery, now a year old, plans to expand to a larger manufacturing facility and supply convenience stores in Iowa and nationwide. The tiny Lincoln Way shop garners surprised looks from many who walk past. Some seem scared. But for most who pop in, it's like a revelation. Their faces light up at a delectable brownie with an energy burst.
But perhaps Nelson's caffeinated brownies, cookies, truffles and more shouldn't be surprising, just another cultural touchstone for our work-harder, produce-more, sleep-less society. Since Red Bull first came to America in 1997, energy drinks have proliferated. Convenience stores have entire sections dedicated to hundreds of energy drinks. Tiny energy shots have gained prominent spots on store counters. Cyberspace hawks caffeinated knickknacks: soap (Shower Shock), lip balm (Spazz Stick), beef jerky (Perky Jerky) - even Stay Puft Caffeinated Gourmet Marshmallows.
It's as if an American subculture, defined by extreme-sports fanatics on one end and computer geeks on the other, has developed around the omnipresent drug.
"Caffeine is much more available and in much more things than at any time in human history," said Catherine Tucker, an associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University and author of an upcoming book, "Coffee Culture." "But a bakery, that's fascinating. It's the next step - as if you can't get enough caffeine in cola, coffee, tea and chocolate."
While caffeinated brownies might be a uniquely 21st-century phenomenon, the human desire for a pick-me-up might be as old as humanity. Evidence of tea consumption goes back millenia. The history of coffee is a bit murkier.
According to Bennett Alan Weinberg, who with Bonnie K. Bealer co-authored "The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug," historians believe natives of Africa harvested coffee beans thousands of years ago, crushed them and mixed them with food during long hunting trips.
But the first evidence of coffee consumption in the western world, Weinberg said, comes from 16th-century mystics in Yemen, who used coffee to fuel whirling dervish dances. Europe first saw coffee in the intellectual gatherings of the Royal Society in England, Weinberg said, served by a pharmacist to stimulate the leading scientific minds. Soon, coffee and tea spread through the Western world.
It's no coincidence, he said, that the Industrial Revolution came at the same time, and that caffeine use has again spiked in the Internet age. Coffee is now the second-most valuable traded commodity in the world, next to oil.
"As we enter the information age, with the need to stimulate intellects, the need to think sharply and more quickly and be more accurate, these are the things that caffeine ratchets up," Weinberg said.
Kathryn Lollar, an Iowa native who lives near Chicago, has talked up A Snack in the Face on her blog after she had Nelson ship goodies to her.
Earlier generations "got up in the morning and started farming, were busy all day and didn't have time to think about how tired they were," Lollar said. "Now we get up, go and sit in an office all day, not doing anything physical. ...
"We're meant to do stuff, but we don't anymore," she continued. "Everything's done for us. It's just like this never-ending cycle. We need something to wake us up, then we can't sleep."
For some experts, that's a deep concern.
Caffeine use among youth worries Ruth Litchfield, an Iowa State University associate professor of food science and nutrition. Researchers have found caffeine to have health benefits, she said - lowering the risk of Parkinson's, protecting brain cells, decreasing the risk of gallstones in women - but research also shows caffeine affects women's fertility and disrupts sleep patterns. Litchfield is most worried about high-calorie, high-caffeine beverages hurting children's health.
"We are creating a generation that is highly addicted to stimulants," Litchfield said.
At A Snack in the Face, a chocolate melter sits next to a bowl of a mound of white, powdery caffeine. The powder tastes awful: grainy, with a potent bitterness that lingers.
The idea came a few years ago. Neither Nelson nor her husband likes coffee, but both love caffeine. Wes Nelson's first idea was to mix caffeine powder with water. He brought samples to his colleagues at an Ames engineering firm. A problem: Powdered caffeine is not water-soluble. His colleagues hated it.
Another problem: The taste. Plants developed caffeine in their leaves to repel pests. Nicknames for coffee include "battery acid" and "varnish remover." In powdered form, caffeine tastes like crushed aspirin. That's why caffeine is so often masked in beverages with sugar and flavoring agents.
The next idea made more sense. Allison Nelson grew up around her mother's catering business. She learned to cook and bake at age 13. For years, she's operated a side business baking creative specialty cakes.
How much caffeine could they jam into a brownie and still have it taste good? Their first brownies had 400 milligrams of caffeine, about the same as a large cup of Starbucks brewed coffee. The brownies tasted good. But caffeine in solid form digests slowly. The energy burst creeps up on you.
"I'm lying there, staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m. and saying, 'I think that's too much,' " Wes said.
They settled on 200 milligrams per brownie, their highest-potency item. They hope to get in campus convenience stores this month, and then move into local convenience store chains soon. Each batch of the brownies has two cups of butter, four cups of sugar and eight eggs, plenty of flavor to mask the bitterness.
"It's exactly what grandma used to bake - no high-fructose corn syrup, no partially hydrogenated soybean oil," Allison Nelson said. "We're not wrapping up caffeine in a health bar here. We're wrapping it up in a home-baked treat. Isn't it about time you have caffeine and it tastes good?"
As Nelson spoke, a woman walked in. The university research scientist was out for a lunchtime stroll and was intrigued.
"So it's for students to stay awake?" asked Marcia Macedo with a quizzical look.
And like any good dealer, Wes Nelson offered her a free chocolate-covered brownie bite for the first taste. The woman paused, appearing scared, and said she would return after lunch.
