Our Best Coffee Stories That Got You Wired This Year

If you're like us, you may feel like you owe every single bit of your success in 2015 to that magical, dark brown elixir that us mere mortals simply refer to as coffee.

Whether your daily morning ritual involves meticulously aero-pressing a scoop of freshly ground, artisan-roasted coffee or K-cupping your way into a state of pure caffeinated bliss, this year taught us that there are absolutely no rules to any coffee habit.

It is totally normal to enjoy the hell out of that Styrofoam cup full of watery, mystery beans from your local donut shop. All of America does, too, according to data that was published earlier this year. This might come as kind of a shocker, considering the rise of higher-end brands like Intelligentsia, Stumptown, or Le Colombe over the past few years. But the reason is as simple as pressing a button for your coffee: price and convenience. "Price is important because if you can't afford it, you can't buy it," said a research firm's representative in our story published earlier this year.

As expected, 2015 was a big year for weed and coffee culture mashups, too. The most interesting was probably the study that proved how sipping a little bit of coffee can actually curb your whacky-tobacky cravings. It turns out that small amounts of coffee seem to block our presynaptic A2A receptors, and researchers theorize that selectively blocking these receptors could treat pot dependence. In layman speak, this means that soothing yourself with a steamy, moderately-sized cup of joe can help keep you from being such a hardcore fiend for weed all the damn time.

On the other hand, if you're straight-edge but secretly love the flavor of weed, this was your year, too! MUNCHIES tracked down the coffee wizard in downtown Los Angeles who hot-boxes his beans for kush-flavored coffee just for the flavor—not the high. "The skunkiness is right at the end," the guy said. We're sure it is, bro.

2015 was also the momentous year that MUNCHIES almost solved the question that has plagued every pothead since the beginning of time: Why do we get the munchies after smoking weed? While the answer is not as easy as we might like, you can basically blame "neurons in the hypothalamus—known as POMCs—literally [becoming] scrambled when exposed to marijuana," wrote our senior editor Matt Zuras (the hypothalamus being the portion of the brain that controls our hunger). He interviewed scientists to get this answer, and we are eternally grateful for their expertise.

Lastly, coffee news in 2015 also armed the globetrotting jetsetters of us with a secret weapon against dealing with jetlag: creamy Vietnamese iced coffee with an unapologetic amount of sweetened condensed milk. Our author put it best, "It's like highly caffeinated candy that also happens to be a traveler's best friend as he or she attempts to navigate the gorgeous cultural, geological, and historical diversity during a tour of Vietnam."

Something to keep in mind next time you're on vacation: coffee cures all.