Honoré de Balzac - 50 cups of coffee a day

Honoré de Balzac (1799 - 1850), a French playwright and novelist, is known for describing the French way of life in a way that reaches every reader.

Balzac loved coffee as much as he loved his work, perhaps even more. In his opinion, there was no harm in drinking coffee - the more the merrier!

Indeed, Balzac found that when he drank coffee, he could write better, as his mind was pushed to its limits by the coffee. But unfortunately, he did not heed the adage "enjoy in moderation, not in mass".

And so, for 25 years, Honoré de Balzac drank about 50 cups of coffee a day to reach his greatest moments. By drinking coffee and chewing coffee grounds every day, Balzac's career developed in unexpected directions. This enabled him to write numerous works, including 8 plays, 12 novellas, 18 short stories and 47 novels.

Since most of his career was based on the fact that he drank so much coffee every day, he even wrote a book about it, "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Coffee", explaining what coffee does to the nerves, muscles, behaviour and especially the mind.

His early death at 51 just a few months after his marriage is said to have been related to his years of excessive coffee drinking.