A good cup of coffee is never beyond your reach. Whether you want it freshly brewed, ice-blended or taken in shots, your local coffee shop, office pantry, and three-in-one have you covered. In this respect, consider yourself lucky. Back in the day, coffee was not so easy to get. Before Baba Budan, the purported Indian pilgrim slash smuggler who took off with a couple of fertile seeds, coffee beans were exclusively grown in Arabia and Africa. If he hadn’t done what he did, think of how much coffee would cost now (if today’s oil prices are of any indication).

Not that we condone any form of smuggling, but can you really imagine a world without coffee (shudder)? Without it, you’d have to face the morning traffic head on, make your presentation half-asleep, and get through the worst workweeks with only the beeping of the office printer to keep you alert. Besides, think of these other benefits from coffee that you’d miss out on:

(Photo by Umer Shabib via Flickr Creative Commons)