The President Who Allegedly Drank A Bathtub Of Coffee Every Day

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A day without any coffee is unimaginable to many. It helps us energize and feel awake, and it's also linked to boosting cognitive function. With that in mind, it's easy to see why it's become such a dependable beverage to get people through the day. And as it turns out, the 26th President of America, Theodore Roosevelt, was also a big coffee drinker.

But for the former president, a mere one or two cups of coffee a day didn't suffice. According to some reports, Roosevelt gulped down a gallon's worth of coffee every day (that's about 16 cups!). However, others say that he drank much more. According to the book "What Was Cooking in Edith Roosevelt's White House," Roosevelt's children "swore" that the former president chugged a bathtub of coffee with his breakfast.

Regardless of whether or not Roosevelt actually consumed a bathtub full of coffee every day, what's for certain is the way he liked consuming it — with a lot of sugar (seven lumps to be precise). That being said, Roosevelt wasn't the only president who loved his morning brew. There were many former presidents who took their coffee habits seriously. Dwight Eisenhower would very well have given Teddy a run for his money — the 34th U.S. President drank anywhere between 15 and 20 cups of coffee a day!

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Theodore Roosevelt's relationship with coffee began at an early age when his parents gave him some to help with his asthma. Coupled with coffee, Roosevelt's parents incorporated exercise and boxing into his life, improving his overall health and reducing the bouts of asthma attacks. Over the years, Roosevelt became a parent himself and passed down his love for the bean to his four children: Ethel, Kermit, Archie, and Ted. In fact, the Roosevelt children even went on to set up a coffee shop chain, the Brazilian Coffee House, across New York City. The idea stemmed from Roosevelt's second child, Kermit, who sometimes traveled with his father. On one such trip to Brazil, Kermit became acquainted with the country's more relaxed coffee-drinking culture and cafes that sold brews made from freshly ground beans — both novel concepts in the Big Apple at the time.

Kermit hoped to bring such a coffee culture to New York and teamed up with his siblings to do that. The first Brazilian Coffee House opened in 1919, and it claimed to have "real" coffee, prepared from beans that were roasted in-house. Despite not being actively involved in the day-to-day running of their establishment, the Roosevelt children did their bit for the coffee culture movement, and in a way, it can all be traced back to Theodore Roosevelt and his love for coffee in a way.