Given coffee’s long history, its cross-cultural prevalence and its role in keeping doctors awake on the graveyard shifts, its health effects have been subject to much research.

Given little of this research involves RCTs, the general consensus at the minute is that moderate coffee consumption is associated with lower risks of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and death.

In fact, the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend moderate coffee consumption as part of a “healthy dietary pattern”, although the evidence is a little more murky when it comes to drinking more than 3-5 cups a day.

But while the research suggests its effects are dose-dependent, it is now being suggested it could also be time-dependent — particularly when it comes to that morning fix.