We’re celebrating the One-year anniversary of Micro Digest this week, and what better way to do it than to revisit the top 3 most viewed What’s Up Wednesday issues.

#3 Coffee & Culture ☕

• We discussed how coffee became popular and drove up global productivity.

• The world replaced a depressant (alcohol) with a stimulant (caffeine).

• Could the world adopt something else to replace caffeine?

• I theorised that it could be psychedelics, probably in the form of a more widely acceptable refined cannabis, like a drink or candy.

• Malaysia’s Ministry of Health recently acknowledged the domestic use of cannabis (and its by-products) for medical treatment.

• The legitimised adoption of cannabis in the medical industry is a huge step in destigmatising its psychoactive properties.

• Let’s just hope it’s not abused like the opioid crisis.

• Revisit the original issue here.

#2 The Jellyfish Economy 🐼

• It was interesting to know that jellyfish are used as a reserve currency for the trading of animals for zoos.

• Zoos banned monetary transactions to curb poaching of wild animals.

• However, the rules don’t apply for Pandas.

• Pandas are unique to and is symbolic to China, so they’re leased to zoos around the world.

• So, zoos are basically renting pandas, estimated at $1 million per year per panda, excluding the panda’s enclosure, medical care, and tons of bamboo.

• It may be worth it as visitors increased 51% at Edinburgh Zoo after pandas arrived.

• Sales at DC’s National Zoo almost doubled from $5.5 million to $10.3 million after their pandas came in 2001.

Revisit the original issue here.

#1 Starbucks: The Bank 🧜‍♀️ ☕

• I bet most readers were surprised with the comparison with Starbucks and banks with its membership card system.

• Here’s another interesting take: Starbucks is more of a milk company than a coffee company. Most of its drinks are simply coffee-flavoured milk.

• Each drink is roughly 2/3 milk, and Starbucks spends more on milk than coffee.

• With the growing environmental pressures and calls for “conscious consumption”, Starbucks is moving away from dairy milk.

• It’s a good time to be a plant-based milk company now to fill up that void.

• Whether it’s dairy or non-dairy, milk is more critical to Starbucks than coffee, coffee is just the delivery mechanism.

• Revisit the original issue here.

The Micro Digest team has put in lots of work the past year to get things up and running. Show some love with a like and share down below, Cheers! 👇 👇

Before you go...

• Check out Issue #48 where we talked about The Sand Shortage 🏜️
• Follow us on Twitter
• Have any friends or colleagues that would be interested in this issue? Forward them this email!

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This series is brought to you by Lee Way (@leewaylau). He will be writing about political & societal issues, history, movies and music on What's Up Wednesday.