Does coffee make you crazy?

First, Elkins tenderly roasted and ground the beans, steeped them in water and cleared each brew of stray grounds. She then poured the coffee into neatly arranged rows of cups for her fellow tasters.

Using deep sterling silver spoons, Elkins and her friends then began to slurp furiously. They brought the steaming coffee to their lips as quickly as they could before the beverages went cold, and then spit each spoonful into a spittoon. The luscious smell of roasted beans filled the air as Elkins and her friends sucked the coffees into their mouths, emitting a sound that reminded one listener of opening a Velcro fastener.

Claire Toohey, a mystery novelist, wholeheartedly agreed, though she added that both brews offered superior taste sensations. "The El Progresso was a little roasty -- a bit too much of a bottom note," she said. "It's like picking between a BMW and a Mercedes."

For the Starbucks generation, coffee beans have become as complex -- even sacred -- as a vintage of fine wine. And connoisseurs like Elkins and Toohey count themselves among a growing number of "coffee crazies," consumers who treat $20-a-pound Kona beans like a 1995 Bordeaux, and spend hours each day talking about, researching and savoring flavors.

Coffee obsessives have emerged in recent years as consumption of the bean has surged--not just with the explosion of Starbucks outlets, but also with the availability of thousands of varieties of coffee beans to choose from. Americans now consume more than 300 million cups a day, feeding an $11 billion industry. The number of retail coffee outlets has increased an incredible 18-fold since 1990; Starbucks alone opens an average of five stores a day.

Coffee crazies gather at cafes, in their homes and online, where they chatter among themselves about brewing techniques, rave to each other about the latest single-origin roast from Ethiopia and lament the disappearance of 1950s cafe culture -- something they hope desperately to revive. These java freaks don't consider coffee a drug; they prefer to think of it as a nectar to be savored, roasted, brewed and sipped.

Among the most devoted, the word "cup" has even been turned into a verb to describe the ceremony Elkins regularly performs. "Cupping" used to be reserved for industry laboratories, but with the growing popularity of specialty coffee, enthusiasts like Elkins can cup anytime they like - with only the right equipment and the finest beans, of course.

Elkins drinks only what she describes as "perfect astonishing coffee -- stuff that sparks in your mouth." The coffee group she chairs includes 380 people in the New York area who meet to experience new taste sensations and to compare notes on the latest beans and brews.

"You must try a cup of Finch Weha," Elkins told her friends in a rapid, caffeinated clip. Sometimes she even closes her eyes as she talks about her life's passion, though she's hardly likely to fall asleep. "It has such a rich aroma and beautiful blueberry flavor," she gushed.

Even among the coffee elite, disagreements do develop -- between espresso lovers and drip enthusiasts, for example, and between those who prefer to spit and those who choose to swallow while cupping. Elkins goes with dripping and spitting. "If I didn't spit," she explained, "I'd be on the ceiling by lunch."

Coffee lovers still gather the way they always did, in the bohemian cafes that dot hip neighborhoods in San Francisco, Chicago and New York. But the Internet has given the growth of the specialty coffee movement an added boost. It began with the Google newsgroup alt.coffee in the mid-1990s; a visit to that site today turns up hundreds of coffee-crazy postings, from tips on the latest espresso machinery to impassioned pleas for help in creating the ever-elusive perfect cup.

"I need help diagnosing my shots!" read one jittery message from an over-caffeinated member. "They're way too much on the bitter side," the writer added, reporting on the number of seconds he's grinding the beans and the exact temperature of his roast. "I'm kind of getting desperate here," he said before signing off, and presumably overdosing on espresso.

Bob Yellin, a 69-year-old administrator in rural Vermont and cupper for an 800-member green coffee buying cooperative, counts himself among the crazies. Each morning, Yellin sits with his wife for an hour in their kitchen, considering the complexities of their latest brew.

"Coffee is a hedonistic pleasure," Yellin said. "Once you try it, you just get hooked; it's like nothing you've ever imagined before." A former engineer, Yellin attributes his coffee preoccupation to his "technical, geeky side." Yellin met Chicago coffee aficionado Jim Schulman on the Internet; they now collaborate on the coffee cooperative. Schulman, a 53-year-old Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Chicago, drinks three to five espressos a day.

"Coffee is a love affair," Schulman explained. "People don't choose coffee -- coffee chooses them."

For its part, Starbucks is all in favor of the spread of coffee geek culture. "Anything that awakens consumers to the joys of fine coffee is making a difference," said spokesman Chris Gimbl.

Schulman admits he's being a little weird when he debates the virtues of a 203.5-degree versus 203.6-degree roast. "It gets close to the point of insanity," he said.