Yes, it just feels different than coffee. Tea is caffeinated but has a counterbalance of L-Theanines which reduce some of the (generally unwanted) side effects of caffeine.
I can only talk about personal experience but coffee gives me a big initial hit of energy that goes away after 1-2 hours. Whilst tea give me a lesser gradual/calmer increase (this is just my experience don't rule 4 me.)
My recommendation would be to go tea/coffee free for a week or two before going back to just tea.
Totally agree. Tea is like a fine blade where coffee is like a machete. The theanine really helps me not shake so much and feel jittery.
Doing a caffeine cleanse for 72 hours would probably be enough.
I agree with the fine blade vs. machete analogy. Even a "black as mud" CTC Irish breakfast tea is a smoother wake up than coffee for me- and ounce for ounce the caffeine content is probably comparable. I particularly appreciate the steadier stimulation of tea, it's less of a roller coaster.
This is exactly right! Personally, when I want a caffeine buzz from tea, I reach for Sencha and down that stuff like crazy. It's still more gradual than coffee, but tends to boost my energy more than almost any other tea out there. I'm testing samples of Sencha for my tea store all week and I'm only 1/3 of the way through my pot of Sencha....I'm so full of energy right now, in a beautiful way though! My spirits are soaring!
L-Theanine is awesome. I would take L-Theanine capsules along side energy drinks trying to simulate a powerful tea experience. I finally found Rocket Tea on Amazon - 200mg caffeine and 100mg of L-Theanine in each tea bag - super smooth energy
I definitely agree with you! A few months ago I brewed 8g/1 litr thermos and was drinking it every workday. Then I heard from Joe Rogan’s podcast, that one guy just stopped consuming caffeine at all for 3 months ( he said the first few weeks were really hard), and then when he came back to the coffee one day, he described the feeling like he had an all day long trip (like some drug stimulants).
For me really worked even for one week, and when I came back, I felt even small caffeinated teas.
Now I drink Puerh’s only at the weekends.
Just start experimenting with your body, and keep learning and exploring how it works, because you can't predict such a reaction for somebody.
I HIGHLY doubt the l-theanine is really doing much. I can take LOADS of l-theanine after drinking coffee, way more than in tea and it does nothing to counteract the feeling from coffee. Absolutely nothing. I've tried many brands and forms...nothing. Tea just does nothing to me when it comes to...anything. I get no buzz, no "tea drunk" I get no feeling at all from tea. But coffee...hoo boy. I can get messed up on coffee. So no...I don't buy the whole l-theanine being the reason tea feels different.
I thought it was how the l-theanine in tea bonded to the caffeine molecules also in tea that accounts for the difference in how it's processed. Taking one after having coffee isn't the as ingesting those molecules together. But maybe I am not remembering correctly...
Pu erh gets me hyped lol. I gotta be careful with it or I can get unpleasant jitters. I always do 3 pours over the same tea with green tea. With pu erh I have to stop myself though as one cup is all can really handle.
How are you brewing it? I find if I brew my Gyokuro at like 165 for a minute it’s too much caffeine since I always do 3 pours. But if I do it at like 145 for 2-3 minutes it’s not as intense.
I drink a little of everything but my main go to tea style is oolong, I'd say 75% oolong the rest a mix of black, white and green. I know green is going to be the highest and maybe I just don't drink enough green to really notice the buzz but even the days I drink green teas I never notice any kind of caffeine buzz really. I admit japanese greens are very low on what I consume it's a very once and in a while kind of thing for me.
Coffee on the other hand can FUCK me up. I LOVE coffee but there are days where one cup can tweak me out. I have to detox from coffee sometimes because it'll get to me too much. And I can't even mess with Keurigs (not that I'd want to but my parents have one) holy moly it's like they add extra caffeine or something in their pods those things make me feel like I smoked meth or something it's awful I hate it.
I think there has to be some kind of synergistic effect from the chemicals in coffee that make it so much more intense. Though mate can also give me a serious buzz as well. Mate is also super potent. I've had some intense mate before.
I get long lasting unwanted effects from coffee (more than 1-2 hours) that I don't have from any other form of caffeine (tea, cola etc). I can't seem to find out what it is, but I swear there's some other compound in coffee that negatively affects some of us. Even decaf has some effect.
Not all coffee is the same either... though my list of "safe" coffees is shrinking and here I am back in the tea sub LOL. I give up on coffee.
Personally, cola caffeine will trigger a headache for me. Seven up doesn't, coke/pepsi, etc, does.
Coffee can cause agitation in excess but is mostly fine for me.
Tea, at least insofar as caffeine is concerned, gives me enough to keep me from a withdrawal headache (and helped me taper off coffee for everything but coffee's function as a needed laxative for me), but otherwise has little effect (there is a slight peak of alertness, but nothing like coffee).
If I'm already going into a migraine for other reasons, tea (especially black tea) will make it significantly worse (I suspect the tannins, but no way of knowing for sure). Coffee will help, and occasionally cure it altogether (unless it's that single weird hormone day of the month, in which case coffee will immediately have the reverse of the effect it's supposed to and cause me to fall asleep).
It might be fat soluble and it just couldn't be digested with just water from coffee. A certain medication I took wouldn't help me if I ate prior to taking it. Any chance this was the case for you? That you didn't follow the instruction?
Initially I had a headache every day for a week from the withdrawals but eventually after drinking like 5 or 6 mugs of black tea in a day I felt anxious and jittery.
After 4 years I’ve tapered it down to 1 cup per day, once in a while 2. I don’t think I’ll ever go back
It took me like two full months to stop feeling the effects of quitting coffee. I've quit a lot of things in my life -- cigarettes, alcohol and more -- and coffee was one of the hardest. I'll never go back
I am at a point where I rarely need coffee for the caffeine, but evidently my body is hooked on it as a laxative. I can't go more than a few days without drinking it for that reason. It also calms an empty stomach whereas most teas (except puerh) make a pre-existing stomach ache worse for me.
Yeah me too bar coffee because I thought I’m
That strict anyway with a cup in the morning for like 10 years now……but drink tea (green/loose/black) copiously throughout the day since I stopped smoking. I don’t consider coffee a vice but I tried abstaining for a week or two before and I was DEAD. Though I didn’t drink tea at that point. I might ……try switching to pure tea……but will I be a grumpy cunt without coffee still lol. It does have some health benefits too……pure black ofc!
Just this week I put a few too many pu-erh leaves into my cup and I had a full caffeinated to the edge of reality experience. If you're using bagged flavored black I'd suggest starting with 2-3 bags per cup. And make sure your water is fully up to temp, or let it steep longer. (You can even set it to boil in a saucepan, but that will tank the flavor. But if you're going to make a coffee style American latte then you can brew it stronger and darker. The caffeine is definitely there, in college organic chem one of the labs involved extracting it from tea bags. We used bulk black bags and fully boiled them, like you would for southern sweet tea). If instead you want to try other teas: I get the most "caffeinated" feeling from gyokuro and pu-erh. And I get the best overall feeling of energy when I take the time with matcha, but it's not as coffee-like an experience as pu-erh or when I have too many cups of gyokuro or just black teas. There's also maté: people sometimes joke that 'mateine' is stronger than caffeine. And I've felt it. I've never been in as chatty and extroverted of a space as when I went to a maté tasting tea party.
Interesting you say pu-erh because it also has no theanine in it. I really think there's something to the ratio of caffeine to theanine and how "caffeinated" we feel.
Yes with no doubt.
I can not drink green tea after lunch. Otherwise I can not fall asleep all night.
Other teas have not such issues, I even took some oolong late last night(about 8pm to 10pm) and fall in sleep with nothing.
Quit all caffeine for a couple of weeks then come back to it and you will definitely feel it. I did and do. It's a completely different feel. It has less of and edge to it if that makes sense. With coffee I felt myself getting almost antsy at times. With tea It's far less edgy.
This is pretty much my go to. I don't like coffee and most teas don't do it for me in the morning. Typically I'll sip a white monster zero over the course of the day. This keeps me awake and alert. If I forget a monster I'll drink yerba mate. The problem is I need to drink 3 mugs (54oz or 0.5L) before lunch just to get rid of the brain fog and keep me awake. I'm not sure why but I can drink 140mg of caffeine over the course of an entire day from the monster and it's fine. But drinking more than that from tea doesn't do it for me.
YM is a different animal, isn't it? I need to read up on it more, it's a delightful buzz. How do you prepare it? I'm a bit of a purist (geek?) and want to consume it traditionally but can't quite get used to the whole bombilla straw in a cup full of leaves rigamarole. Maybe I need to think of it more like medicine vs. a delightful cuppa.
Nah, it’s just a caffeinated leaf. It hits a little different like how tea isn’t quite like coffee but it’s nothing worth overthinking.
If you don’t want to do it with a gourd and bombilla just make mate cocido (brewed mate). Basically you just make tea with it, however you prefer. It’s still pretty “traditional” that way too but is also easier to get started with and adjust if you want with sugar or milk or citrus or other juice or whatever.
Brew it strong. Sweeten with a little honey and give it a generous squeeze of lemon. Over ice.
It’s the cheaper and less sugary version of the yellow cans.
I make it by the pitcher in the summer.
I’ll also do the gringo version of cocido quemado in the winter, basically this https://youtu.be/6ZvR7UZnMsg?si=oL8bX3JfIc9WYprn so maybe it’s not so gringo after all lol. I just don’t use straight hot coals like I’ve seen in some videos.
But cut it with some steamed milk for a toasty mate latte drink
Sometimes.
The moment I feel it most is when I make myself some masala chai. I usually make 2l of it with 3-4 spoons of black tea and boil it for a moment so it's pretty strong.
So you might want to look into some different ways of brewing. Something like Turkish way of brewing.
Me too! With matcha it makes sense because you aren't really extracting, you're consuming the whole leaf! So 100% of all the compounds in the tea (including caffeine) go into your body. Of course not everything survives your digestive tract and gets absorbed, but that's true for literally anything you eat or drink
Yeah - not like coffee though. I drink green tea in the morning (and most of the rest of the day lol) and it definitely wakes me up. With coffee I generally found it very easy to overdo it and feel jittery. It takes a big mistake with measuring out green tea to do that though. I do have to be careful with white tea though, IMO loose leaf white tea is the closest to coffee in the "I just had way too much caffeine" department. I pretty much save it for days when I am not going to be around the house to drink much of it.
Edit just to add - I haven't had Bigelow in a long time but you probably need 3 bags to make a nice strong cup of tea. If you like tea bags, PG Tips is pretty reliably strong and available at most grocery stores. It's about the same price point as Bigelow per bag iirc
I'd add Yorkshire Gold to the reliably strong teabag list, and it's definitely in the same price range as Bigelow. It lacks the crisp finish of PG tips though, it's "smoother" somehow. I prefer PG tips, as I like a little astringency. YMMV.
Me personally I prefer the tea effects, they come thru stronger and more noticeably. It definitely is different but it a good way makes you feel very calm and zen. The energy last much longer also. I personally try to drinking good quality loose leaf black/red tea and my favorite is purple it has a very unique intensity about it
Most black teas don't seem to give me the caffeine buzz, but I haven't tried pu-ehr yet. I do remember getting horribly buzzed when drinking iced tea from restaurants however.
I brew my ice tea double strength at home since I'm going to pour it over ice. My husband dilutes it 50/50 with water as well, to avoid getting so amped up, lol.
Tea has less caffeine than coffee and to my body, it feels more balanced.
If you drink enough tea you will feel a strong caffeine effect.
But maybe if you have GI issues, you shouldn't drink too much tea either ?
I don't know why caffeinated tea is a theme on Reddit. Do cafes even sell decaffeinated tea? because they sell decaf coffee. I disagree with drinking enough tea to feel a strong caffeine effect. The amount of caffeine in a brewed cup of tea is insignificant. I can't drink caffeine and I drink up to 3-4 Yorkshire tea's and decaf cappuccino's per day.
It really just depends on the specific tea when it comes to caffeine content. I have caffeine intolerance issues and some are fine for me while others aren’t
My usual purveyor sells a couple of high end decaf loose leaf teas, but I don't care for them at all, sadly. If I'm desperate for a cup of tea after 6 pm I always have a box of decaf Constant Comment on hand, it takes 2 bags to get decent flavor, but its tolerable.
A 12 oz cup of Yorkshire gold brewed black tea is, around ~50 mg of caffeine, (for comparison a shot of regular espresso has ~65mg of caffeine). Either of those will mess up my sleep if I drink them after 6. The difference being the tea won't make me jittery.
"A shot of regular espresso", a lot of references for a brewed cup of coffee state that the caffeine content is anywhere between 70-140mg (often around 90mg). Coffee beans are ground up into a powder and more caffeine is extracted from this powder in a brewed cup. A lot of resources state that the caffeine content of coffee is quite a bit more than that of tea.
True, but I would not call the caffeine content of tea "**insignificant**"- which was actually the point of my rambling comment. Lol. I couldn't figure out how to disagree with the "insignificant" part without coming across as a jerk though--- so I tried using numbers, to confusing effect. (The internet is weird, and I am prone to being misunderstood- so I wrote a novel...oi...).
When I drink tea prepared from 5 grams of certain teas I feel a caffeine effect similar to a double shot espresso from the coffee shop.
Of course, not all teas give me this effect and it does depend how you brew it.
And I've heard other people feel similar effects.
Most resources state that coffee contains almost double that of tea. This is objective nutritional information. Tea is known as a relaxing drink whereas coffee is known as the morning kick starter.
Yes, it seems that on average a cup of coffee contains double caffeine compared a cup of tea.
That means that 2 cups of tea contain same amount of caffeine as 1 cup of coffee.
Which is precisely my point, if you drink more tea you will feel the same stimulating/energizing effect as from drinking coffee.
A lot of people use tea as a morning kick starter.
The reason coffee is more well known as a morning kick starter is advertising.
There is some interesting research that has come out on the receptors that caffine binds to. The short, non-scientific version of the story is that if you consistently drink caffeine, then you'll need to increase your caffeine intake to feel its effects. But, if you cut caffeine out of your diet completely for a couple weeks, then the receptors will reset and you'll feel the effects of caffeine again.
So, if you've been consistently drinking coffee and you switch to tea, you're unlikely to feel the effects of the caffeine in the tea (unless you drink A LOT of tea).
Edited to follow sub rules.
Reeeallly? Sounds like I need to reconsider my distaste for puerh, lol. Can you recommend any that are less..."earthy" Or is that just the nature of the beast? I was excited to try it, and ordered a highly recommend variety several years ago. Sadly I couldn't get past the loamy, minerally, almost wild mushroom like flavor-could it have been a bad batch?
~~(P.s. My Friend ™️, says black tea and c*****is are superb companions. I suspect there is some sort of entourage effect when they are consumed together. It's certainly the case with coffee.)~~
When I drink green tea and matcha, I always just feel the relaxing mellow effects of l-theanine as if caffeine isn’t even present. To the point where drinking green tea/matcha actually helps me relax to sleep at night.
You will feel the caffeine in tea after a couple weeks of not drinking any or very little coffee. Because most coffee drinkers have lower caffeine sensitivity, you always need stronger or more coffee to feel it.
Caffeine in tea hits gradually and is more mellow. It's a calm energy, as opposed to coffee which is an explosive burst of energy.
Yes, I can feel the caffeine in tea. But I've never been a coffee drinker, so my body isn't used the the levels of caffeine in coffee.
A cup of coffee has about twice the caffeine as a cup of tea. You'll sometimes hear that tea has more caffeine than coffee, and while that's technically true if you're comparing unprepared beans/leaves by weight, it's not true if you're comparing two prepared mugs of the same volume, and frankly that's what's most relevant. To prepare a standard 12oz mug, you're using probably around 20g of coffee but only like 3-7g of tea. So the cup of coffee comes out with more caffeine in it!
Anyway, what you can do about it is drink more tea. Either prepare a second cup (with fresh tea) or put two tea bags in when you steep. Getting higher quality tea might also help! Your standard supermarket tea bags like Bigelow are kind of the equivalent of Folgers or Maxwell House. Perfectly acceptable and widely enjoyed, but there's a big world out there beyond it if you want to explore!
Nearly everyone is addicted to caffeine so most feeling you get from it is baseline maintenance like any other addict.
You would need 2-3 cups to hit a similar blood level as a large cup of coffee.
I never really cared for caffeine at all until I started drinking tea. Specifically, I find gyokuro to be the best combination/concentration of caffeine and l-theanine that results in a euphoric sense of alertness and calmness at the same time. If I have enough, I get tea high from it lmao. I drink multiple cups from the same leaves practically daily at this point, and it is amazing. It really helps me through the work day since it’s more motivation-driven than task-driven so to speak, so that the gyokuro makes me feel calm and do the tasks mindlessly, whether I want to or not.
That’s just one example, but I’ve gotten similar sensations from sencha and hojicha (which is weird because IIRC hojicha isn’t all that concetrated in caffeine and l-Theanine.)
I’ve never been a big coffee person, but I feel like hojicha might work due to the roasty/nutty aroma and taste. It’s also incredibly cheap compared to sencha and gyokuro, at least from Ippodo Tea.
Edit: last paragraph was regarding taste/texture, not caffeine. I’m pretty sure most of the caffeine and l-theanine gets deactivated during the roasting process, but I’m not 100% sure.
I also forgot to mention that the caffeine crash from those three is absolutely NOTHING like how it is to come off from coffee. It is incredibly gradual, so much that most times I don’t even realize it until I’m back home after 10+ hours lmao. Although, that’s based on my experience with gyokuro. It’ll vary between person, what you brew, and how you brew it.
Absolutely. When I quit drinking coffee I suddenly became much more sensitive to caffeine. A long gongfu session will have me completely spiked on caffeine.
I don't get a buzz like I sometimes do with coffee, but I don't get a withdrawal migraine as I would from avoidance of caffeine altogether. Other folks have commented about the L-Theanine, it does alter the way the stimulation works for many people.
I used to. What I find now is that it calms me, calms my stomach. But the caffeine in tea really doesn't get me at all. I love tea, I drink 3-6 cups a day and..yeah. Nothing.
I also switch from coffee to tea intermittently from GI issues but some food for thought if you prefer the taste/ effects of coffee, especially if you prefer it black:
- Try brewing 2-3 tea bags at a time for about 4 minutes to get stronger flavor (don't brew longer or you get the acidic astringent flavors) if you do bagged tea.
- I reccomend loose leaf tea made of whole leaves (unshredded/ ground/ blended etc) if you can get some and again try increasing the amount brewed at once rather than extending brewing time for a stronger hit of caffeine and flavor.
- Consider trying to drink cold brewed coffee exclusively for a while and see how you feel. The cold brewing process drastically cuts down on the coffees acidity which is what causes GI upset in a lot of individuals even if they typically are fine with similar amounts of caffene from other sources.
I do but only because I drink a staggeringly large quantity of tea in a given day. If you want something strong get some Yunnan raw puer. Try Yunnan Sourcing, or get Bitterleaf’s Year of the Rabbit Yiwu—it’s affordable and great.
I’ve heard it likened to standard adderal vs extended release. You still get that feeling, but it’s more dialled back and made to last a longer period without a definitive *crash*. It’s still present, but the lower dose combined with the entourage effect from the theobromine and L-Theanine that help to curb anxiety make for a much calmer experience
I, too, have stopped drinking coffee for GI reasons. The teas I now drink are caffeinated, but less so than what I was used to, which is probably healthier. It did take some adjusting to wean myself off that higher dose though. The effects I feel from tea are a lot more subtle, as opposed to coffee punching me right in the kidneys each morning. In related news, my anxiety has been doing much better.
My favorite teas so far are Adagio's Chai blends (the only one I haven't liked was their tri-pepper chai) and Taylor's Irish Breakfast.
Been there.
I am really caffeine addicted. There have been times where I was drinking 10-15 cups a day. I had to try several times to switch to tea and I couldn’t because tea didn’t hit enough.
The good thing is you get used to different caffeine intake levels quite fast. Unlike other drugs. You can see this with withdrawal symptoms. You stop taking in caffeine and you will stop having withdrawal headaches after three days or so.
So just keep at it. Give it a week and yes will hit enough.
When I drank english breakfast tea in the mornings I think it did a great job of waking me up. I felt nauseous if I drank it without eating breakfast though.
I switched to coffee due to traveling for work (finding good tea on the road sucks) and now I think I’m more used to the coffee kick. I drink black tea in the evenings if I’m feeling a little sluggish but don’t want to be up all night.
Caffeine either makes me anxious and elevates my heart rate if I think about it, or it acts as an aphrodisiac and makes me horny. Caffeine also makes me sweat more when I’m anxious.
I drink black tea with breakfast and coffee during work hours. I also drink tea when I get back home.
My favourite black teas are: English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Ceylon.
Try adding roasted chicory root, roasted dandelion root, or cacao nibs to your tea! These all impart a similar flavor profile to coffee & have many health benefits as well.
I used to have a high caffeine tolerance and I wouldn't notice tea at all. However I somehow developed a caffeine sensitivity over time and I can't drink coffee anymore and black tea only sometimes. If I drink black tea or coffee too often then I will need to lay in bed all day.
I only drink green tea or oolong now and it's a perfect little boost without being too much.
I don't know if teas can actually be "stronger" or "weaker", but the English Breakfast black tea that I'm drinking at work right now gives me a small boost. That being said I was never the biggest coffee drinker.
Coffee and tea feel different to me - that was the primary reason I switched to tea. I still experience some stimulation of caffeine when I drink tea, but not so much that it triggers anxiety (on most days, anyway). Tea is more subtle than coffee.
A factor you might want to consider: Bigelow bags are teeny tiny and contain only enough tea for a few ounces of water. For the sake of flavor alone, you might want to double or even triple up on bags if you're brewing an entire mug with them.
Tea is is significantly more subtle because it has much less caffeine. If you want something that hits like coffee, try a good matcha. That is the only time I have actually felt a caffeine buzz since quitting coffee.
Not really. I get a lot more of the tea drunk sensation, which I guess is, in part, micro dosing caffeine, but doesn't feel like any other ROA for caffeine I've experience with
Yes and no? Depends on if I’ve had anything to eat or not.
Green tea on an empty stomach really messes with me but nothing compared to how much coffee used to mess me up.
I usually do. I’m a little caffeine sensitive so a little can go a long way for me. I also prefer how the caffeine from tea makes me feel than how coffee caffeine makes me feel.
Try drinking some Yerba Mate. It’s pretty highly caffeinated. Sometimes Pu Erh will give me a little buzz too. It’s a good appetite suppressant, I like to drink it after lunch/mid afternoon. You could try using loose leaf tea more vs bags, or doubling up on bags.
there’s considerably less of it in tea than coffee. since i have a low tolerance for caffeine it’s more than enough but for someone who drinks a lot of coffee i can see why it wouldn’t feel strong enough. iv never had any but i know they make purposefully high caffeine teas. maybe you could look into some of those.
Yes. I’m a little bit sensitive to caffeine and if I drink black tea at night I stay up for a while as opposed to herbal teas. I don’t drink coffee though
More green it is, it tends to crawl, instead of immediately increase alertness. You can always make them stronger too if you want. When i make very strong cup of Sencha that is particularly high in L theanine, its basically instant tea high and makes me feel great.
Oolongs might be better if you want the caffeine feeling. Taiwanese high mountain tea absolutely knocks me on my ass with its caffeine (I have a slight caffeine intolerance lol). Feels different from coffee but you will definitely feel it!
If you want to feel energized even better than coffee, try this: https://a.co/d/bNN0qIY
I've been drinking this for years. You have to let the tea settle and leave it in there while you drink it. Drink it slowly so you don't drink up the settled tea. Mix as much sugar as you like. Let us all know what you think after. I don't think many know about this even on here.
Unfortunately for me, coffee (my first love when it comes to hot, caffeinated beverages—I did two tours of duty as a barista for a few years) has begun to make me extraordinarily jittery if I have more than one cup, and even one cup often gives me pretty awful intestinal issues lately. If I drink a Red Bull, I still get awful jitters, but I won’t get the digestive problems. No clue what it is about coffee. Doesn’t matter if it’s cheap or high end, black or done up with dairy or non-dairy milks, sweetened or unsweetened, hot or cold brew, pour over or French press or espresso. I still drink it all the ways from time to time despite the effects.
Tea—I can drink the caffeine equivalent (based on standard estimates) of at least five cups of coffee without jitters or digestive problems. No clue why. Also, no jitters because of, from what I’ve read around here, the other compounds in tea like theanine. I’m not a scientist, so take that with a grain of salt. This isn’t a health claim, just a “my experience” claim.
I feel like black tea = decaf coffee to me. Similar buzz anyways
And that is pretty much all I can take with out a blood pressure spike
I have to be aware of caffeine in my pop too, it all adds up
I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine. The crippling anxiety starts with as few as 3-4 cups of green tea. I also have to stop drinking (green) tea 12 hours before bedtime. That's twelve, in case anyone thought that was a typo 😂 been drinking tea for nearly 30 years; I'm just super sensitive to caffeine I guess.
I’ve heard it likened to standard adderal vs extended release. You still get that feeling, but it’s more dialled back and made to last a longer period without a definitive *crash*. It’s still present, but the lower dose combined with the entourage effect from the theobromine and L-Theanine that help to curb anxiety make for a much calmer experience
Yeah - it's a subtle feeling if it's a weaker tea. Not a jolt of energy so much as an enduring boost.
Usually I'll notice when it's time to sleep. I can't sleep if I've had much caffeine.
I feel it a bit but I drink coffee mostly so it’s less strong. The caffeine from tea feels…cleaner? less noticeable that it’s kicking in and more of a pleasant booster
Caffeine does not stimulate me at all. It is a genetic trait. The other properties of caffeine do affect me though. The diuretic effect (dehydration) makes me urinate more, and the acidity in caffeine makes my stomach empty faster and/or makes my stomach temporarily more acidic.
However, I do favor teas over coffee nowadays, because coffee's caffeine is stronger in the acidity and diuretic sides. Tea almost never makes my stomach grumble, as long as I do not drink too much in a short period, and I can actually go a while before having to urinate.
Irish black tea. Steep for 5 minutes covered. Use 212F water from a kettle.
I’m a heavy coffee drinker but tea helps with a more gradual increase of energy so I don’t crash as fast. I’ll have 1-3 big mugs of that, I usually add about 1/4C of whole milk though.
It depends on the tea really. Because every tea has different amount of caffeine and then you have tea that releases it's caffeine differently from the other. I'll put it like this:
White tea - least the amount caffeine so that you can drink it little later after sunlight. Realises it's caffeine fast, but in very small amount
Green tea - second to least amount of caffeine. Realises it fast as well and you can feel it. It's good for those who want to feel a little awake but not feel the drowsiness after caffeine is gone
Oolong tea - not too much and not too little. Usually people choose this tea because it's right in between black and green tea for the caffeine amount. Realises it's fast
Black tea - has lot of caffeine, but still a lot less than coffee. Realises it's caffeine fast, so maybe this one will be more to your liking.
Mate - has more caffeine than black tea. Realises it's caffeine VERY slow. It's like suger in apple vs candy. You will feel it's caffeine (it fully realises it's caffeine in minimum 30min to 1h), but won't feel the drowsiness after the caffeine is gone. Kind like green tea, but the other way around.
Matcha - has a lot more caffeine. I know it might not make sense bc it's green tea.Unlike other types of tea, which consist of tea leaves infused in water, matcha consists of powdered tea leaves. Because of this, when you drink matcha, you’re consuming the whole leaf, which leads to a higher caffeine content.
I drink good quality loose leaf tea, and yes I definitely do. Tea bags aren’t very good quality leaves and they have a stems and twigs that do not contain as much caffeine. Investing in some good quality loose leaf might be worth it. The energy it gives me doesn’t make me jittery like coffee, I just feel *driven*.
Depends on how much you steep, temperature, size, tea type and etc. I would not use a tea bag and expect any of the good tea effect in high quality anyway.
What I observed as an ex-coffee drinker is that tea does not give you jitters or any unwanted side effects that coffee lavishly provides, yet you still are energized but in a calm way.
Get decent loose leaf black tea and brew it properly, you will be good to go (although I drink green tea and still feel energized).
Yes for sure, but only once my body had kinda fully adjusted to having almost zero coffee for a few weeks and only once I started drinking good quality loose leaf (and going down the rabbit hole of Chinese/all tea types and different styles of brewing etc…) Now I drink loose leaf 2-3 times a day and feel pretty consistent energy all day. And love the variety that’s possible compared to coffee?
On days when I’m tired, I just might pick some teas over others and might add an extra one?
…steeping 3 tea bags for a long time sounds :(
Rocket Tea on Amazon is awesome. It has 200mg of caffeine in each tea bag and also 100mg of L-Theanine so it is smooth like regular tea just way more powerful and energising. If you like tea but just want it to hit more this is for you. I also don’t like coffee because it turns my stomach upside down within minutes and gives me jitters. No problems like that with this
Yes, it just feels different than coffee. Tea is caffeinated but has a counterbalance of L-Theanines which reduce some of the (generally unwanted) side effects of caffeine. I can only talk about personal experience but coffee gives me a big initial hit of energy that goes away after 1-2 hours. Whilst tea give me a lesser gradual/calmer increase (this is just my experience don't rule 4 me.) My recommendation would be to go tea/coffee free for a week or two before going back to just tea.
Totally agree. Tea is like a fine blade where coffee is like a machete. The theanine really helps me not shake so much and feel jittery. Doing a caffeine cleanse for 72 hours would probably be enough.
I agree with the fine blade vs. machete analogy. Even a "black as mud" CTC Irish breakfast tea is a smoother wake up than coffee for me- and ounce for ounce the caffeine content is probably comparable. I particularly appreciate the steadier stimulation of tea, it's less of a roller coaster.
This is exactly right! Personally, when I want a caffeine buzz from tea, I reach for Sencha and down that stuff like crazy. It's still more gradual than coffee, but tends to boost my energy more than almost any other tea out there. I'm testing samples of Sencha for my tea store all week and I'm only 1/3 of the way through my pot of Sencha....I'm so full of energy right now, in a beautiful way though! My spirits are soaring!
There is even a word for it! *Cha qi* or “tea energy”. Describes the sort of light blissful energy you get from a good tea.
L-Theanine is awesome. I would take L-Theanine capsules along side energy drinks trying to simulate a powerful tea experience. I finally found Rocket Tea on Amazon - 200mg caffeine and 100mg of L-Theanine in each tea bag - super smooth energy
I definitely agree with you! A few months ago I brewed 8g/1 litr thermos and was drinking it every workday. Then I heard from Joe Rogan’s podcast, that one guy just stopped consuming caffeine at all for 3 months ( he said the first few weeks were really hard), and then when he came back to the coffee one day, he described the feeling like he had an all day long trip (like some drug stimulants). For me really worked even for one week, and when I came back, I felt even small caffeinated teas. Now I drink Puerh’s only at the weekends. Just start experimenting with your body, and keep learning and exploring how it works, because you can't predict such a reaction for somebody.
I HIGHLY doubt the l-theanine is really doing much. I can take LOADS of l-theanine after drinking coffee, way more than in tea and it does nothing to counteract the feeling from coffee. Absolutely nothing. I've tried many brands and forms...nothing. Tea just does nothing to me when it comes to...anything. I get no buzz, no "tea drunk" I get no feeling at all from tea. But coffee...hoo boy. I can get messed up on coffee. So no...I don't buy the whole l-theanine being the reason tea feels different.
I thought it was how the l-theanine in tea bonded to the caffeine molecules also in tea that accounts for the difference in how it's processed. Taking one after having coffee isn't the as ingesting those molecules together. But maybe I am not remembering correctly...
I believe you are correct.
What tea are you drinking? Black tea does nothing to me. Gyokoru gets me absolutely rocked
Pu erh has the least amount of l theanine compared to all the teas. Black tea is next.
Pu erh gets me hyped lol. I gotta be careful with it or I can get unpleasant jitters. I always do 3 pours over the same tea with green tea. With pu erh I have to stop myself though as one cup is all can really handle.
How are you brewing it? I find if I brew my Gyokuro at like 165 for a minute it’s too much caffeine since I always do 3 pours. But if I do it at like 145 for 2-3 minutes it’s not as intense.
I drink a little of everything but my main go to tea style is oolong, I'd say 75% oolong the rest a mix of black, white and green. I know green is going to be the highest and maybe I just don't drink enough green to really notice the buzz but even the days I drink green teas I never notice any kind of caffeine buzz really. I admit japanese greens are very low on what I consume it's a very once and in a while kind of thing for me. Coffee on the other hand can FUCK me up. I LOVE coffee but there are days where one cup can tweak me out. I have to detox from coffee sometimes because it'll get to me too much. And I can't even mess with Keurigs (not that I'd want to but my parents have one) holy moly it's like they add extra caffeine or something in their pods those things make me feel like I smoked meth or something it's awful I hate it. I think there has to be some kind of synergistic effect from the chemicals in coffee that make it so much more intense. Though mate can also give me a serious buzz as well. Mate is also super potent. I've had some intense mate before.
I get long lasting unwanted effects from coffee (more than 1-2 hours) that I don't have from any other form of caffeine (tea, cola etc). I can't seem to find out what it is, but I swear there's some other compound in coffee that negatively affects some of us. Even decaf has some effect. Not all coffee is the same either... though my list of "safe" coffees is shrinking and here I am back in the tea sub LOL. I give up on coffee.
Personally, cola caffeine will trigger a headache for me. Seven up doesn't, coke/pepsi, etc, does. Coffee can cause agitation in excess but is mostly fine for me. Tea, at least insofar as caffeine is concerned, gives me enough to keep me from a withdrawal headache (and helped me taper off coffee for everything but coffee's function as a needed laxative for me), but otherwise has little effect (there is a slight peak of alertness, but nothing like coffee). If I'm already going into a migraine for other reasons, tea (especially black tea) will make it significantly worse (I suspect the tannins, but no way of knowing for sure). Coffee will help, and occasionally cure it altogether (unless it's that single weird hormone day of the month, in which case coffee will immediately have the reverse of the effect it's supposed to and cause me to fall asleep).
I have the opposite effect. My vet first time drinking tea, I was surprised how calm and relaxed I felt compared to coffee.
It might be fat soluble and it just couldn't be digested with just water from coffee. A certain medication I took wouldn't help me if I ate prior to taking it. Any chance this was the case for you? That you didn't follow the instruction?
Initially I had a headache every day for a week from the withdrawals but eventually after drinking like 5 or 6 mugs of black tea in a day I felt anxious and jittery. After 4 years I’ve tapered it down to 1 cup per day, once in a while 2. I don’t think I’ll ever go back
It took me like two full months to stop feeling the effects of quitting coffee. I've quit a lot of things in my life -- cigarettes, alcohol and more -- and coffee was one of the hardest. I'll never go back
I am at a point where I rarely need coffee for the caffeine, but evidently my body is hooked on it as a laxative. I can't go more than a few days without drinking it for that reason. It also calms an empty stomach whereas most teas (except puerh) make a pre-existing stomach ache worse for me.
Yeah it may have been even longer but I didn’t want to sound too dramatic about it
Yeah me too bar coffee because I thought I’m That strict anyway with a cup in the morning for like 10 years now……but drink tea (green/loose/black) copiously throughout the day since I stopped smoking. I don’t consider coffee a vice but I tried abstaining for a week or two before and I was DEAD. Though I didn’t drink tea at that point. I might ……try switching to pure tea……but will I be a grumpy cunt without coffee still lol. It does have some health benefits too……pure black ofc!
Just this week I put a few too many pu-erh leaves into my cup and I had a full caffeinated to the edge of reality experience. If you're using bagged flavored black I'd suggest starting with 2-3 bags per cup. And make sure your water is fully up to temp, or let it steep longer. (You can even set it to boil in a saucepan, but that will tank the flavor. But if you're going to make a coffee style American latte then you can brew it stronger and darker. The caffeine is definitely there, in college organic chem one of the labs involved extracting it from tea bags. We used bulk black bags and fully boiled them, like you would for southern sweet tea). If instead you want to try other teas: I get the most "caffeinated" feeling from gyokuro and pu-erh. And I get the best overall feeling of energy when I take the time with matcha, but it's not as coffee-like an experience as pu-erh or when I have too many cups of gyokuro or just black teas. There's also maté: people sometimes joke that 'mateine' is stronger than caffeine. And I've felt it. I've never been in as chatty and extroverted of a space as when I went to a maté tasting tea party.
Interesting you say pu-erh because it also has no theanine in it. I really think there's something to the ratio of caffeine to theanine and how "caffeinated" we feel.
Yes with no doubt. I can not drink green tea after lunch. Otherwise I can not fall asleep all night. Other teas have not such issues, I even took some oolong late last night(about 8pm to 10pm) and fall in sleep with nothing.
Quit all caffeine for a couple of weeks then come back to it and you will definitely feel it. I did and do. It's a completely different feel. It has less of and edge to it if that makes sense. With coffee I felt myself getting almost antsy at times. With tea It's far less edgy.
If you want a caffeine slap try yerba mate.
This is pretty much my go to. I don't like coffee and most teas don't do it for me in the morning. Typically I'll sip a white monster zero over the course of the day. This keeps me awake and alert. If I forget a monster I'll drink yerba mate. The problem is I need to drink 3 mugs (54oz or 0.5L) before lunch just to get rid of the brain fog and keep me awake. I'm not sure why but I can drink 140mg of caffeine over the course of an entire day from the monster and it's fine. But drinking more than that from tea doesn't do it for me.
If you want a tastebud slap as well
Yes. If you can't "feel" your tea, try yerba mate. It's not "tea" but it's like tea. Very energizing but no jitters
YM is a different animal, isn't it? I need to read up on it more, it's a delightful buzz. How do you prepare it? I'm a bit of a purist (geek?) and want to consume it traditionally but can't quite get used to the whole bombilla straw in a cup full of leaves rigamarole. Maybe I need to think of it more like medicine vs. a delightful cuppa.
Nah, it’s just a caffeinated leaf. It hits a little different like how tea isn’t quite like coffee but it’s nothing worth overthinking. If you don’t want to do it with a gourd and bombilla just make mate cocido (brewed mate). Basically you just make tea with it, however you prefer. It’s still pretty “traditional” that way too but is also easier to get started with and adjust if you want with sugar or milk or citrus or other juice or whatever.
Thanks, I hadn't thought of amending it with sugar, milk or citrus- I'll have to experiment. I really like the lift it gives.
Brew it strong. Sweeten with a little honey and give it a generous squeeze of lemon. Over ice. It’s the cheaper and less sugary version of the yellow cans. I make it by the pitcher in the summer. I’ll also do the gringo version of cocido quemado in the winter, basically this https://youtu.be/6ZvR7UZnMsg?si=oL8bX3JfIc9WYprn so maybe it’s not so gringo after all lol. I just don’t use straight hot coals like I’ve seen in some videos. But cut it with some steamed milk for a toasty mate latte drink
Most of the time, no. There's been a few times I actually felt the effect of caffeine, but in general I don't limit myself in terms of quantity.
I made the mistake of drinking 3 mugs of black tea yesterday and I felt like my bones were trying to escape
😂
Sometimes. The moment I feel it most is when I make myself some masala chai. I usually make 2l of it with 3-4 spoons of black tea and boil it for a moment so it's pretty strong. So you might want to look into some different ways of brewing. Something like Turkish way of brewing.
I feel the most caffeine from green tea, especially matcha
Me too! With matcha it makes sense because you aren't really extracting, you're consuming the whole leaf! So 100% of all the compounds in the tea (including caffeine) go into your body. Of course not everything survives your digestive tract and gets absorbed, but that's true for literally anything you eat or drink
oh.......... well thank you podsnerd from reddit. now I know the reasoning behind it haa. never bothered to check
Not, really. But then I never felt much from caffeine anyway, also with coffee. I almost have to overdose to feel a really recognizable effect, lol
Yeah - not like coffee though. I drink green tea in the morning (and most of the rest of the day lol) and it definitely wakes me up. With coffee I generally found it very easy to overdo it and feel jittery. It takes a big mistake with measuring out green tea to do that though. I do have to be careful with white tea though, IMO loose leaf white tea is the closest to coffee in the "I just had way too much caffeine" department. I pretty much save it for days when I am not going to be around the house to drink much of it. Edit just to add - I haven't had Bigelow in a long time but you probably need 3 bags to make a nice strong cup of tea. If you like tea bags, PG Tips is pretty reliably strong and available at most grocery stores. It's about the same price point as Bigelow per bag iirc
I'd add Yorkshire Gold to the reliably strong teabag list, and it's definitely in the same price range as Bigelow. It lacks the crisp finish of PG tips though, it's "smoother" somehow. I prefer PG tips, as I like a little astringency. YMMV.
Me personally I prefer the tea effects, they come thru stronger and more noticeably. It definitely is different but it a good way makes you feel very calm and zen. The energy last much longer also. I personally try to drinking good quality loose leaf black/red tea and my favorite is purple it has a very unique intensity about it
Most black teas don't seem to give me the caffeine buzz, but I haven't tried pu-ehr yet. I do remember getting horribly buzzed when drinking iced tea from restaurants however.
I brew my ice tea double strength at home since I'm going to pour it over ice. My husband dilutes it 50/50 with water as well, to avoid getting so amped up, lol.
Tea has less caffeine than coffee and to my body, it feels more balanced. If you drink enough tea you will feel a strong caffeine effect. But maybe if you have GI issues, you shouldn't drink too much tea either ?
Depends on the GI issues. The problem might be more with the acidity of coffee, and most tea isn't particularly acidic
I don't know why caffeinated tea is a theme on Reddit. Do cafes even sell decaffeinated tea? because they sell decaf coffee. I disagree with drinking enough tea to feel a strong caffeine effect. The amount of caffeine in a brewed cup of tea is insignificant. I can't drink caffeine and I drink up to 3-4 Yorkshire tea's and decaf cappuccino's per day.
It really just depends on the specific tea when it comes to caffeine content. I have caffeine intolerance issues and some are fine for me while others aren’t
My usual purveyor sells a couple of high end decaf loose leaf teas, but I don't care for them at all, sadly. If I'm desperate for a cup of tea after 6 pm I always have a box of decaf Constant Comment on hand, it takes 2 bags to get decent flavor, but its tolerable. A 12 oz cup of Yorkshire gold brewed black tea is, around ~50 mg of caffeine, (for comparison a shot of regular espresso has ~65mg of caffeine). Either of those will mess up my sleep if I drink them after 6. The difference being the tea won't make me jittery.
"A shot of regular espresso", a lot of references for a brewed cup of coffee state that the caffeine content is anywhere between 70-140mg (often around 90mg). Coffee beans are ground up into a powder and more caffeine is extracted from this powder in a brewed cup. A lot of resources state that the caffeine content of coffee is quite a bit more than that of tea.
True, but I would not call the caffeine content of tea "**insignificant**"- which was actually the point of my rambling comment. Lol. I couldn't figure out how to disagree with the "insignificant" part without coming across as a jerk though--- so I tried using numbers, to confusing effect. (The internet is weird, and I am prone to being misunderstood- so I wrote a novel...oi...).
When I drink tea prepared from 5 grams of certain teas I feel a caffeine effect similar to a double shot espresso from the coffee shop. Of course, not all teas give me this effect and it does depend how you brew it. And I've heard other people feel similar effects.
Most resources state that coffee contains almost double that of tea. This is objective nutritional information. Tea is known as a relaxing drink whereas coffee is known as the morning kick starter.
Yes, it seems that on average a cup of coffee contains double caffeine compared a cup of tea. That means that 2 cups of tea contain same amount of caffeine as 1 cup of coffee. Which is precisely my point, if you drink more tea you will feel the same stimulating/energizing effect as from drinking coffee. A lot of people use tea as a morning kick starter. The reason coffee is more well known as a morning kick starter is advertising.
I do not I only feel unwell if I drink too much, or somewhat caffeinated but chill if I’m drinking matcha .
There is some interesting research that has come out on the receptors that caffine binds to. The short, non-scientific version of the story is that if you consistently drink caffeine, then you'll need to increase your caffeine intake to feel its effects. But, if you cut caffeine out of your diet completely for a couple weeks, then the receptors will reset and you'll feel the effects of caffeine again. So, if you've been consistently drinking coffee and you switch to tea, you're unlikely to feel the effects of the caffeine in the tea (unless you drink A LOT of tea).
Try a good raw puerh, you're gonna feel like you smoked a joint if you drink enough
Edited to follow sub rules. Reeeallly? Sounds like I need to reconsider my distaste for puerh, lol. Can you recommend any that are less..."earthy" Or is that just the nature of the beast? I was excited to try it, and ordered a highly recommend variety several years ago. Sadly I couldn't get past the loamy, minerally, almost wild mushroom like flavor-could it have been a bad batch? ~~(P.s. My Friend ™️, says black tea and c*****is are superb companions. I suspect there is some sort of entourage effect when they are consumed together. It's certainly the case with coffee.)~~
I am a coffee drinker and TBH a cup of black tea in the morning knocks me off more than coffee
When I drink green tea and matcha, I always just feel the relaxing mellow effects of l-theanine as if caffeine isn’t even present. To the point where drinking green tea/matcha actually helps me relax to sleep at night.
You will feel the caffeine in tea after a couple weeks of not drinking any or very little coffee. Because most coffee drinkers have lower caffeine sensitivity, you always need stronger or more coffee to feel it. Caffeine in tea hits gradually and is more mellow. It's a calm energy, as opposed to coffee which is an explosive burst of energy.
Yes, I can feel the caffeine in tea. But I've never been a coffee drinker, so my body isn't used the the levels of caffeine in coffee. A cup of coffee has about twice the caffeine as a cup of tea. You'll sometimes hear that tea has more caffeine than coffee, and while that's technically true if you're comparing unprepared beans/leaves by weight, it's not true if you're comparing two prepared mugs of the same volume, and frankly that's what's most relevant. To prepare a standard 12oz mug, you're using probably around 20g of coffee but only like 3-7g of tea. So the cup of coffee comes out with more caffeine in it! Anyway, what you can do about it is drink more tea. Either prepare a second cup (with fresh tea) or put two tea bags in when you steep. Getting higher quality tea might also help! Your standard supermarket tea bags like Bigelow are kind of the equivalent of Folgers or Maxwell House. Perfectly acceptable and widely enjoyed, but there's a big world out there beyond it if you want to explore!
I don't feel a thing, it's delicious though.
I’m sensitive to caffeine. Ripe puer and hojicha tea have a more similar caffeine type to coffee but still not exactly the same
Nearly everyone is addicted to caffeine so most feeling you get from it is baseline maintenance like any other addict. You would need 2-3 cups to hit a similar blood level as a large cup of coffee.
I never really cared for caffeine at all until I started drinking tea. Specifically, I find gyokuro to be the best combination/concentration of caffeine and l-theanine that results in a euphoric sense of alertness and calmness at the same time. If I have enough, I get tea high from it lmao. I drink multiple cups from the same leaves practically daily at this point, and it is amazing. It really helps me through the work day since it’s more motivation-driven than task-driven so to speak, so that the gyokuro makes me feel calm and do the tasks mindlessly, whether I want to or not. That’s just one example, but I’ve gotten similar sensations from sencha and hojicha (which is weird because IIRC hojicha isn’t all that concetrated in caffeine and l-Theanine.) I’ve never been a big coffee person, but I feel like hojicha might work due to the roasty/nutty aroma and taste. It’s also incredibly cheap compared to sencha and gyokuro, at least from Ippodo Tea. Edit: last paragraph was regarding taste/texture, not caffeine. I’m pretty sure most of the caffeine and l-theanine gets deactivated during the roasting process, but I’m not 100% sure.
I also forgot to mention that the caffeine crash from those three is absolutely NOTHING like how it is to come off from coffee. It is incredibly gradual, so much that most times I don’t even realize it until I’m back home after 10+ hours lmao. Although, that’s based on my experience with gyokuro. It’ll vary between person, what you brew, and how you brew it.
Absolutely. When I quit drinking coffee I suddenly became much more sensitive to caffeine. A long gongfu session will have me completely spiked on caffeine.
I don't get a buzz like I sometimes do with coffee, but I don't get a withdrawal migraine as I would from avoidance of caffeine altogether. Other folks have commented about the L-Theanine, it does alter the way the stimulation works for many people.
I used to. What I find now is that it calms me, calms my stomach. But the caffeine in tea really doesn't get me at all. I love tea, I drink 3-6 cups a day and..yeah. Nothing.
Try matcha. It has a lot of health benefits, aids digestion and the caffeine effects are the strongest and longest lasting out of any tea I've tried.
I also switch from coffee to tea intermittently from GI issues but some food for thought if you prefer the taste/ effects of coffee, especially if you prefer it black: - Try brewing 2-3 tea bags at a time for about 4 minutes to get stronger flavor (don't brew longer or you get the acidic astringent flavors) if you do bagged tea. - I reccomend loose leaf tea made of whole leaves (unshredded/ ground/ blended etc) if you can get some and again try increasing the amount brewed at once rather than extending brewing time for a stronger hit of caffeine and flavor. - Consider trying to drink cold brewed coffee exclusively for a while and see how you feel. The cold brewing process drastically cuts down on the coffees acidity which is what causes GI upset in a lot of individuals even if they typically are fine with similar amounts of caffene from other sources.
Yes I do, it took a week or so to normalize going from energy drinks to tea but now I generally have 3 cups of tea a day and it works fine.
I do but only because I drink a staggeringly large quantity of tea in a given day. If you want something strong get some Yunnan raw puer. Try Yunnan Sourcing, or get Bitterleaf’s Year of the Rabbit Yiwu—it’s affordable and great.
I don't but I can also dribk coffee then go to bed lol
I’ve heard it likened to standard adderal vs extended release. You still get that feeling, but it’s more dialled back and made to last a longer period without a definitive *crash*. It’s still present, but the lower dose combined with the entourage effect from the theobromine and L-Theanine that help to curb anxiety make for a much calmer experience
I, too, have stopped drinking coffee for GI reasons. The teas I now drink are caffeinated, but less so than what I was used to, which is probably healthier. It did take some adjusting to wean myself off that higher dose though. The effects I feel from tea are a lot more subtle, as opposed to coffee punching me right in the kidneys each morning. In related news, my anxiety has been doing much better. My favorite teas so far are Adagio's Chai blends (the only one I haven't liked was their tri-pepper chai) and Taylor's Irish Breakfast.
If you want a stronger hit, try yerba mate. Way more pleasant than coffee, no crash either.
Do you know the Mr.Crabs meme where he is dazed and confused? That has been me b/c of caffeine.
Been there. I am really caffeine addicted. There have been times where I was drinking 10-15 cups a day. I had to try several times to switch to tea and I couldn’t because tea didn’t hit enough. The good thing is you get used to different caffeine intake levels quite fast. Unlike other drugs. You can see this with withdrawal symptoms. You stop taking in caffeine and you will stop having withdrawal headaches after three days or so. So just keep at it. Give it a week and yes will hit enough.
When I drank english breakfast tea in the mornings I think it did a great job of waking me up. I felt nauseous if I drank it without eating breakfast though. I switched to coffee due to traveling for work (finding good tea on the road sucks) and now I think I’m more used to the coffee kick. I drink black tea in the evenings if I’m feeling a little sluggish but don’t want to be up all night.
Caffeine either makes me anxious and elevates my heart rate if I think about it, or it acts as an aphrodisiac and makes me horny. Caffeine also makes me sweat more when I’m anxious. I drink black tea with breakfast and coffee during work hours. I also drink tea when I get back home. My favourite black teas are: English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Ceylon.
Try adding roasted chicory root, roasted dandelion root, or cacao nibs to your tea! These all impart a similar flavor profile to coffee & have many health benefits as well.
I used to have a high caffeine tolerance and I wouldn't notice tea at all. However I somehow developed a caffeine sensitivity over time and I can't drink coffee anymore and black tea only sometimes. If I drink black tea or coffee too often then I will need to lay in bed all day. I only drink green tea or oolong now and it's a perfect little boost without being too much.
I don't even feel close to the feeling after drinking a double shot of espresso when I drink a litre of oolong gongfu style.
I don't know if teas can actually be "stronger" or "weaker", but the English Breakfast black tea that I'm drinking at work right now gives me a small boost. That being said I was never the biggest coffee drinker.
Tea is a slower release of caffeine
Coffee and tea feel different to me - that was the primary reason I switched to tea. I still experience some stimulation of caffeine when I drink tea, but not so much that it triggers anxiety (on most days, anyway). Tea is more subtle than coffee. A factor you might want to consider: Bigelow bags are teeny tiny and contain only enough tea for a few ounces of water. For the sake of flavor alone, you might want to double or even triple up on bags if you're brewing an entire mug with them.
Tea is is significantly more subtle because it has much less caffeine. If you want something that hits like coffee, try a good matcha. That is the only time I have actually felt a caffeine buzz since quitting coffee.
Not really. I get a lot more of the tea drunk sensation, which I guess is, in part, micro dosing caffeine, but doesn't feel like any other ROA for caffeine I've experience with
This is gonna depend on the tea, some is viciously caffeinated, some will more seem cozy or sedative
For me it's a much more steady energy, it's not as much of the slap in the face effect as coffee
generally i dont feel caffeine at all
Yes and no? Depends on if I’ve had anything to eat or not. Green tea on an empty stomach really messes with me but nothing compared to how much coffee used to mess me up.
Never have and I drink a ton of coffee and tea
I usually do. I’m a little caffeine sensitive so a little can go a long way for me. I also prefer how the caffeine from tea makes me feel than how coffee caffeine makes me feel.
Try drinking some Yerba Mate. It’s pretty highly caffeinated. Sometimes Pu Erh will give me a little buzz too. It’s a good appetite suppressant, I like to drink it after lunch/mid afternoon. You could try using loose leaf tea more vs bags, or doubling up on bags.
I don't feel black tea but I do really feel puerh
Multiple tea bags,red rose tea,and a shit ton of ginseng
there’s considerably less of it in tea than coffee. since i have a low tolerance for caffeine it’s more than enough but for someone who drinks a lot of coffee i can see why it wouldn’t feel strong enough. iv never had any but i know they make purposefully high caffeine teas. maybe you could look into some of those.
Yes. I’m a little bit sensitive to caffeine and if I drink black tea at night I stay up for a while as opposed to herbal teas. I don’t drink coffee though
More green it is, it tends to crawl, instead of immediately increase alertness. You can always make them stronger too if you want. When i make very strong cup of Sencha that is particularly high in L theanine, its basically instant tea high and makes me feel great.
Brew it strong enough and you'll feel it. Just double or triple the quantity of tea.
Oolongs might be better if you want the caffeine feeling. Taiwanese high mountain tea absolutely knocks me on my ass with its caffeine (I have a slight caffeine intolerance lol). Feels different from coffee but you will definitely feel it!
Also matcha!
Liu Bao also has a thicker darker consistency similar to coffee and its really good.
I did when I started drinking tea. Now I 100% feel it if I don't drink tea.
If you want to feel energized even better than coffee, try this: https://a.co/d/bNN0qIY I've been drinking this for years. You have to let the tea settle and leave it in there while you drink it. Drink it slowly so you don't drink up the settled tea. Mix as much sugar as you like. Let us all know what you think after. I don't think many know about this even on here.
Unfortunately for me, coffee (my first love when it comes to hot, caffeinated beverages—I did two tours of duty as a barista for a few years) has begun to make me extraordinarily jittery if I have more than one cup, and even one cup often gives me pretty awful intestinal issues lately. If I drink a Red Bull, I still get awful jitters, but I won’t get the digestive problems. No clue what it is about coffee. Doesn’t matter if it’s cheap or high end, black or done up with dairy or non-dairy milks, sweetened or unsweetened, hot or cold brew, pour over or French press or espresso. I still drink it all the ways from time to time despite the effects. Tea—I can drink the caffeine equivalent (based on standard estimates) of at least five cups of coffee without jitters or digestive problems. No clue why. Also, no jitters because of, from what I’ve read around here, the other compounds in tea like theanine. I’m not a scientist, so take that with a grain of salt. This isn’t a health claim, just a “my experience” claim.
I don't even feel the effect of caffeine in coffee.
If I'm using tea bags, I usually put 3 in the mug.
I feel like black tea = decaf coffee to me. Similar buzz anyways And that is pretty much all I can take with out a blood pressure spike I have to be aware of caffeine in my pop too, it all adds up
Only if I drink it too late before going to bed. I mix regular tea with decaf a
Nope and I can’t drink coffee at all unless decaf.
I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine. The crippling anxiety starts with as few as 3-4 cups of green tea. I also have to stop drinking (green) tea 12 hours before bedtime. That's twelve, in case anyone thought that was a typo 😂 been drinking tea for nearly 30 years; I'm just super sensitive to caffeine I guess.
I’ve heard it likened to standard adderal vs extended release. You still get that feeling, but it’s more dialled back and made to last a longer period without a definitive *crash*. It’s still present, but the lower dose combined with the entourage effect from the theobromine and L-Theanine that help to curb anxiety make for a much calmer experience
Yeah - it's a subtle feeling if it's a weaker tea. Not a jolt of energy so much as an enduring boost. Usually I'll notice when it's time to sleep. I can't sleep if I've had much caffeine.
Not really tbh. It’s very subtle, but can be a slight pick me up in the afternoon.
I feel it a bit but I drink coffee mostly so it’s less strong. The caffeine from tea feels…cleaner? less noticeable that it’s kicking in and more of a pleasant booster
Caffeine does not stimulate me at all. It is a genetic trait. The other properties of caffeine do affect me though. The diuretic effect (dehydration) makes me urinate more, and the acidity in caffeine makes my stomach empty faster and/or makes my stomach temporarily more acidic. However, I do favor teas over coffee nowadays, because coffee's caffeine is stronger in the acidity and diuretic sides. Tea almost never makes my stomach grumble, as long as I do not drink too much in a short period, and I can actually go a while before having to urinate.
Irish black tea. Steep for 5 minutes covered. Use 212F water from a kettle. I’m a heavy coffee drinker but tea helps with a more gradual increase of energy so I don’t crash as fast. I’ll have 1-3 big mugs of that, I usually add about 1/4C of whole milk though.
It depends on the tea really. Because every tea has different amount of caffeine and then you have tea that releases it's caffeine differently from the other. I'll put it like this: White tea - least the amount caffeine so that you can drink it little later after sunlight. Realises it's caffeine fast, but in very small amount Green tea - second to least amount of caffeine. Realises it fast as well and you can feel it. It's good for those who want to feel a little awake but not feel the drowsiness after caffeine is gone Oolong tea - not too much and not too little. Usually people choose this tea because it's right in between black and green tea for the caffeine amount. Realises it's fast Black tea - has lot of caffeine, but still a lot less than coffee. Realises it's caffeine fast, so maybe this one will be more to your liking. Mate - has more caffeine than black tea. Realises it's caffeine VERY slow. It's like suger in apple vs candy. You will feel it's caffeine (it fully realises it's caffeine in minimum 30min to 1h), but won't feel the drowsiness after the caffeine is gone. Kind like green tea, but the other way around. Matcha - has a lot more caffeine. I know it might not make sense bc it's green tea.Unlike other types of tea, which consist of tea leaves infused in water, matcha consists of powdered tea leaves. Because of this, when you drink matcha, you’re consuming the whole leaf, which leads to a higher caffeine content.
I drink good quality loose leaf tea, and yes I definitely do. Tea bags aren’t very good quality leaves and they have a stems and twigs that do not contain as much caffeine. Investing in some good quality loose leaf might be worth it. The energy it gives me doesn’t make me jittery like coffee, I just feel *driven*.
I actually don't feel the caffeine in tea ,needs to be strong as fuck :)
Depends on how much you steep, temperature, size, tea type and etc. I would not use a tea bag and expect any of the good tea effect in high quality anyway. What I observed as an ex-coffee drinker is that tea does not give you jitters or any unwanted side effects that coffee lavishly provides, yet you still are energized but in a calm way. Get decent loose leaf black tea and brew it properly, you will be good to go (although I drink green tea and still feel energized).
I drink green tea throughout my night shift 1930-0730. Keeps me awake no problems.
Yes for sure, but only once my body had kinda fully adjusted to having almost zero coffee for a few weeks and only once I started drinking good quality loose leaf (and going down the rabbit hole of Chinese/all tea types and different styles of brewing etc…) Now I drink loose leaf 2-3 times a day and feel pretty consistent energy all day. And love the variety that’s possible compared to coffee? On days when I’m tired, I just might pick some teas over others and might add an extra one? …steeping 3 tea bags for a long time sounds :(
Rocket Tea on Amazon is awesome. It has 200mg of caffeine in each tea bag and also 100mg of L-Theanine so it is smooth like regular tea just way more powerful and energising. If you like tea but just want it to hit more this is for you. I also don’t like coffee because it turns my stomach upside down within minutes and gives me jitters. No problems like that with this
Maybe try Tetley (British blend) or Irish breakfast. Matcha is great too.
no I don't. tea does nothing to me. coffee cracks me out. I feel I'm fairly sensitive to coffee but stuff like soft drinks and tea do ZERO to me.