(no subject)

[camwyn]

People may have the impression about me that I am a caffeine addict. I am not. I like to test new forms of the stuff and see whether they are useful, tasty, good, safe, etc., but more often than not my daily caffeine intake is confined to two mugs of morning coffee or a can of the Starbucks energy drink. I don't like what caffeine does to my blood pressure, and frankly, it tastes nasty. I've had caffeinated flavouring syrups for coffee and milk and there's a very palpable, nasty bitterness to it. Same deal with the peppermint-flavoured caffeinated breath spray. The caffeinated lip gloss tasted vile but that might've been because it was based on petroleum jelly and I'm used to beeswax-based lip goo, I don't know. Black Black gum's taste was strange for me. The caffeinated brownie mix wasn't too bad but I won't be buying it again; I don't like having to deal with crunchiness in my brownies (ground-up coffee beans aren't squishy, fudgy or chewy). The caffeinated sunflower seeds weren't that bad either, but that's because I only had a few at a time and took a long time in between new doses. And tempting as the prospect is, I'm not going out of my way to buy Perky Jerky, which is beef jerky (I like beef jerky) with caffeine in.

Anyway, the point of all that is not to brag about my caffeine record. The point is to say that Funranium Labs' Black Blood of the Earth coffee scares me and even once they get it available on Etsy I'll be staying well away from the stuff.

Comments

[mephron]

I'm guessing this stuff is outside your desired experience level as well.

[camwyn]

Yeah. Food products that've had caffeine added or that have it naturally, that's fine, but when we start talking about getting it purely as an additive or as a pill it's way outside my approval zone.

[funranium.livejournal.com]

I got pointed your way so I thought I'd say hello. Based on your previous experience, I've gotta say I'm impressed by your caffeine record. My whole goal with the BBotE was not to extract every last iota of caffeine from coffee beans; the point was to make coffee I could drink without adding sugar. The caffeination was just a nice side benefit. I will also testify to the fact that straight powdered caffeine from the reagent jar added to water and drunk is incredibly bitter.

Amongst the interesting things I have learned in the course of making BBotE is the pharmacopoeia of coffee. One of the secondary chemicals present in coffee beans in theophylline, a chemical step as the liver breaks down caffeine. Theophylline's normal pharmaceutical use is as an asthma medication that sets the heart racing and expands the bronchi. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that's the source of the feelings of tachycardia and jitters we normally call "caffeinism". When you drink drip coffee you are getting a dose of theophylline and then your body makes even more of it as processes the caffeine.

One of my going theories, which I am hoping the next round of GC will prove, is that my cold extraction process is preferentially extracting caffeine but not theophylline. Two of my favorite test subjects refuse to drink coffee at diners, much less the corner cafes, because one cup makes them feel like their hearts are going to explode and their hands are twitching like they have Parkinsons. When they, grudgingly, decided to try the BBotE they reported being Very Awake but their hearts weren't racing. Something Is Different but I haven't quite figured out what left.

[camwyn]

Huh. I was unaware of the theophylline aspect; preferentially extracting the caffeine but not that stuff would be
a definite plus. My hat is off to anyone who's as dedicated to applied organic chemistry as you. I definitely look forward to further test results with interest.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I was unaware that caffeine had a taste at all; I thought my problem was that I just didn't like coffee (and could detect it unusually well), since even the fanciest, frilliest, furthest-removed-from-real-coffee Starbucks drink I've ever had (a mocha frappucino) had an unpleasant bitter aftertaste. As far as energy drinks go, while the first one I ever had tasted like cherry cough syrup, I've had Bawls and it was okay. (I can't actually remember if it had any bitterness to it or if it was just nothing to write home about. I just recall that it tasted like Sprite that had gone a bit flat.)

I have ADHD, so no matter how much caffeinergy sauce I ingest, it doesn't wake me up at all. As inconvenient as this usually is, at least I won't be missing anything if I try decaf.

[camwyn]

Most people don't notice caffeine's taste. I'm not sure if it's that they're not getting it in high enough concentrations to detect- I only really realized that the one taste was there after comparing the bitterness in Sky Rocket vanilla flavour with the bitterness in the breath spray and realizing that, despite Sky Rocket being sugar-based and the spray being artificial sweetener, they both had the exact same nastiness. Then again, I'm also one of those people who get the OH GOD GET IT OUT OF MY MOUTH response to the paper that they give you in biology classes and say 'Taste this; a percentage of the class will not notice anything, and a percentage will hate it'. So it may be a chemical sensitivity.

Bawls derives much of its caffeine from guarana, which may mask some of the taste with the fruitiness. I've had Red Bull, which tasted rather like someone tipped apple juice and gingerale together and then smacked you with the get up and move stick. Set me to vibrating some at the time; haven't had it since.