This topic is very close to my heart. For me, on top of the caffeine high that I get from both tea and coffee, I also enjoy the rituals that I have invented for them. For tea, I have several types of gourmet tea leaves at home. Some are strongly fragrant, others are meant for the purist. I usually mix them. Depending on my mood, the mixture would vary. I brew it for about 20 minutes, and mix it with 50% hot water when I serve it. I serve it in glass cups so I can see the color. The color has to be “right”. As the last step before my first sip, I sniff it so I feel the fragrance. Sometimes adding a very small amount of sugar brings out the flavor of the tea. My ritual for coffee is to get in the car and go to that one particular coffee shop some 5 miles away from home. They make the best cappuccino (with oat milk in my case) in a real ceramic mug. Yum.
I think making the coffee - grinding the beans by hand, boiling the water, fiddling with my aeropress - is 75% of my enjoyment of coffee. I drink tea from a bag so it doesn't have the same routine, though I like the tea as a drink better.
Excellent writing, and I particularly enjoyed reading over the habits of Wolfe, Mann, Kierkegaard, and Rice. I also didn’t know caffeine was prohibited from cycling for a period, and is it bad that I try to hedge by drinking tea and coffee in the morning? I promise I’m not past the point of addiction where I cease to think I’m addicted…
Great post. I will have to check out that Pollan book now. I try to stop consuming caffeine before noon so it doesn't impact my sleep (bed time is about 9, I am probably being more conservative than I need to).
For me the effect of theanine is quite noticeable. There was a period in my twenties where I would take caffeine pills along with theanine pills. The theanine definitely prevented the jitters and crash that the caffeine could cause. Both were very cheap too which is great.
Absolutely loved this read — especially the part on lantern vs. spotlight consciousness and how caffeine shaped the Enlightenment. It’s wild to think how much of our collective productivity still runs on tea and coffee.
For those curious to explore the world of tea a bit more deeply (including l-theanine-rich varieties), we recently published some pieces on this at https://lovesometea.com. We’re building both an educational tea blog and curated tea shop — great if you’re looking to upgrade your daily ritual.
The thing that I'd really like to know about caffeine is how I should model tolerance. For some substances, people imply that tolerance is absolute, meaning that after a while, you're just taking it to get back at baseline. But for other substances, tolerance is partial, meaning that even though the effects are decreased, they remain > 0 essentially forever. (And often you get tolerance to some effects and not others.) But I've never been able to figure out of anyone knows how this works for caffeine, or even what prior I should use if I have to make a guess!
I hear people refer to in absolute tolerance terms often but at the same time, my sense is it's more partial since anecdotally everyone I know that drinks caffeine still get some bump from it (so ">0 forever").
That said, from personal experience I find that if I drink too much then I move more into the "absolute camp" (and really need more and more coffee to get a bump) whereas if I drink in moderation, I stay in the "partial camp" forever... I wonder why that is - maybe I tip certain neurotransmitter mechanisms beyond some tipping point when I drink too much? not sure...
This topic is very close to my heart. For me, on top of the caffeine high that I get from both tea and coffee, I also enjoy the rituals that I have invented for them. For tea, I have several types of gourmet tea leaves at home. Some are strongly fragrant, others are meant for the purist. I usually mix them. Depending on my mood, the mixture would vary. I brew it for about 20 minutes, and mix it with 50% hot water when I serve it. I serve it in glass cups so I can see the color. The color has to be “right”. As the last step before my first sip, I sniff it so I feel the fragrance. Sometimes adding a very small amount of sugar brings out the flavor of the tea. My ritual for coffee is to get in the car and go to that one particular coffee shop some 5 miles away from home. They make the best cappuccino (with oat milk in my case) in a real ceramic mug. Yum.
Thank you for a fun and informative post.
I think making the coffee - grinding the beans by hand, boiling the water, fiddling with my aeropress - is 75% of my enjoyment of coffee. I drink tea from a bag so it doesn't have the same routine, though I like the tea as a drink better.
Excellent writing, and I particularly enjoyed reading over the habits of Wolfe, Mann, Kierkegaard, and Rice. I also didn’t know caffeine was prohibited from cycling for a period, and is it bad that I try to hedge by drinking tea and coffee in the morning? I promise I’m not past the point of addiction where I cease to think I’m addicted…
The Kierkegaard anecdote is bonkers. Its so bonkers that I may try it - it must have potential if he kept doing it.
Great post. I will have to check out that Pollan book now. I try to stop consuming caffeine before noon so it doesn't impact my sleep (bed time is about 9, I am probably being more conservative than I need to).
For me the effect of theanine is quite noticeable. There was a period in my twenties where I would take caffeine pills along with theanine pills. The theanine definitely prevented the jitters and crash that the caffeine could cause. Both were very cheap too which is great.
Absolutely loved this read — especially the part on lantern vs. spotlight consciousness and how caffeine shaped the Enlightenment. It’s wild to think how much of our collective productivity still runs on tea and coffee.
For those curious to explore the world of tea a bit more deeply (including l-theanine-rich varieties), we recently published some pieces on this at https://lovesometea.com. We’re building both an educational tea blog and curated tea shop — great if you’re looking to upgrade your daily ritual.
The thing that I'd really like to know about caffeine is how I should model tolerance. For some substances, people imply that tolerance is absolute, meaning that after a while, you're just taking it to get back at baseline. But for other substances, tolerance is partial, meaning that even though the effects are decreased, they remain > 0 essentially forever. (And often you get tolerance to some effects and not others.) But I've never been able to figure out of anyone knows how this works for caffeine, or even what prior I should use if I have to make a guess!
amazing that this isn't known!
I hear people refer to in absolute tolerance terms often but at the same time, my sense is it's more partial since anecdotally everyone I know that drinks caffeine still get some bump from it (so ">0 forever").
That said, from personal experience I find that if I drink too much then I move more into the "absolute camp" (and really need more and more coffee to get a bump) whereas if I drink in moderation, I stay in the "partial camp" forever... I wonder why that is - maybe I tip certain neurotransmitter mechanisms beyond some tipping point when I drink too much? not sure...