You are not my barista

September 14, 2015 3:50 PM

Why does the same level of caffeine affect me differently in different beverages?

When I drink caffeine, I feel differently depending on whether it's coffee or tea.

Example: I have one cup of coffee, and although I get a better, bigger burst of energy at the outset, later I crash and feel tired/unable to concentrate. The equivalent amount of tea doesn't do this, but feels more like a clear, focused energy that doesn't crash.

Is this an explainable thing, and if so, why does it happen? Is there a way to drink coffee without this happening? (Probably not.)

posted by ariadne's threadspinner to Food & Drink (20 answers total)

Coffee and tea have different amounts of caffeine in them. In fact, different preparation styles have different amounts of caffeine: espresso actually has less caffeine than a cup of drip coffee.

I don't have a solid scientific explanation for why your reaction to the caffeine is different from beverage to beverage, but I definitely agree with you that drip coffee hits me really hard and I often crash. Whereas with tea or espresso drinks, I get the energy from the caffeine without the extremes.
posted by Sara C. at 3:52 PM on September 14, 2015 [3 favorites]

I recall reading something about this, and it has something to do with caffeine absorption rate, which is affected by both roasting and brewing.
posted by lmfsilva at 4:03 PM on September 14, 2015

One, a given volume of tea and coffee do not have the same amount of caffeine.
Two, tea contains theanine which has similar but slightly different effects from caffeine and works synergitically with caffeine.
posted by GuyZero at 4:13 PM on September 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Just to clarify, I meant around the same amount of caffeine by mg. So, one 8oz cup of coffee to maybe three or four 8oz cups of tea.
posted by ariadne's threadspinner at 4:20 PM on September 14, 2015

Could it have something to do with the amount of water that you are also consuming? I find that caffeine plus dehydration makes me feel awful.
posted by rakaidan at 4:47 PM on September 14, 2015 [4 favorites]

Theanine is a chemical in tea which is the most likely explanation. Like, there are some limited studies on it, it crosses the blood-brain barrier, you can buy it in pill form as a supplement, and people report these effects. Try taking some along with coffee if you're curious.
posted by vogon_poet at 5:11 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Are we assuming there's no difference in how fast you consume the coffee vs. equivalent amount of tea? That would be my first guess: in coffee the caffeine enters your system all at once, whereas the tea acts like an "extended-release" version of the same amount, because you're taking it in the form of many cups of a lesser amount.

You could try sipping dark roast espresso drinks (both darker roasts and steam-extraction lower caffeine) over a longer period of time to get the same buzz with more "tea-like" kinetics.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:06 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

You could try sipping dark roast espresso drinks (both darker roasts and steam-extraction lower caffeine) over a longer period of time to get the same buzz with more "tea-like" kinetics.

No, that's a common misconception. Dark roast coffee (e.g. French roast) has such an infinitesimally smaller amount of caffeine that the difference in pharmacological effect is imperceptible.
posted by John Cohen at 6:09 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Good catch, thanks for the correction. And actually steam extraction will produce a drink with more caffeine in it per volume; I was mixing two facts up there. However, a typical serving of espresso does still tend to have less caffeine than a typical serving of drip coffee, so that advice still stands, particularly if you take it diluted in something like milk or water. You could also just drink diluted drip coffee, of course, but that sounds kind of unpalatable.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:30 PM on September 14, 2015

The data's mixed, but it's possible coffee is transiently spiking your blood glucose and then you're feeling a double crash of post-caffeine, post blood sugar high. Testing your blood glucose isn't hard if you're curious in checking this out experimentally.
posted by deludingmyself at 7:00 PM on September 14, 2015

(As for how to combat it, I haven't tested my own blood glucose but find I tolerate coffee with plenty of cream and a snack way better. If I'm not hungry, I really ought to reach for tea more often.)
posted by deludingmyself at 7:03 PM on September 14, 2015

Like you, drip coffee hits me hard-and-rough (ditto chemex), whereas tea and milk-containing espresso drinks (up to but no stronger than a cortado) are a much gentler ride, and leave me feeling good.

My I-am-not-a-scientist theory is that water in tea, and other calories (milk in both tea and espresso) make a difference.

Which isn't really a great answer, but I'm certainly adding this Ask to my activity to see who else posts!
posted by sazerac at 7:03 PM on September 14, 2015

There are a couple other, minor complimentary alkaloids in coffee that are stimulants aside from caffeine. These can be extracted at different rates based on your brewing method. Long-steeped cold brew for instance, has (some, but not a lot) less caffeine in it, but people often state they feel more 'cracked out' when they drink too much, and that feeling is much different than overdoing it on regular coffee. Different amounts of caffeine are the largest contributing stimulant, but there's a small array of other stimulants at play (in coffee, at least, I have very limited knowledge about the chemical makeup of tea). I personally find certain extractions to provide a slightly different type of high; but this is anecdotal, and not evidence based at all.

BUT, since you mention the difference between coffee and tea specifically, I'd focus on the L-theanine angle, if you're looking to combat the crash with coffee. I work for a coffee roastery, and use L-Theanine pretty religiously on heavy-consumption days when we're dialing in new espresso recipes or doing large sample cuppings. My co-workers and I report kind of the same thing; it helps round out the caffeine 'high' and makes the whole thing much less jittery and nearly eliminates the crash. I've heard two theories on this. The first being that L-theanine helps the body process caffeine easier and a bit quicker. The second theory is this could also be just because L-theanine has relaxant properties (taking it solo, not in conjunction with caffeine, it works better for me than normal doses of melatonin) and could just be part of an awesome little speedball we've concocted.

Again, none of my information comes from peer reviewed evidence based research, just collective folklore from the brotherhood of coffee roasters for hire and extensive self experimentation by me, and my coworkers.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:21 PM on September 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Coffee is pretty brutal on the gut compared to tea.
posted by flabdablet at 7:37 PM on September 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Coffee lowers gut pH much more than tea, which I'm sure enhances its immediately perceptible digestive effects on me. And how my digestion's going is a pretty big factor on how much energy I have.
posted by ambrosen at 5:11 AM on September 15, 2015

However, a typical serving of espresso does still tend to have less caffeine than a typical serving of drip coffee, so that advice still stands,

Yeah, my comment wasn't about espresso vs. drip coffee. I'm just saying the choice between two kinds of drip coffee — dark roast or light roast — should be based on how much you like the taste, not how much caffeine they have. Back when I worked at Starbucks and they were explaining the roasting process to us during orientation, they pointed out that the French roast has less caffeine because it's roasted for longer — but they only pointed this out to say we shouldn't say this to customers, because the difference is so insignificant (less than a 1% difference, I think) that there's no reason for it to affect any coffee-drinker's decision.
posted by John Cohen at 6:38 AM on September 15, 2015

I'm glad to learn that roasting has a minor effect on caffeine content. As for the question, I'm guessing you wouldn't drink the 3 cups of tea as quickly as the single coffee, and it's got three times as much water in it affecting the kinetics of absorption.

It's analogous to drinking a long island iced tea (tons of alcohol) vs. three beers. And three cups of tea is still not even close IIRC to the caffeine in a single cup of coffee. Theanine makes such a difference that you can buy theanine + caffeine combined supplements but I don't think anyone has mentioned theophylline. Check that out.
posted by aydeejones at 7:33 AM on September 15, 2015

(Theophylline is another stimulant in the same family as caffeine found in tea, and tea also contains theobromide)
posted by aydeejones at 7:35 AM on September 15, 2015

Caffeine is metabolized by the liver into theophylline, theobromine, and paraxanthine. So their independent presence in tea shouldn't make any difference.
posted by GuyZero at 9:51 AM on September 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have similar issues, OP. Coffee can make me sweaty and jittery. Red Bull and Kickstart make me feel good, but not sickly. And Monster drinks make me want to vomit.

I've always assumed it is the other ingredients in the drinks that make me react so differently to them.
posted by tacodave at 4:36 PM on September 15, 2015