Effects of Caffeine: How does it make you feel?
Ok so, up until a couple months ago, I never drank caffeine ever ever ever. Right now, I still try to limit my consumption of caffeine since it can be so addictive. I try not to have it more that a couple times a week.
However.
My body has varied reactions when I drink caffeine. Sometimes when I drink oolong tea it doesn’t seem to affect me much at all in terms of an immediate feeling, thought it might take me an extra couple of hours to fall asleep. Sometimes after I drink puerh I find my self randomly wandering around the house singing and dancing (don’t laugh at me. lol) just because I have a temporary little burst of energy. Pretty temporary.
The one that I hate the worst though, and this is why I’m starting this thread, is that sometimes after I drink puerh I have this feeling in the bottom of my stomach. A feeling like I’m about to go on a piano recital in front of hundreds of people. A feeling like I’m about to take final exam that’s worth a huge chunk of my grade and I’m not quite ready for it. A feeling closely related to stress and anxiety. I love the taste of the tea. It’s very enjoyable and relaxing WHILE I’m drinking it but I do NOT like the stressy-anxious feeling that I get in the pit of my stomach afterwards. Does anyone else get this type of feeling after drinking any of their teas? I’m thinking its just caffeine sensitivity and I need to not resteep 5 or 6 times like I am right now.
An excellent puerh tea will impart a relaxing feeling, or sensations starting in the spine, around the ears or forehead. This would be a qi effect. What you are talking about does sound like caffeine.
Drink an hour or so after a meal. The first few steeps of puerh are storage flavors. Taste them but go ahead and dump the rest, don’t drink the whole thing. The tea shows its character steeps 5+, these are the ones to focus on. Or buy some small tasting cups, these are about 2 thimbles full in size. Use a smaller amount of leaves in a small pot.
If it’s not the caffeine I have no idea what it could be because I only have this feeling after drinking tea.
Perfect then! Reduce the leaves and just taste the early steeps. The leaves can be saved and used again the next day too.
Ok so you’re saying don’t actually drink the early steeps just taste a sip and resteep? I think I can do that. When can I drink the whole pot?
That is correct. A young Sheng puerh can be very bitter or smoky on early steeps but turn fruity later. An old sheng may have storage flavors but then later steeps taste like dried fruit and leather. A ripe may have wo dui (pile fermentation) flavor in the early steeps. There may also be light white mold or mildew on a wet stored tea, or dust on a dry stored tea. It is worth a sip to see what is in the taste of the early steeps, this is part of the evaluation.
Like others have said the caffeine goes away as the fruitier steeps emerge. I would wait until steep 6 at least to drink a whole 100 ml if you are very sensitive to caffeine. I myself am highly addicted to caffeine. I can drink all steeps, but the price I pay is I need to drink high caffeine every day at the same times on the clock or I will get a headache or tired.
I get that feeling if I drink coffee.
I’ve never ever heard of anyone getting that feeling just by drinking something. I thought it was just me :c
Sometimes, and it seems totally random, caffeine makes me have a panic attack…I get the feeling you describe, lots of shakes, and then a really nasty nausea. Other times I can drink like a mountain of matcha and not even get a buzz.
Make sure you don’t drink tea on an empty stomach. I get this feeling on occasion if I don’t eat first. For me caffeine gives me the jitters for awhile then makes me tired, anxious, and I yawn a lot. That is… from a caffeine source like coffee or an energy drink. The caffeine in tea does not do this to me, I believe due to the theanine in the tea. It sort of counteracts or balances the effects of caffeine meaning you get some of the alertness without the hyperactivity usually associated with caffeine, along with a calming effect from the theanine.
Also, by the 5th and 6th steepings the caffeine is pretty much gone. You’ll get the majority of caffeine in the first two steepings especially if you’re drinking loose leaf. A compact brick or cake and you may get more caffeine in the latter steepings but by 5-6 it’s mostly gone.
I overdosed on caffeine once and got the shakes, the funny thing was I didn’t realise I had them until I handed someone a cup of coffee and they commented on it.
Otherwise sometimes I feel the effects of caffeine as a cooling of buzzing feeling in my arms and legs. I’ve only had the nauseous feeling when I was overtired and hadn’t eaten.
I have couple anxiety disorders so I have to be careful with caffeine since it makes the anxiety worse, that’s why can’t drink that much dark teas and coffee.
I’m really confused with caffeine levels in teas, some sites say that white tea has most caffeine and some say that black tea has, which one has more… Doesn’t caffeine level in tea depend on a lot of stuff.
From what I’ve read it varies based on each individual tea, not a class of tea such as white or black.
Ive done so much research on this and still don’t have a clear picture. Generally speaking, buds and 1st leaf will have more caffeine. Steep time, temperature, and length all have effect. Roasted oolongs will have less caffeine, and oolong in general (except Oriental Beauty and maybe Brandy Oolong) because they tend to use bud and 2 or 3 leaf.
To make my life a lot simpler because I have a wide variety of tea and drink them equally, I estimate each gram of tea equates to about 20 mg of caffeine if you fully steep (i.e. about 5 minutes of steeping time)
The daily dose is usually recommended at 200mg per day for most healthy people.
Ohh caffeine..I have a love/hate relationship with it.. mostly hate lol. I think I caused myself to become sensitive to caffeine when I used to drink 2 cups of coffee in place of breakfast in the mornings at work..one at 8 am, one at 11 am before lunch. I got exactly that knotted stomach feeling, it got so bad I went to the doctor about it and they could not find anything. I cut caffeine for an entire year (I didn’t even drink Pepsi/caffeinated colas) and it went away entirely. So I can definitely relate to that anxious stomach feeling.
Now when I have too much caffeine, it mostly makes me feel kind of fuzzy and anxious all around, my stomach can handle it when I have eaten, but the anxious feeling will sometimes persist and I need to down copious amounts of water to get rid of it. Definitely have had a few panic attacks from caffeine as well. So I’d be careful with it. I have been limiting my black tea intake to control these feelings, and drink quite a few herbals.
I’ve also found that really good pu’erh will not give me any bad caffeine side effects, in fact, the most relaxed I’ve been from drinking a tea was after drinking a pu’erh! So it definitely depends on the tea, but I find black teas to be the worst for it. Hope this helps!
I also hardly ever re-steep teas due to the caffeine buzz lol. It makes me sad, but I don’t want to throw myself into a tizzy with overcaffeinating.
Caffeine is highly water soluable, so you don’t really need to worry about getting overcaffeinated from re-steeping the same leaves. The vast majority of the caffeine will be in your first cup.
Good to know :) thanks for the info! This battle with caffeine is such a pain, I just want to drink tea and enjoy it haha not have to worry about such effects.
If I really want a caffeinated tea when it’s just not a good idea to have caffeine, I’ll sometimes just do a 30 second rinse with hot water before steeping my leaves to mostly decaffeinate it. This works great for some teas, though some change in flavour if you do this. Still, worth experimenting with :)
Also I’ve noticed some teas that contain high amounts of caffeine but ALSO contain lots of theanine seem to make me alert with no jitters/bad feeling- examples for me are matcha and guayusa.
It is possible to build up your caffeine tolerance. It has taken me a while, but I can now have several cups of tea a day when I used to only be able to handle one. It makes it much harder to have a caffeine overload where I get shaky and have that uneasy stomach feeling. When I have bursts of energy, instead of dancing (which is perfectly reasonable in my book) I clean as much as I can before I crash.
I built up such a tolerance over the past couple years that when I went cold turkey this summer due to a fever (it was recommended that I only ingest tisanes), I got caffeine withdrawal headaches after two days. It didn’t stop until several days later, when I began drinking caffeinated teas again. I actually didn’t realize that my headaches were tied to caffeine withdrawal until my father thought about it… And then that evening I was wide awake past midnight.
I’m trying to cut down so I won’t be so caffeine dependent. That was a NEVER AGAIN experience.
I find that the amount of caffeine in most teas isn’t an issue for me. It’ll make me a little more alert and perky if I’m tired, but unless I drink far too many cups without eating, the effects are subtle.
If I do overdo it, I end up pretty miserable. The experience is similar to having really low blood sugar or having a panic attack. I feel dizzy and faint, my chest feels tight, my heart races, I get sweaty, I start shaking and I feel anxious and terrible.
This is one of the reasons I avoid coffee entirely – I find it far too easy to overdo the caffeine.
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