TeaChat

Just started taking these today. 100mg before dinner. The calming effect was amazing and lasted for hours and hours. Also, thinking was clearer than usual and mood was elevated. Another plus was I got to drink more tea than usual without getting the caffeine jitters . Anyone take this stuff? I can't believe it's not more popular here. No drug interactions or side effects... the Japanese apparently put this stuff in everything from soda to bubble gum.

Taking my next dose tonight (with a cup of chamomile). It's supposed to cause deep, restful sleep.

I just drink tea when I want L Theanine

Yeah, but you have to drink A LOT of tea to get the effect of even a low dose of the suppliment. The most forgiving estimate I saw was like 6-8 6 oz. cups of quality looseleaf green tea a day. That equals out to around 50 mg of L Theanine in this particular estimate, and lots of caffeine. I popped a 100 mg capsule this morning, and that's a low dose. Most capsules come in 200 mg.

I generally avoid taking supplements out of principle, instead trying to get various nutrients from food. I've found good things about L-theanine, however, in my research, and I have yet to see any evidence of negative effects.

But in general, I have noticed that we tend to realize after the fact that a lot of things are healthiest to obtain through natural food sources. There's something about the balance inherent in natural foods, our bodies evolved to consume mixes of many different chemicals, not isolated chemicals, and that would make me a bit cautious.

The most forgiving estimate I saw was like 6-8 6 oz. cups of quality looseleaf green tea a day.

And whose to say I don't drink that much?

...actually I'm serious

Oh and on a hunch, I found this.

If you want natural occurring l-theanine, switch over to a high grade green tea, which may contain as much as 50 milligrams per cup.

Yeah, gyokuro and silver needle are the highest in theanine I believe. Not a very cost effective way to get your "dose", but delicious.

Seriously, I would recommend anyone who drinks good tea to try the suppliments. I think you would enjoy the effect. It's also very good for you. Promotes alpha waves in the brain, and good for the brain in general. It promotes deep, restful sleep and supposedly wards off dementia and alzheimer's, along with a host of other benefits. Best of all it's a caffeine antagonist, so it smooths out the caffeine jitters if you get a litttle tea crazy and over caff yourself. For that reason alone it has a place in my medicine cabinet.

I'm not big on suppliments either. Most crap out there is merely excreted one way or another without any absorption or can actually be harmful. I take the odd multivitamin a couple of times a week- mainly for the iron (lighter teas leach iron from the body), and B vitamins. Other than that I suppliment with vitamin D at varying dosages depending on the season. And I take fish oil occasionally.