newb question....more caffeine

[maldoror]

i quit coffee a year ago and started drinking pu erh...it's been a great change. much longer days without crashing and a consistent clear mind.

i've been drinking Maiden's Ecstasy pu from Samovar tea house in SF and also pu erh classic from Rishi. i've just recently ordered 8582, 7532, tibetan flame brick and the cheap Golden Sail. i really like the 8582 a lot. the 7532 has really nice flavor, but i understand why it needs to age a little. don't remember much about the flame brick. the golden sail is comparable to the rishi and samovar tea to me and at just over 2 bucks seems like a great deal.
i don't like that the two cakes and the brick are so yellow though. i like the thick dark red of the rishi classic a lot. with the 7532 and 8582 i clearly see the bottom of the cup...with the same amount of tea the rishi is nearly black. why is this?
also, the 7532 had virtually no effect...actually may have made me tired. the 8582 was better. but the rishi consistently gets me jacked up through the day. even the golden sail was significantly more stimulating than the cakes.
does the caffeine level increase with age?
are there some cakes that are known for higher caffeine content?
i need caffeine and i want darker brews for day to day caffeine addiction...where do i find this?

thanks for any help,
andrew

[TomVerlain]

pu erh has two basic types, sheng and shou , also called raw or green and cooked.

8582 and 7532 are raw, green = sheng. Golden Sail and your rishi ones are most likely shou, or cooked.

Shou emulates ageing, as a 8582 will age in 10-20 to be much more of a red / brown color.

To reprise, shou is cooked, or made to simulate aged tea. It is much darker - can almost be expresso like. Sheng, when young, is more of a hay colored tea, but when aged, moves to reddish brown tea.

Pu'erh has "chi" - which can represent more of a calm relaxing state or the other end of the spectrum, sweaty tingling jumpyness.

Chi varies based on your chemistry as well as the tea.

[Intuit]

..

[oldmanteapot]

Pu'erh has "chi" - which can represent more of a calm relaxing state or the other end of the spectrum, sweaty tingling jumpyness.

Chi varies based on your chemistry as well as the tea.

+1
Tom, agreed!

Other puerhs have a moderate to mild caffeine and glutamate kick, depending on the processing, relative youth and, as Tom opines, your personal chemistry = neurological tolerance and ability to process and excrete caffeine.

+1
Intuit, very informative and educational. Great insights... as you always do

Cheers!

[oldmanteapot]

Hi Andrew,

i quit coffee a year ago and started drinking pu erh...it's been a great change. much longer days without crashing and a consistent clear mind.

Welcome to the 'club'. I've also gave up coffee a year ago, but not entirely. But have reduced from an average of 6 cups a day to about 1 every two or three days.

also, the 7532 had virtually no effect...actually may have made me tired. the 8582 was better. but the rishi consistently gets me jacked up through the day. even the golden sail was significantly more stimulating than the cakes.

I have to ask, what time was it when you were drinking the 7532? Tea as you may know, has the ability of reducing one's blood sugar level. The effect on the body varies depending on individuals. Personally, I'll feel light headed. But this only occurs when I continuously have many rounds of strong Pu. Usually would go away after a cup of hot chocolate or some sweet / creamy biscuits. So, if you've been drinking your 7532 with an empty stomach, then the low blood sugar level in your body might attribute to your feeling of tiredness.

does the caffeine level increase with age? are there some cakes that are known for higher caffeine content?

As it was well said by Intuit, it decreases with age. I'm not a scientific person, and I'll definitely leave it to out friends like Intuit to give you a much more accurate explanation to that. But there are some Pu that are known to keep you awake for hours! I don't have a scientific explanation to that, but we generally attribute it to the 'strength' of the Pu. This is commonly found among Sheng. Most of them are relatively young, under 10 years. It could be due to the caffeinw content or otherwise, I'm not sure.

i need caffeine and i want darker brews for day to day caffeine addiction...where do i find this?

Here's my experience, don't rely on Pu as a source of your caffeine input. You might never get enough. But focus on the relaxing and calming properties of Pu as a source of overcoming your caffeine addiction, not feeding it. I find that it works much better this way. You will also come to find that there are much more pleasant properties in Pu other than just a coffee substitute.

That's my 2cents worth... Cheers!

[TomVerlain]

http://chadao.blogspot.com/2008/02/caff ... ality.html

article on caffeine in tea - not all about pu'erh

Clear, alert, calm, is what I like in a nice pu'erh.

That being said, I find Bulang and Chung Ming spring tips are pretty zippy as young sheng.

But I don't think tea is the cure for coffee.

[Intuit]

Article on caffeine neurochemistry worth reading.

Note, it's not got the right dopaminergic activity to be rightfully called 'addictive'. What it does is habituates a person to elevated levels of cognition/attention; the liver becomes more proficient at eliminating the caffeine.

Two noteworthy effects: in the liver, caffeine stimulates the activity of cytochrome P450 form 1A2, the critical xenobiotic metabolizer system.

The more you induce it through dietary constituents, the more likely you are to have some undesirable side effects. You metabolize drugs faster, which makes dosing tricky for doctors. You also are at some risk of metabolizing potentially carcinogenic compounds in water and foods that would otherwise not be 'activated' by Cyp1A2.

The other effect is diuretic. Tea is not a diuretic. In this day and age, we are likely to be dehydrated because of a tendency towards excessive consumption of a variety of decaffeinated beverages to maintain 'energy' during the day or burning the midnight oil late into the night, attributable to not so great dietary, sleep and sedentary habits.

Dehydration carries a hefty cost, cell wise - no more so, than during a influenza pandemic. Nuff said.

Neurological effects of caffeine
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1182710-overview
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYP1A2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#M ... _half-life

If you can, try to make a transition to tea and gradually forego using caffeinated drinks to maintain energy and mental attention.

[oldmanteapot]

But I don't think tea is the cure for coffee.

If you can, try to make a transition to tea and gradually forego using caffeinated drinks to maintain energy and mental attention.

+2

[heavydoom]

c93.

[Seeker]

Try matcha!
A very nice effect.