Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Hooks, Helps and Hurts Us

All true tea (distinct from herbal tea) comes from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. This one tea plant can produce green or black tea, depending on how it is processed.

Xie told us that puer is good for the stomach and especially good for women because “puer is warm, and women are cold.”

cacao (pronounced kuh-COW)

In an effort to make this easier, I came up with a measure called a Standard Caffeine Dose, or a SCAD. A SCAD is seventy-five milligrams. This is a handy standard, roughly equal to a shot of espresso, five ounces of coffee, one 8.4-ounce Red Bull, two cans of Coke or Pepsi, a sixteen-ounce Mountain Dew, or a twenty-ounce Diet Coke (which has higher caffeine concentrations than Coke).

Caffeine withdrawal is real and unpleasant, often including headaches, muscle pain, weariness, apathy, and depression.