Resetting my base line: caffeine edition

I've blogged enthusiastically about tea in the past. I enjoy discovering new varieties and the winter weather in particular makes an ever-ready cuppa almost obligatory.

I've been busy with work projects in the past month or two, so I was surprised to realise how much my caffeine intake has increased, almost imperceptibly. Prior to my intervention, I was drinking perhaps two or three cups of caffeinated tea per day. That may seem like nothing to those of you with a six-coffees-a-day habit, but my body (and mind) is more sensitive than most to caffeine. Three cups per day left me feeling rattled and edgy.

Caffeine, for me, can be good in certain very specific circumstances. It's great when I'm generating ideas -- either for a particular work project or just in general -- but particularly bad when I need to sit down and write (and focus). Caffeine seems to stimulate the randomly associative part of my brain, the one that has me connecting chocolate to fish sentience or making some other strange link.

I've found that when I need to focus, I tend to prefer drinks that are completely caffeine-free. Even my newly-discovered favourite, kukicha or twig tea, comes with a caffeine punch, albeit one that is greatly reduced.

So a few weeks back I instituted a caffeine-only-very-seldom policy. It's working well so far. I feel much better, more focused, less jittery, and when I do choose to drink a cup of chocolate puerh, for example, as I did this morning, one is more than enough. (I've done similar things in the past with salt and sugar and had equally positive experiences.) As always, Beeminder is holding my hand all the way.

Kukicha or Twig Tea

This week I discovered a new type of tea, and I’ve been enjoying it so much that I thought I’d write about it here. Kukicha tea, also known as ‘twig tea’ and bōcha, is a Japanese import. It is a cross between black and green tea, though more similar to the latter than the former.

Its advantage is the low amount of caffeine per cup. This is mainly because the tea seems to be a mixture of scraps, offcuts and stems that weren’t used in ‘real tea’ cultivation. The back of the box I bought states the average caffeine content per cup as follows:

—> Filter coffee: 120mg

—> Black tea: 60mg

—> Kukicha tea: <10mg

Given my sensitivity to green tea, this is a great alternative that gives some mental kick but doesn’t completely kick me over. I’ve since noted that Rishi Tea, my supplier of choice, also sells bags of kukicha, and I look forward to drinking more going forward.

PhD Tools: Tea

[This is part of a series on the tools I used to write my PhD. Check out the other parts here.]

I got a bit carried away with my tea experiments...

This will be the last post in my PhD Tools series. I thought I'd end with something a little less serious, though still potentially of use.

Around the time I started working intensely on my PhD, I became a little obsessed with tea. Looking back, I can see the traces of procrastination around this 'learn-about-tea' project. I put together a Trello board to track the different types of leaves I was trying. I read books about the cultivation of tea. I corresponded with various companies about how they source their products. (Sidenote, I settled on Rishi Tea as the best company selling tea online. Hopefully I'll be able to get them to record a podcast on Sources & Methods soon).

My Perfect Four Hours, for the record, were fuelled by two cups of Oolong tea. I've discovered over the years that I'm particularly sensitive to green tea, (which gives you a dose of theine rather than the better-known caffeine), such that one too many cups will have my hands shaking and my body unable to think or work in any useful way.

You'll need to figure out your maximum sensitivity point, but for most people I'd suggest it probably is one cup less than whatever you're currently drinking. There's a tendency (especially with coffee drinkers) to think that more is better. More coffee = better focus, more awake, etc. In reality, as I think many would admit, you reach a point of diminishing returns. I don't drink coffee, though I did in the past and I remember that feeling.

That said, some kind of stimulation in the form of green tea or coffee can be really useful when starting your core work sessions. It takes 20-30 minutes for the chemical components of tea or coffee to have their effect on your brain, so it can even make sense to have your first cup before you leave your house. That way you're hitting your first session at your peak.

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I hope that this series has been useful for some of you. If there's a particular topic or problem that you feel it would be useful for me to write more about (or cover afresh), let me know over on twitter. I also offer (paid) consultancy on these productivity issues, so if you feel you'd like to discuss your particular situation in more detail, drop me a line.