So is tea, and it’s partly why tea was introduced to factory workers during the industrial revolution.

https://baristaguild.coffee/blog/leaves-beans-of-history-the...

as is caffeinated soda

I once heard that Microsoft subsidized caffeinated soda, but you had to pay for the caffeine-free options. That may just be an old wives' tale.

I'm pretty sure that's not true (worked at Microsoft in the 2000s).

Talking Rain was a popular caffeine-free soda there.

To be fair, I was told this back in the early 90s. It is the kind of policy that could easily come and go, maybe a couple times, in 10 years.

Not as much as you'd think; for me, at least, the sugar crash counteracts the caffeine.

There are a lot of caffinated seltzers now that don't have any sugar but do have flavoring and CO2

> caffinated seltzers...that don't have any sugar but do have flavoring and CO2

I think you've just defined sugarfree energy drinks.

I mean, some brands such as "Aha Sparkling Water" literally sell them as caffeinated seltzer instead of energy drinks.

https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/aha-sparkl...

Fucking hipsters.

And it turns some people into jerks. (It has similar effects to cocaine.)

While the effects may be on the same spectrum, I don't know how comparable the two actually are. Maybe I should start my day with a line instead?

> Maybe I should start my day with a line instead?

Bad idea.

Once, when I was less than a year out of school, I was in a design meeting with two of the most senior engineers on the project. They were WIRED, difficult to reason with, and sent me on an obviously wrong direction. I thought they drank 4-5 cups of coffee.

A few hours later I realized that the nonsense email that I got 10 minutes before the meeting, from the department head, titled "Lines in the conference room" meant that they probably snorted cocaine right before the meeting.

About a week later I had to redo all of my work using the exact design I pushed for. 2-3 weeks later I was relieved when I was laid off.

---

If you want to legally and safely know what cocaine feels like, take 600mg of caffeine pills (3 No-Doze) as soon as you wake up in the morning, on an empty stomach. Don't do it before you need to do something important, or if you're doing something where you could loose your temper. Also, don't do it if you have heart problems.

Oh, I never would, and in that case I have no idea why people would do cocaine at all, because when I have too much coffee I get full of unsourced anxiety and the need to poop.