New Experience: Caffeine Pouches

For quite a long time, when people needed to get some extra energy, they would drink coffee. Some decades ago an alternative was created: energy drinks, like the original one, Red Bull. They can be more powerful than coffee and now there is an incredible amount of brands and types of energy drinks available, if you need to get just a little bit more (or a lot more) energy. Recently, though, yet another alternative is available: caffeine pouches.

As you may know, caffeine is the substance in coffee that gives that jolt of energy that people like. When energy drinks were invented, people realized that you could concentrate caffeine and put it in a drink like a soda, and that became even more popular. Then, in the last year or so, someone had an idea: why not put the caffeine in a pouch, which you can keep behind your upper lip, and slowly release caffeine for a long period of time? And with that we got the caffeine pouch.

I recently bought a batch from one of the most popular brands to try them out myself. They are tiny little paper pouches, rectangular and no bigger than a small stamp. You put one in the space between your upper lip and your upper gums (a space that, honestly, I didn't know you could leave stuff there) and the saliva that naturally exists there slowly dissolves the caffeine and you absorb it. Additionally, those pouches have a flavor to make it pleasant, such as mint, strawberry, etc. In fact, as I type this, I have a cherry flavored pouch behind my upper lip.

To my surprise, as I discovered, the pouch stays there without effort and the flavor is indeed pleasant. In terms of effects, I'm used to strong coffee and I bought the "mild" version of the pouches, and perhaps because of that I didn't notice that I had more energy or was more alert. Anyways, they may be an alternative if you don't want to drink a whole can of Red Bull or yet another cup of coffee. By the way, even though they look similar to chewing tobacco, in fact the pouches do not contain any tobacco nor any nicotine. And that's one problem that these pouches have: because they only contain caffeine, kids of a certain age are buying them in order to stay awake, and even caffeine can be dangerous if you take too much.

Anyways, if you're a grownup, you might as well give them a try too: I bought mine at Amazon.




Location: Issaquah, WA, USA

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