Coffee and other drinks

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#1

I drink:

  • Coffee! Enough said
  • Teaā€¦ black, green, fruit - tea it is!
  • Something fizzy and sweet (e.g. coke, V, etc)
  • Other

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I am trying to get away from drinking the sugary fizzy drinks (because they are baaaaaad! :smiley: ) so this inevitably poses the question of alternatives. Coffee as black coffee is not always readily available/cookable, plus too much of it makes me feel crazy. I tried orange juice and mocha, they sorta work but not strong enough.

So what beverages do people use these days to keep awake through the nights of action? And assuming there will be many ā€œcoffeeā€ answers - what kinds of coffees?
Thanks :smiley:

#2

I generally go with sugar-free V these days myself, although I seem to remember that at the last Witch House I made it through the weekend with only one 250ml can, plus a sip or two from someone elseā€™s energy drink, which Iā€™m quite pleased about as Iā€™d like to keep stimulant use to a minimum. If youā€™re trying to avoid the sugar, but looking for the caffeine, maybe you could give the sugar-free energy drinks a try? The taste isnā€™t that great (lousy artificial sweeteners), but theyā€™re pretty much flavoured caffeine in a can. They are perhaps much easier for crew to use than players though, as crew can take them into the crew room where modern objects are totally accepted, while players might need to pour them into some sort of game-setting-appropriate container.

#3

Funny thing about coffee is the caffeine. Like most other drugs (in this case a naturally occurring chemical stimulant) is that the more you have the more you will need and it is addictive.

I find that energy drinks give you a bit more of a blip because of the sugar surge they also provide but I have always found their effect rather short lived and they tend to leave me feeling a bit jaded afterwards.

Now, I take my coffee black, I have a 1 mug plunger. 1 for home, 1 for work. I take supplies with me because instant coffee is disgusting.

The trick for me is, to drink as little coffee as I can. I very rarely drink more than 1 per day. The idea is, by drinking less or none, you make the body more sensitive to itā€™s effectsā€¦ so you get a better effect.

And lastly, drinking coffee when you are already exhausted is always going to be of limited effect. If I drink coffee (or whatever) after 5pm then I will still be awake at midnight. I will still be tired, I just wonā€™t be able to sleep. The brain needs sleep to regenerate itā€™s supply of neurotransmitters and coffee can never fix this, just mask it in the short term.

As a side note, I once made a coffee with 4 teaspoons of instant coffee and 7 spoons of sugar. I had not slept the night before. It made me feel terrible. My heart raced, I sweated, my brain was filled with electricity but I felt terrible. Donā€™t do this.

In summary:

If you want to use coffee to stay awake, be healthy and well rested before the event, abstain from coffee/caffeine before the event and drink water with your coffee.

#4

I used to have milk in my coffee, but my taste has changed over time and now I am used to having it black. The advantage of drinking black coffee is that it is easier to make. For larps I tend to use individually wrapped coffee bags made by Robert Harris (not every supermarket stocks them though, come in a box of 25). They are like tea bags, and fit easily into a pocket/pouch. If the hot water supply is an issue, then you could take a thermos, of either the hot water, or the coffee pre-made. There are single serve thermos available these days. Just be wary of mixing the milk into the drink beforehand, because it can go bad if the drink cools down to be tepid rather than hot.

I would agree with Jaredā€™s comments about using caffeine sparsely - I have always drunk coffee/tea for its caffeine content rather than for the taste per se.

I have heard someone say that to get through Chimera weekend, they just had a water bottle handy and kept hydrated, which kept their energy levels up, not needing caffeine.

For action times, the natural adrenaline action produces keeps me awake and gives me energy to keep going. Its the times when sitting around a table talking (or rather listening to other people talk) that induces the sleepiness in me. When it gets bad I make myself get up and walk around a bit, perhaps going to the toilet, and splashing water on my face.

My other caffeine source is chocolate. Especially late at night during a game, or after action, when the adrenaline wears off.
When you say ā€œfruit teasā€ I thought of herbal teas, like peppermint, wildberry, ginger&lemon etc which are all good, but they donā€™t contain caffeine, so I find them a good hot drink in the for normal (non-larping) evenings.

#5

Iā€™m a lily livered tea drinker! Itā€™s a lot gentler than coffee, although I try not to have it after 5 or so in the afternoon or I have trouble sleeping at night. Also, itā€™s pretty easy to have a private stash of teabags and hit up the zip at weekend events, although milk is a bit harder if you like it.
Hannahā€™s right about the milk in thermos tea changing the flavour. (Although according to my boyfriend who got really interested in food chemistry a couple of months ago, soured milk wonā€™t make you sick - the bacteria it grows are different from what you get in meat. It just tastes bad.)

#6

I canā€™t handle caffeine or too much sugar or fake sweeteners, so that doesnā€™t give me a lot of options!

Instead, I treat a weekend LARP as something as a sport. I make sure the week before that I get lots of sleep, am eating really healthy, am nice and hydrated and try to avoid people with colds, etc ā€¦

Then during the game I continue to try and stay hydrated, ensure I have some snacks like nuts and bananas and musli bars available for the energy dips.

But itā€™s often the adrenaline of the game that keeps me going, and the social RP in the evenings which is usually so interesting and results in so many of those ā€˜awesome momentsā€™ that 5am always sneaks up on me without me feeling remotely tired!

#7

I have a weird reaction to caffeine, so Coffee, Tea, Energy Drinks and Chocolate are all non-starters.

My preference is beer for evenings, reasonable amount of Carbs and Sugar, plus for me it acts as a stimulant so I stay awake longer in the evenings. During the day, fresh-up wins as it is pretty high in sugar and very refreshing when chilled.

#8

I am a coca cola addict, proly always will be. Which is why i donā€™t usually keep it at home, Iā€™ll just drink it all. But also a big tea drinker, on my days off if Iā€™m just doing stuff around the house thatā€™s pretty much all Iā€™ll have to eat or drink. I would proly be a coffee addict too, if not for the whole painfully, bleeding stomach thing :slight_smile: kinda puts you off

#9

I drink coffee socially but when I really need a kick, I use Red Bull - basically only exams and Chimera :smiley:

#10

LOTS OF WATER!!! GO HEALTHY

#11

Ah, quite a few caffiends here :slight_smile:

I quite like coffee, and even roast my own beans. I try not to drink too much, so keep a handy supply of loose-leaf Earl Gray tea at work when I prefer something refreshing without the caffeine hit, or maybe a herbal tea. Not big on soft drinks at all, but will occasionally have a diet coke (prefer the tartness).

#12

I drink Earl Grey tea, but for the taste and refreshment rather than for any drug effect. I have a cup with breakfast and one when I get home most days, but if Iā€™m having a lazy weekend or a day at home working on a project I can often end up drinking about six or so cups in a day.

I generally donā€™t bother with coffee or energy drinks. I like them well enough but Iā€™m terrible at making coffee and Iā€™ve never really felt like caffeine has much of an effect. Maybe I just have a good tolerance for it. I can keep going just by keeping active and not letting my tiredness catch up to me.

On the rare occasion that I am feeling like I need a boost - such as the last Witch House game - I tend to go for a very strong black sludge of instant coffee. If you have so much instant coffee in the cup that it doesnā€™t all dissolve and you get that horrible grainy sludge at the bottom that means itā€™s working.

#13

Agreed. My worst ever drink purchase was H2GO with a Splash of Lemon. Yes, I thought, a nice tasty bottle of water with a hint of lemon ! However, when I drank it, it had this cloying sweet flavour. So I checked the ingredients list, and found that it had a bucketload of sugar added. :open_mouth:

#14

Iā€™ve heard that a South American tea, Yerba Mate, has a good natural hit of caffeine, but Iā€™ve never been able to get the brewing right so itā€™s palatable for me. The way of drinking it would be very in-character though- you sip it through a bamboo filter straw from a gourd.

When I need a good hit I turn to V- I drink it on an empty stomach when I can, wait about 20 min at least before eating or drinking anything else and make sure I have plenty of water afterwards. Itā€™s something I only have every other month or so, so Iā€™m still pretty sensitive to it. Iā€™ve learned the hard way that I canā€™t have Red Bull when sleep deprived though. Iā€™m not just awake, Iā€™m an ADD candidate.

#15