Okay, I distrust the potency of these coffee beans (potentially ultra potent amount of caffeine, enough to maybe cause me a trip to urgent care and the ER with pounding heartbeat and way out of whack BP 😬). All normal here now. Unexpected risk of roasting your own coffee. Tossed into the compost. Will see next week with different beans if it was the beans or I have lost my ability to tolerate caffeine. #coffee
Current BP: 131/84. (with a beta blocker in system, that said). Essentially perfectly normal (correction: stage-I hypertension, i.e. talk t your doctor... but not critical). No coffee today, BUT had some black tea. I am still very suspicious of the caffeine content of my last roast, for sure. 🤨
@ai6yr Oh my word, glad you're okay!
@_L1vY_ Me too! Quite the scare (2 days in a row). All tests ran normal both times despite sky high BP, and the doctors couldn't tell what was going on, but they did NOT do even a full med history just looked at test results and shrugged it off. 🤨 One just looked at the tests and never talked to me (to be fair, they had more critical stuff to take care of... but...) Less extensive than I teach my first aid students to do. And my GP has gone AWOL and hasn't yet reached back to me, I don't know if they are just too busy, abducted by ICE, or have left the health system I use and they just won't tell me.
@ai6yr Ah, man. I'm sorry you went through that. I responded before I saw more than one of your replies. I didn't know it got that serious. I apologize for seeing to make light of it.
I found out I was a "slow caffeine metabolizer" (later confirmed by a genetics read) when I had to get sent home from school for taking an OTC diet pill. I was shaking so bad I couldn't hold my pencil.
@_L1vY_ Conclusion: the US healthcare system is not working well here... something is broken.
@ai6yr is there an easy (home kitchen) way to measure caffeine content in coffee?
@paperposts @ai6yr FWIW, the darker the roast, the more the caffiene breaks down. Light roasts have the most zap; French and Italian roasts have less.
So of the 4known routes of exposure…
You could have possibly only missed injection?
(Ingestion, inhalation, absorption)
@MsMerope @paperposts Oh yeah, certainly 1 and 2, I know roasting coffee definitely gives you some caffeine (like smoking coffee, lol)
"man gives himself caffeine overdose from his own coffee roasting" would be about right for me. 😬
@ai6yr "Careful with that axe, Eugene"
@ai6yr I once absent-mindedly ate an entire large bowl of chocolate-covered coffee beans while at work.
This, it turned out, was a serious misjudgement, and resulted in management extending my lunch break until my head stopped spinning. 😂
@ai6yr yeah but luckily it seems you got out of it pretty fine. Based on your other BP post; which is good to hear. 🤞
@toots Yep. I'll monitor it for the next few days, still a week out before I managed to find a MD with an opening. (if it's normal without meds obviously will cancel that appt and explain).
@ai6yr
Did you do the roasting right before brewing a cup? I wonder if the airborne fumes have an impact 🤔
@me_valentijn Every set of beans is different, even at the same roast level, I have found. Some are way more potent than others, and vice versa. It could be that particular harvest the beans were extra caffeinated. But, it could be combined with (as you mentioned) me reacting to other things in conjunction with the coffee. But it's strange to be completely back down to normal BP. Will see where I am tomorrow morning again (24 hour BP meds). If I'm normal will discontinue the meds so I don't cause the opposite problem, lol.
@ai6yr please don't take up mushroom foraging as a new hobby ;-)
@ai6yr We have a term for that already "High off your own supply". 😆
@fullywoolly @ai6yr This is a completely ironic discussion as this is my first day on a new ADD med that will hopefully not interfere with my sleep.
Still two double espressos this AM but hey... dark roast, less caffeine, right? 😆
@alan @ai6yr ya it is. Dark roast is also my jam. I love the body and flavor of a fully extracted dark roast. And importantly lower acidity. I've never really had the interest in the fruity, funky, floral light roasts that the hipsters love.
I hope you found the one. I know how much of a pain it is to constantly be searching for the magic cocktail that works.
@ai6yr I wonder if these coffee plants are super-stressed by some herbivore and are turning up the caffeine to the max to try to keep from being eaten.
@ClimateJenny Oooh, that's possible. Climate change stress!
@ai6yr Have you by any chance just come off a 30 day or longer period of no caffeine?
@alan Nope... every batch of coffee is different in terms of caffeine potency, however, I have found... independent of roast (lighter roast = much more caffeine). But it changes from bean to bean.
@ai6yr Yep, the darker the roast, the more of it gets lost.
It does turn out that with long term caffeine use, you just wind up developing more receptors, which lessens the effect. Since my addiction now runs over a half century, the stuff does nothing for me. I can drink a large medium roast at 10 pm and be asleep at 11.
It seems the only fix is to go cold turkey for a month.
@alan @ai6yr during my funemployment, I was down to a cup a day in the morning. I still drink that but have usually three or four americanos during the day. Does nothing.
The only time I felt like I was in trouble was after someone dared me to drink 14 shots. I did it thinking it wasn't much more than a normal day for me. But all at once was definitely not good. The way I got my HR under control was forcing myself to nap.
Las Vegas in May. I was by a pool in jeans and a T, arm over my eyes.
@ai6yr breaking bad: coffee edition
@ai6yr should almost do a lab-test and see if they're spiked with anything. Laced with extra suspicious caffeine/stimulants, or something..
@me_valentijn @toots Oh wow, miserable!
@toots Yeah, one wonders. Or if that coffee was packed on top of other interesting stuff at some point. 🤨
"...The cocaine was stashed in an apparently legitimate coffee consignment. Reports quoting Brazil’s Federal Police and Federal Revenue Service indicate that packages holding the narcotic were found within sacks of coffee beans. The stated destination of the container was Turkey. ..."
https://brusselsmorning.com/702kg-cocaine-hidden-in-coffee-shipment-bound-for-antwerp/101759/
@wordshaper @toots Oooh, I did not know that trick on caffeine. 😬
@ai6yr Also, sorry, lol I know that feeling and it's not cool.
@ai6yr I wonder if they accidentally packed the bag with robusta beans instead of the expected arabica on the label. Robusta is far more caffeinated than Arabica.