Caffeine + L-theanine: why tea feels calmer than coffee

A cup of green tea and a cup of coffee can contain a similar amount of caffeine, yet most people describe them very differently. Coffee is a jolt. Tea is a nudge. One of the main reasons has a name: L-theanine.

What L-theanine is

L-theanine is an amino acid found almost exclusively in tea leaves. A typical cup of tea holds somewhere between 8 and 30 mg of it. It is not a stimulant and it will not make you sleepy. On its own, most people don't feel much at all.

What the research says about the pair

The interesting part starts when it is combined with caffeine. A 2014 meta-analysis pooled 11 randomized, placebo-controlled trials and found that the combination improved alertness and the accuracy of attention switching in the first two hours after taking it.

In individual trials, doses as modest as 40 to 50 mg of caffeine with about 100 mg of L-theanine improved performance on demanding attention tasks compared with a placebo. That is roughly one Norda gummy.

What it doesn't say

We like this research, so we want to be straight about its limits. The studies are small, usually a few dozen people, and short. The meta-analysis also found that the caffeine dose mattered more than the L-theanine dose. And "takes the edge off caffeine" is how many people describe the experience, not a proven clinical endpoint.

So we don't call the pairing proven. We call it promising, well tolerated and worth building a gummy around.

How we use it

Every Norda gummy has 50 mg of natural caffeine from green tea and 100 mg of L-theanine: a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of the calm one, in the range used in the published trials. One gummy for a light lift, two for about a cup of coffee's worth of caffeine.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. Statements about dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Norda is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.