I've seen this in many places; people will take L-theanine to counteract any jittery effects of caffeine, but I never noticed anything. What L-theanine is helpful for is going to sleep and calming one's mind.
Because I can. And coffee gives me issues after a week or two.
Therefore something seems wrong about giving caffeine all the blame.
Have you tried drinking an equivalent amount of cola (in terms of caffeine dosage) every day for a week or two?
How much coffee do/did you drink per day?
> Therefore something seems wrong about giving caffeine all the blame.
Possibly, but in this case, my primary comparison is between coffee and coffee with l-theanine and that one difference by itself produces a very noticeable difference in effect. I do not know what else in coffee could be producing jitters other than the caffeine. Or what in the cola could perhaps be inhibiting the effects of caffeine.
Not…very high? Just “regular” high?
For the last 4 years I've been adding 100mg of pure caffeine powder and 125mg L-theanine to a non-caffinated morning beverage. I even had someone secretly add or not add the L-theanine without telling me for a while, so it's as well controlled as an n=1 study can be.
The difference is pretty night-and-day for me, but obviously ymmv.
There's a lot of genetic difference in caffeine processing, and I happen to have almost every genetic variant associated with high sensitivity I could find studied.
I would need over 24 oz of coffee for anything.
But at that point I'm pushing potentially unsafe levels..
I wish we were taught more about taking drugs. Use caffeine since it's legal, for an example.
"Don't have caffeine 2 days in a row. Ask yourself if you really need the energy or are thirsty/bored. Etc...."
You could apply the same to alcohol to reduce alcoholism.
Of course tolerance is also a factor. I’ve been reducing my intake, for a while it was well over 1g/day, and that wasn’t really about trying to “feel” anything.
(intentionally NOT quoting the remainder of your post)
The only time I ever felt anything from caffine:
I was working the midnight shift. (At a service industry job, there were no customers so it was dead.)
I took:
2 caffeine pills
4 coffee's
2 cans of coke
I was also surprised to learn while driving Truck, that some US States outlawed caffeine pills. (Ohio) It might have been available at a drug store though, I only had access to truck stops.