Caffeine Well-documented

Well-documented

Multiple authoritative sources agree on dosing and effects.

5 corroborating sources

3 ROAs with full dose ladders

duration data present

29 combo interactions documented

toxicity data (PsychonautWiki, PubChem)

Aliases: Tea, Theine, Coffee, Mateine

Summary TripSit PsychonautWiki

Caffeine is a a CNS stimulant, and also the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world. It is legal and unregulated in most parts of the world, and is found in many commonly sold products. It has a good safety profile, though regular heavy use can cause physical dependence and contribute to certain medical conditions.

Dose Information source varies by route

ROA	Light	Common	Strong	Heavy
Oral	20-50mg	50-150mg	150-400mg	400mg+
Insufflated	10-25mg	25-40mg	40-80mg	80mg+
Smoked	25-75mg	75-125mg	125-175mg	175mg+

Light Common Strong Heavy

Sources

Oral

Dose ladder — PsychonautWiki (2016)

Insufflated

Dose ladder — PsychonautWiki

Smoked

Dose ladder — PsychonautWiki

☠ ≈3 g+ Lethal dose reported to start around here

“The lethal dose for caffeine starts at approximately 3g. The average cup of coffee contains roughly 75-150mg of caffeine.” — TripSit / SubstanceIndex

Onset, Duration & After-effects dose.wiki TripSit PsychonautWiki Erowid

ROA	Onset	Comeup	Peak	Offset	After Effects	Total
Oral	5-45 min	10-60 min	0.5-2 hrs	2-10 hrs	2-12 hrs	1.5-13.75 hrs
Insufflated	1-10 min	0-1 min	30-60 min	6-10 hrs	6-24 hrs	1.5-11.19 hrs
Smoked	0-6 min	-	12-18 min	30-48 min	2-4 hrs	1.5-5 hrs

Effect Profile

193 reports

Scores (0–10) curated from multiple sources:

Effect keyword matching from PsychonautWiki catalog
Validated against 193 Erowid trip reports
Weighted by importance: core (×3), major (×2), minor (×1)

Full methodology

Stimulant 8.5

Intense 8/10

Strong stimulation, focus, and euphoria with strong anxiety/jitters

Stimulation / Energy ×3

stimulation wakefulness

Euphoria / Mood Lift ×2

physical euphoria cognitive euphoria motivation enhancement

Focus / Productivity ×2

focus enhancement analysis enhancement memory enhancement motivation enhancement thought acceleration

⚠ Anxiety / Jitters ×1

anxiety jitteriness increased heart rate teeth grinding vasoconstriction

Based on reports from:

Erowid Experience Reports PsychonautWiki Caffeine The Drug Users Bible Caffeine

Tolerance

Build-up develops over 1–2 weeks of daily use

Reset 7–12 days of abstinence

Tolerance Decay

Full tolerance 3d Half tolerance 7d Baseline ~10d

Tolerance to many subjective and cardiovascular effects develops with daily use over days to weeks and decays over about 1–2 weeks of abstinence; withdrawal (headache, sleepiness, irritability) usually peaks within 24–48 hours and resolves within several days. Data are mixed and interindividual variability is high; figures above synthesize experimental and observational reports.

Cross-Tolerances

Theophylline

Theobromine

Effects Erowid

Aggregated from 193 single-substance Erowid experience reports; 209 Erowid reports where another drug was taken too are left out

Each bar shows the share of analyzed reports whose text mentions that effect — a mention is not always a first-hand experience (fear of an effect or something witnessed can count). Mentions saying the effect did not happen are left out; that check reads keywords, so it can miss some. The shaded band on a bar, and the small range after its number, is the 95% interval: where the share could plausibly be with other reports of the same kind. Fewer reports, wider band. Tap or hover any number for details. The second value is the Bluelight extractor's per-effect confidence; a dash means the row is Erowid-derived, which has no confidence measurement.

Positive Effects 9

62.2% –

21.8% –

9.3% –

8.8% –

8.3% –

2.6% –

Adverse Effects 11

35.2% –

22.8% –

14.0% –

10.9% –

10.4% –

4.7% –

4.1% –

2.1% –

Also reported in combinations. In the 209 Caffeine reports where another drug was taken too, 31 (14.8%) mention hospital, emergency services or an overdose, 3 (1.4%) a seizure and 12 (5.7%) psychosis. In the 193 single-substance reports: 11.9%, 2.1% and 1.0%. These are not in the figures above: they cannot be put down to Caffeine alone, and a mention is not always something that happened to the writer.

Combinations TripSit

Cross-Check Caffeine with another substance

Community Trip Reports

Anecdotal first-person accounts from Reddit, Erowid, Bluelight, and Dose.wiki. Click a source to expand. Reports are harm-reduction context, not medical guidance. Tags summarise each author's own verdict — how reports are classified.

Erowid 8 reports 3 positive 1 neutral 4 cautionary visit

My Life's Edge cautionary exp #30609

[Erowid Note: The dose described in this report is very high, potentially beyond Erowid's 'heavy' range, and could pose serious health risks or result in unwanted, extreme effects.

The Things We Love Most Are Things Forgotten positive exp #86101

Where do I start? I'm no writer or english professor. However since I'm making the first tea report here, its important that I write well and neat in an effort to portray my strange tea experience as best I can. Part 1: Magic Some background info. Me and tea go back far.

Love/Hate Relationship positive exp #845

Caffeine is a drug I have a love/hate relationship with. If I haven't had any in a few days and have a moderate dose of 150-200mg, it can be great for a few hours. I get a wonderful manic energy, some euphoria, and the ability to devote myself to a task.

Jittery Pooping positive exp #115533

Coffee Jittery Pooping This report is part of an eight-report collection. The collection consists of a summary report that is retrospective and generalized in nature as well as seven [of which this is one] more detailed chronicles of my experiences with various chemicals used intentionally for work or study enhanceme...

Every Day - Hell - Unknown cautionary exp #19399

Im writing this at the age of 17, a year after my experience, the reason, I dont know, maybe because I feel so alone, theres no one to talk too. also, to say that you can get #$*ked up off caffeine despite all these storys of people that seem to recover For a few mornings at my school someone took caffeine pills to gi...

Intense Psychedelic Dream neutral exp #69267

I've used psychedelics a bit in the past 5 years of my life. I would estimate I have had about 20 experiences in that time. I have had some mild flashbacks, usually involving an extreme feeling of déjà vu (much more intense than usual déjà vu) that feels like some psychedelic experience I've had before.

Affective Catapulting cautionary exp #66305

Note: I do not know what effects are typical, or unique to me, I really wish there was more information on similar caffeine intoxications. I'm a 24 year old male with Lupus for 2 years now.

Think Before You Leap.... cautionary exp #73243

Although I have a soda or two a day, I have ADHD, so low doses of caffeine calm me, if anything. The past couple of days I have been eating very little and sleeping horribly and for short amounts of time, which probably had a bit to do with the agony of my experience, especially since I normally have extremely healthy...

Bluelight 2 threads 2 cautionary visit

Attempted Drunken Caffeine Od 16 24 Grams Pushing The Limits Of Human Suffering cautionary

This is a story, from several months ago, when I attempted to opt-out, by taking 16-24g of caffeine anhydrous (160-240 redbull equivalent) I should start this report with a little bit of background on my situation. This was a low point in my life.

Legitimate Caffeine Overdose Bipolar Mania cautionary

Around 2 weeks ago, I was out of my Adderall prescription and WAY behind on my work schedule. I didn't know what to do, and I didn't feel motivated at all. So I made myself a cup of coffee and sat down on my laptop. I just sorta dicked around for a bit and didn't really do anything so I made myself another coffee.

Pill Identifiers

3 known pill identifiers on record — view imprints, colors, shapes, and images

→

Caffeine's nerd page Pharmacology, chemical data, effect profiles, and more

→

Helpful Links

📘 Experience Reports 📖 dose.wiki 📖 PsychonautWiki 📖 TripSit 📖 The Drug Users Bible

Import into PsychonautWiki Journal

The PsychonautWiki Journal app includes Caffeine, but its built-in data can be thinner than ours. Importing this file adds a separate "Caffeine (Substance Search)" custom substance with our dose ranges, durations and tolerance, so you can log against whichever you prefer.

⬇ Download import file Import this file as custom substances and you get "Caffeine (Substance Search)" with every route's full dose ladder and timeline, no typing. Works on iOS and Android (v15+); the format is confirmed by the app's developer.

Ranges are harm-reduction guidance, not a prescription.

Report an issue or suggest an edit

Spotted incorrect or dangerous information, have a correction, a new study, or a useful addition for Caffeine? Let us know. Reports are reviewed by moderators — this is not posted publicly.

Caffeine Well-documented Well-documented Multiple authoritative sources agree on dosing and effects. 5 corroborating sources 3 ROAs with full dose ladders duration data present 29 combo interactions documented toxicity data (PsychonautWiki, PubChem)