vlogbrothers - 2025-09-05
I was so caffeinated while making this video that I didn't put in my Good Morning John and I'm having a fullon crisis.... Writing this description feeling LEGITIMATELY WORRIED ABOUT MY HEALTH but I guess this is just what it feels like, lol... Hank's Tea Experience is Here! https://good.store/products/hanks-tea-experience ---- Subscribe to our newsletter! https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe Learn more about our project to help Partners in Health radically reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone: https://www.pih.org/hankandjohn If you're able to donate $2,000 or more to this effort, please join our matching fund: https://pih.org/hankandjohnmatch If you're in Canada, you can donate here: https://pihcanada.org/hankandjohn
"The chemical plant"
Hank is so proud of himself for that.
Beats my answer of from the trees lol
I mean, it /got/ me, so... good joke.
Actually had my side hurting at how hard I laughed
I mean I sneered like a hyena so ya, good joke 😂
The chemis-tree
Hank gradually talking faster and louder as the various caffeinated beverages take effect over the course of this video until he has to consciously reset himself had me in stitches.
I must admit I went into the video hoping it would happen 😂
I was hoping for Micromachines commercial guy Hank by the end of it.
"Plants - I don't need you!!" 😅
I cracked up laughing so hard at that that I had to stop the video so I wouldn't miss the rest of what he was saying! I'm still laughing so hard at it now that I can barely type!🤣
I put it on 2x to increase the caffeine collective
I'm a paediatrician. My favourite caffeine fact is that we give caffeine to premature babies to stimulate their respiratory device (aka remind them to breathe)
Yah, but when I give a redbull to a toddler I am a "bad uncle" who isn't allowed to babysit anymore 😅
I just wanted to see an 18 month old do a back flip. Is that to much to ask for?
My son was born 31+2 (exactly 2 months before calculated date) and received it. He responded well to it and didnt have any of the "side effects"
(I was so proud, because I am a caffeine addict 😂)
When he was put off it after 5 days (which he also handled really well, unlike me) I got to keep the rest of his bottle to use myself "We will give it to dad so he can use it instead of a Red Bull" 😅
My parents were given grape flavored caffeine to add to my formula because I was 3 months premature and they said I wasn't very alert lol
@bobodebobo they get really upset when you pour it into a glass and drop a shot of Jaeger in it to make a Jaeger bomb.
1:16 "You might recognize it as one of the four nitrogenous bases". might doing a lot of heavy lifting in this sentence
I mean. I did. YMMV.
Surely everyone knows the chemical formulas for one or two feldspars!
I knew I saw Adenine's face before. Lovely girl. A bit toxic, but she brings a lot of energy to the party. 💐
Oh no my pun doesn't work 😂
@melodiekayand quartz, of course 😂
Hank: am I on drugs right now
Bro you just ingested the world's most popular psychoactive substance seven ways
My thoughts exactly.
I was thinking “dude is not smart (like me) … tea is hot”
Eight, technically
Bro did a hand of god amount of LSD & realized he's a coffee plant irl
felt like i was watching him at 1.25 speed
We owe these plants our lives, too. Not because of any medicinal benefits, but because for as long as we have been drinking them, they have been motivating us to boil our water before we drink it.
Thats such a good point.
This was a whole thing when building the transcontinental railway: the Chinese workers would get sick less often, because they'd drink tea instead of water, so they'd boil out any nasty stuff first.
Alternatively, the reason we started looking for things to make steeped drinks out of may very well be that it’s a little unpleasant to drink plain water hot.
@napstadragon Interesting! This year, I read two separate articles on how 1) drinking various types of teas (long steeped black tea was most effective) can help reduce viral load of many different pathogens, including covid-19 and 2) boiling tea can reduce up to like 90% of microplastics in the water bc the microplastics cling to to each other and the tea leaves and are then very easily strained out.
Get that bag
You strike up a conversation with a random guy at the coffee place.
The conversation:
just needs that forearm tattoo for perfect flavor
Since humans (and some animals too) started "thinking" we started to look for 2 things:
1 - A way to "think better, quicker"
2 - A way to "stop thinking, safely"
Never thought of it that way, but so true.
Did we find the second thing?
@randomdog12Benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Valium
@randomdog12 only got the first 1/2 of the second one right
@randomdog12weed is closest, long as you dont overdo it and become used to it.
Learning that different sources of caffeine don’t have one single common evolutionary ancestor is not something I was expecting to learn. I’m one of today’s lucky 10,000.
Love being one of the 10,000 (high five)
But it does seem like they have a commonality from evolution; adonine.
I feel like videos like these definitely make the 10,000 spike.
Or maybe it doesn't count as the 10,000, since that basis is "things you think everyone knows"?
@eisbaerauroraWhat’s that mean?
@willtheprodigy3819 Look up the comic for XKCD 1053. The main part of it goes: For each thing that "everyone knows" by the time they're adults, every day on average there are 10,000 people hearing about it for the first time
3:38 missed opportunity to say the bees get a buzz 🐝
He blew it. Unsubscribed.
Thats a really good one! Cheers
+
Yes. Absolutely. Trippy.
Reupload immediately
I watch videos at x1.5 speed... which made him seem FAR more over-caffeinated than he probably was.
Did I just watch a very interesting and cleverly disguised 7:14 minute advertisement for tea?
It was the whole thing buddy, its all an ad, always has been. The dirt is an ad for plants, and stars are an ad for solar systems.
The key is to stop the video when he says "I have created an experience", you still get all the cool facts about adenine and parallel evolution and no marketing
Of all of the things someone can hawk on their viewers, an $18 tea subscription that 100% goes to cancer research is about the absolute least egregious.
@nemam_nedamit's more of a bush
Yes. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
5:55 "I like tea because there's less caffiene per drink, which is great for me, and there's also more theophyline, which is a milder vibe."
5 SECONDS LATER
6:00 "I'm sweaty! Jeez! What's- am I on drugs right now?"
Love that cut.
Heh...i guess technically we are 😅
Depends on tea and coffee.
Oh wow — what a terrible time to be releasing an animated explainer about the pharmacology of caffeine next week lmao.
Okay, just speedwatched the video. No longer freaking out. It's like Hank knew all the deleted sections from my script and just made a video from those. Just wait till y'all hear about all the goofy details about your A2A receptors!
@Clockworkbio Ooo! Exciting!! Subscribed.
Hi Clockwork! Love your stuff!
Lol, I was like - sounds real interesting, I'll subscribe > and I already am! 😅 Can't wait for next week!!
You speedwatched Hank?! I already feel like normalwatching Hank is speedwatching. Do you have superhuman processing capabilities? ✨
>Theobromine
>looks inside
>No Bromine :(
are the organic chemist ok?
Theobromine comes from Theobroma, the scientific name of cocoa, after the greek for “God’s food”
@TheHollowBodiesBand You sure it's not "God's joke"? "broma" is joke in Spanish.
@gibbogleThe Maya believed that the gods discovered cacao (along with other delectable foods), and that the Plumed Serpent presented it to humans. So to them, it was food of the gods.
theobromine is a portmanteau of theoretical and bromine.
I have a PhD in plant molecular biology and I learned something new about Adenine molecule today. Thanks Hank 👍
“Try to learn something new every day” is still good advice, even in one’s PhD years.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I thought it was adenosine that was affected by caffeine.
@zerospace101phds are so hyper focused to really determine that, could have just been a different subject of study in the field
Honestly, you should know more about that
College has become a participation trophy
😮❤
I am 100% expecting John to talk about caffeines connection with TB now
You've heard of ATP? Let me tell you about a TB!
If coffee is TB, I'm going to lose it.
Why do you think the urban populations of England (and thebindustrialising world more generally) took to drinking boiled drinks so much? Caffeine (for weird working hours) + TB free drink (TB began to thrive in the poor sanitation of new urban populations.
Studies have shown a correlation between populations drinking more tea and having less TB.
I mean he has talked about Dr Pepper & TB...does that count?
I think he might have mentioned that people used to think having coffee and sweets as a child could give them TB (maybe that's not caffeine-related enough)
Plants: develops a mucous membrane irritant capsaicin to deter animals from eating its fruit.
Humans: “Delicious!”
Other plants: develop mild neurotoxin to kill animals that attempt to eat any part of it.
Humans: “Positively sensational!”
Mother Nature: "Why are you the way that you are."
Wait till you hear about the pesticide THC. 😁😁
Probably my favorite.
@geckoswan1you tell me Mom! You raised me.
Literally any herb ever... They're all meant to be poisons or taste bad x)
Plants: Develops a cannabinoid receptor agonist.
Humans: “Must eat deep-fried corn chips.”
Plants: “Excellent”
One of the few youtubers that I need to change the speed back to "normal" for.
Totally thought this was a hankschannel video until he said "but John" 😂 Love Hank's science enthusiasm everywhere it appears!
That's because I didn't do my "Good Morning John!!" I'm freaking out...
@vlogbrothersHank did you have caffeine in the making of this video? 😅
@NerdfighterNicholehe had ALL the caffeine
Same! I was scrolling down to thumbs up the video, and got confused when I heard "but John" as I simultaneously saw the "vlogbrothers" name. 😅
@melanyebagginsseems like it 🤣
Just a note on caffeine yielded from decaffeination: there’s no additional flavour here, the caffeine is carefully refined as part of the process. Coffee is decaffeinated before roasting (where most of the flavour is created). This kind of caffeine is usually labelled on products as “natural caffeine” - though it’s obviously identical to synthetic caffeine.
Also, I will accept coffee is a soup long before I will accept coffee is a tea.
(You can actually buy coffee leaves prepared for tea making but it’s… not good)
Didn't expect mr Hoffmann to be here. Thanks for this information!
This is Mr. Coffee speaking FYI
coffee leaf extracts can actually be tasty, but not really available
coffee leaf tea, I wonder how... not good it is
wouldn't it be more of a broth than a soup?
I imagined John calmly sitting back in his chair watching this video, then jumping forward in anger after Hank said he didn't like Dr. Pepper.
🤣🤣
I’m angry at him drinking diet Dr Pepper
I can imagine they talk to each other while they are watching the video. If you verbally guessed out loud, what kind of plant the eighth plant was, so did John
@jljordan1 genotoxic sucralose triggers inflammation
@jljordan1 Is PepsiCo's "Diet Dr. Pepper" in the US the same as Coca-Cola's "Dr. Pepper zerooo" in the UK, or is is closer to diet colas where it's a different recipe that doesn't use sugar, rather than the regular recipe with the sugar removed?
5:37 "No pods or leaves, only man." –John Bioshock inventing the caffeine for soda
Hank was so zazzed from the tea that he forgot "good morning, john"😭
Hank's new Dropout show: Very Important Molecule
I would love for Dropout to do some sort of science comedy show like that, even if they couldn't afford Hank specifically (as we all know he's a very busy bee)
The "Nobody Asked" is kinda science comedy adjacent if you haven't tried that one. They don't promote it much😕
New Vehicular name just dropped XD
I'm so on board! That would be addicting to watch 🧡
@3countylaugh I loved "Nobody Asked"!
It's actually a beautiful thing how hyped up you are about the stuff you think is interesting. When you listed off the plants and their places of origin around the 5 minute mark. That was just wonderful. Such good vibes.
Woah I came to leave this same comment
Bro is geeked out of caffeine, of course he is hyped
the copious amounts of caffeine he was drinking at the start might’ve aided to his hyperness i can’t lie
Stop glazing him.
I would glaze tf out of you if thats actually you in your profile
Caffeine has a subtle enhancement of music appreciation too
0:32 So it's completely plausible that the Raktajino comes from a plant that independently developed Caffeine on the Klingon homeworld. Fascinating!
Thank you for leaving the best comment
TIL that my favourite beverage that I've never tasted, isn't indigenous to Bajor, but Kronos instead!
I'm more into Stargate (for some real-life historical reasons), but the idea that sentient creatures in any setting part-taking in caffeine is 100% plausible is very interesting and very new for me
@2Adapt Qapla`!
Love this take
Hank: "What plant do you think the caffeine in soda comes from?"
Me, confidently and audibly: "The coca leaf."
Hank: "THE CHEMICAL PLANT"
Me: profuse coughing laughter
I mean, Coca-cola literally comes form coca and kola, so you're almost right. Colas originally had caffeine from kola nuts which were already in the list he made. But we just don't do that any more so the 8th member of the list is kinda cheating.
@evildude109Fun fact: the US government once sued to try to get Coca-Cola to remove all the caffeine from their products in a case hilariously titled “United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola”. They initially lost, but it eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court, who overturned the ruling and sent it back to the lower courts. Afterwards, Coca-Cola opted to voluntarily reduce the amount of caffeine and settle with the government.
0:11 Slight correction, Yaupon is actually (fairly) closely related to Yerba Mate, as they both come from plants in the Holly genus, Ilex. Though considering how big Plant genera are that doesn't necessarily mean as much as you might think.
I was just about to write this comment! I do R&D for a tea company, and we group Yerba Mate, Guayusa, and Yaupon together as a "tea category" because of the shared genus and overall similarities in terms of taste and function.
Yup. Ilex Vomitorious is yaupon holly, ilex paraguarienses is Mate.
Another is that coffee is a tisane. Tea is a tisane made with tea.
I remember learning about it growing up in Texas and it was strange to me how the Yaupon Holly is grew so widely and is used as an ornamental when it can be made into (imo) a slightly earthier version of “regular” tea. It’s unfortunate it was never widely adopted in modern times in the way that sweet iced tea could’ve referred to Yaupon tea. Too bad the traditional practices were misunderstood and the stigma stuck.
I don’t live in Texas anymore but Yaupon tea is nice to have and recommend people give it a try.
They're very closely related even compared to other species in the same genus.
The perfect edutainment while sipping my Friday morning coffee I must say.
4:53 "[Caffeination] is the most predictable of all human responses. But, rest assured, this will be the [eighth] time we have [developed] it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it."
Is this a reference to The Architect?
@C00kiesAplentysure is
I can just imagine some old bearded chemist out there in a coffee field yelling at the plants...
@C00kiesAplenty yes.
This is the perfect talking speed for me to be extremely entertained while also causing me to forget everything after 5 seconds
Had to slow down to 0.8 to understand at least something)
Never looked at ATP and Caffeine so close together in time so I never noticed, but the minute you put it up right after, it hit me right away.
Thanks captain obvious
You said Adenine, and like a sleeper soldier my brain went "And Thyamineeeee"
6:43 Okay, but I’d love monthly videos of Hank trying to calm down.
I genuinely was slightly disappointed when it became clear the monthly videos were in fact not Hank trying to calm down.
That seems like it'd be a great way to sip some tea
Guided sciencey meditation with Yogi Hank does sound incredible ngl
I also want videos where Hank is going to talk about how to calm down for a second.
Then he mentions "the koala tea of the tea."
Yeah, I was really confused when he started talking about what the videos were about, when he had already said they were him trying to calm down.
6:00 I wonder why… maybe count the number of beverages you have in arms reach 😆
A video on the interaction between L-theanine and caffeine would be great. Some Japanese teas like Matcha and Gyokuro are intentionally grown in some amount of shade to enhance the umami flavor, which comes from the L-theanine. This may also be why these specific teas tend to be known for their calming, yet energizing effects.
My go-to non-coffee caffeine source, GamerSupps, includes both PurCaf - derived from coffee beans and intended to be a non-synthetic replacement for synthetic caffeine - and L-Theanine, so I too would be interested in this.
I once used matcha to stay awake for 96 hours while trying to remain productive for that entire 96 hours (a cup every 4 hours). It worked... of course it took me like a week to re-establish a normal sleeping routine, but hey, it was an experiment.
I tried the same experiment with coffee and felt completely fried and useless after about 60 hours.
Ohhhhh, so maybe that's why I like Chinese-grown green tea, but not matcha (I dislike umami - yes, this is weird).
I had some L-theanine and caffeine pills that actually made me more sleepy. Evidently its "calming effect" can be a sedative if you're already sleep deprived.
@garryuyahoopeople who have ADHD and autism often find that their experience of caffeine is inverted - it makes them feel calm, relaxed, and focused. I'm not saying you have either of those, but just that this is a thing that can happen
As someone who is allergic/highly sensitive to caffeine, I have to say this is my favorite Vlogbrothers video of all time. Thanks, Hank! Also, beginning to feel a little like a bug now.
3:48 so these plants are giving the bees their buzz? :D
I chuckled lol
Hank had dropped "It's Friday" a decade ago and now, he dropped "Good morning, John" too. He's gonna get a scolding next Tuesday.
Especially after John’s last words video, I’m very attached to the “good morning [insert bro]” and “[bro] I’ll see you [day]” format. It’s just so sweet 🥺
We have independently invented caffeinated beverages more times (7) than we have invented WRITING (4 times)! We can't get enough of this jittery plant juice!
Can we hear more about the 4 times we have invented writing please?
How certain are we that we haven't been drinking tea since we all came out of Africa?
I have extreme doubts on those numbers. Where can I learn more?
@CorwynGCprobably just a consequence of civilisation arising independantly several times? (Middle East, China, India, Meso- (+) South America?)
@Regretr1 Camellia sinensis is not native to Africa.
Hank having 5 caffeinated drinks just off screen honestly explains a lot about his videos.
6:11 Please make a video digging deeper into that, that would be so informative!
Agreed!
Yes, this would explain so much about why I swear the caffeine buzz from tea feels different than the one from coffee
Tea is the most amazing drink ever
Agreed
Just take 100mg or a 200mg l-theanine capsule when you drink your coffee. Pretty well known.. known about it for like a decade. I get them from vitamin shoppe
5:28 I was right!!
I genuinely laughed out loud when he said that
CHEMICAL PLANT IS SUCH A GOOD JOKE
So like, Adenosine triphosphate is how our bodies store energy. But when we release that energy for use, those 3 phosphates break off. So we bind phosphate to adenosine to store energy for later and break it off when we need the energy. But then your body sees that lonely, phosphate-less adenosine and says, “oh shit, we must have expended a lot of energy, time to rest.” Adenosine is like an empty gas tank that your body sees and remembers that it needs to fill it. But caffeine is shaped the same as adenosine, so it fits in those adenosine receptors and keeps real adenosine from getting in there. SO CAFFEINE WAKES YOU UP BECAUSE IT KEEPS YOUR BODY FROM SEEING ALL THOSE LITTLE EMPTY GAS TANKS!
Oh that's a great metaphor. Body: I can't see I'm outta gas, just gonna keep driving on empty.
Me: why can't I get to sleep after that afternoon cup of tea🤔
That is how I understand the science as well. The part that always confuses me if that was the sole case of how it worked, we would drink caffeine in the afternoons or evenings to feel as rested as in the mornings. However we drink it in the morning to wake up more or get jittery energy. So... are we just always on half empty even after rest, so fully rested is jittery and awake, or is there more going on?
The empty gas tanks analogy of the science does perfectly explain why some people have trouble sleeping if they drink caffeine too late in the day
@Billionth_Kevini wonder if that's because it's addictive? Like our bodies produce fewer energy molecules because it doesn't think we need as many, which is why we need caffeine to feel normal? I could be wrong and would be interested in the real answer
What using caffeine to mess with that signalling does to our long term "rest and reset" metabolic/ homeostatic processes is probably a bigger deal than we understand. Every time we use caffeine we are forcing our body to keep expending metabolic energy and ignore the deeply evolved mechanisms we developed to homeostatically regulate energy expenditure and sleep /awake based metabolic " housekeeping" functions
@craigsurette3438 Coffee drinking doesn't seem to shorten lifespans so it's probably fine. That said, many people who quit caffeine find benefits without it so it's definitely not without downsides.
My man made a whole research video for his sponsor, amazing marketing. Had a lot of fun watching this
@5:39 "if you don't have leftover decaf coffee caffeine, store bought is fine"- Ina Garten probably
kids these days don't know that you can watch Hank in a horizontal format
Its okay hank is great in many viewing formats.
@timothymantor7332 you heard it here first
hank is great on the horizontal
Kids know better than to drink all 7 caffeine proximate drinks but then lie down instead of like, doing the year of gardening in 4h.
@clareashcraft3411 - 2025-09-05
Wait until Hank finds out vanilla soy milk lattes are just three bean soup
@3countylaugh - 2025-09-05
Love this so much!!!!
@mikapeltokorpi7671 - 2025-09-05
Not to forget, that US Dairy Industry lobbied Soy Milk to be called Nut Juice. I do not think they were inaccurate here.
@samiraperi467 - 2025-09-05
Add chocolate. It's now four beans. (Kinda.)
@samiraperi467 - 2025-09-05
@mikapeltokorpi7671 I would drink nut juice. :3
@NarfiRef - 2025-09-05
Coffee technically isn’t a bean; it’s a berry pit.