Subject: My Favorite Caffeine Alternative
From: Hunter Williams <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 May 2026 22:04:47 +0000

Happy Wednesday!

I want to deviate from scheduled peptide and hormone programming today to talk about one of my favorite OTC supplements. 

Have you ever wanted the focus and energy that caffeine gives you, without the jitters, the 2 pm crash, or the tolerance creep where last week's dose stops working?

If so, you may be a fan of a compound called theacrine.

I've been taking it daily for cognitive performance for years, and I want to walk you through what the research actually shows, how I use it, and why it deserves more attention than it gets.

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**What is Theacrine?**

Theacrine is a purine alkaloid found in kucha tea, certain coffee species, and cupuaçu fruit. 

It looks similar to caffeine at the molecular level and works through some of the same pathways. 

But the way it behaves in the body is different in a few important ways.

It hits both the adenosine system (which caffeine blocks to make you feel awake) and the dopamine system (which drives motivation and focus). That dual mechanism is part of why people describe theacrine as clean energy with a slight mood boost.

The half-life is also much longer than caffeine. Caffeine clears in about 5 to 6 hours. Theacrine sticks around for 20+ hours. That sounds bad on paper, but in practice, the subjective stimulation tapers smoothly. No crash.

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**My Protocol**

I take theacrine in the morning along with my coffee.

The research suggests the two work better together than either alone, and that's been my real-world experience, too.

The reason I stack them is simple. Caffeine kicks in fast. Theacrine has a slower onset, around 90-120 minutes. So by the time my coffee is wearing off, the theacrine is hitting its stride. I get clean focus through the early afternoon without needing a second cup.

Typically, I do not use it after about 11 am. 

Even though I don't feel it as a stimulant late in the day, the half-life is long enough that I want to respect my sleep.

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**Research**

There are some pretty cool small-scale studies on theacrine. 

**Acute energy, focus, and motivation.** The Habowski 2014 pilot trial tested a single 200 mg dose in healthy adults using a randomized, double-blind, crossover design. Subjective energy, focus, concentration, and motivation to exercise all increased compared with placebo. 200 mg outperformed both 100 mg and 400 mg, which suggests a sweet spot rather than more being better.

**Cognitive performance with caffeine.** Kuhman, Joyner, and Bloomer ran a crossover study comparing a theacrine-containing supplement, caffeine alone, and a placebo. The theacrine product produced cognitive and mood effects without the hemodynamic spike you sometimes see with caffeine. 

**8-week safety and no tolerance.** This is the big one. Taylor and colleagues at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor enrolled 60 healthy adults who received a placebo, 200 mg, or 300 mg of theacrine daily for 8 weeks. Heart rate, blood pressure, liver and kidney markers, lipids, and blood counts all remained within normal ranges. And critically, the subjective benefits did not fade across the 8 weeks. No tolerance. No tachyphylaxis. _They also saw a small drop in LDL and total cholesterol_, which was a secondary finding worth noting but not the main point.

**Caffeine combination pharmacokinetics.** A small 8-subject study found that taking theacrine with caffeine increases theacrine's bioavailability and effect size compared to taking it alone. Heart rate and blood pressure were not affected by the combination. This is part of why I stack them.

**Endurance performance.** Bello and colleagues at Rutgers ran 24 high-level soccer players through a 90-minute simulated treadmill match across four conditions (theacrine, caffeine, both, placebo). Time-to-exhaustion improved 27 to 38% with theacrine versus placebo. The combination with caffeine produced the best cognitive results.

**Tactical and stress performance.** A 2025 study out of South Carolina tested 20 tactically trained subjects on 300 mg caffeine, 150 mg caffeine + 150 mg theacrine, or placebo before and after high-intensity interval exercise. Both active conditions outperformed the placebo. The caffeine-theacrine combo had additional cognitive benefits beyond caffeine alone, at half the caffeine dose.

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**Final Thoughts**

I think theacrine is one of the more underrated cognitive tools out there. 

The non-habituation piece is the part I care most about. With caffeine, most people see tolerance creep up over the years. With theacrine, the 8-week data show the subjective benefits remained steady throughout. That matches my experience.

For daily cognitive demand, it's worked well for me, and it's worked well for many of the high performers I know.

If you want to try it, the cleanest way I've found is **NAD Regen** from BioStack Labs. 

It contains theacrine as part of their NAD3 complex (theacrine, wasabi extract, cuprous niacin), along with niacinamide, resveratrol, and spermidine. 

You get the cognitive lift from theacrine plus full NAD+ support, mitochondrial support, and longevity signaling in two capsules a day.

Here is the link: **[Try NAD Regen here](https://biostacklabs.com/pages/nad-regen-triple?ref=hunter&utm_campaign=hunter&utm_medium=affiliate)**

Thank you for your continued support as a reader! 

Best, 

Hunter Williams

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**Further reading**

* [The effects of TeaCrine, a nature-identical purine alkaloid, on subjective measures of cognitive function, psychometric and hemodynamic indices in healthy humans](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4271659/).

* [Performance and Mood Following Ingestion of a Theacrine-Containing Dietary Supplement, Caffeine, or Placebo by Young Men and Women](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4663612/). 

* [Safety of TeaCrine, a non-habituating, naturally-occurring purine alkaloid over eight weeks of continuous use](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26766930/).

* [The effects of TeaCrine and caffeine on endurance and cognitive performance during a simulated match in high-level soccer players](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6472067/). 

* [A caffeine and theacrine combination improves cognitive performance in tactical personnel under physically fatiguing conditions](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12284986/). 

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