Pick Your Drink

As an IB year 2 student, caffeine has no doubt become my best friend during these past several months. However, despite our shared need to stay awake, my friends and I often have trouble agreeing on which source of caffeine is truly the best. So for the fun of it, I have decided to give my entirely biased thoughts and opinions on the 3 most common ways to stay awake to let you decide which one is truly superior to help you stay alert. 

Coffee:

I must admit, coffee has always been my caffeine source of choice. Growing up with parents working in the industry, I have been conditioned to find comfort in the smell of these bitter grounds. 

Like it or not, when you live in Vietnam, coffee is everywhere. From a 20k drink at the local Circle K to a 100k specialty cup at a gourmet coffee shop, coffee can be found almost anywhere for any price. For you home baristas, there is also no shortage of ways to make your coffee in the morning before school, everything from a quick, instant powder to fancy Breville machines. Thus, from a convenience and accessibility standpoint, coffee is unbeatable. 

Moreover, I love coffee for its versatility. While I love a good, plain latte, there are myriad of ways for you to customize your daily dose of caffeine. Generally, I find the flavor of coffee to pair very well with other additives such as chocolate or caramel. As a result, investing in syrups, creamers, or sauces can give you hundreds of flavor combinations to explore. 

However, the biggest con with coffee is its distinct taste. If you don’t enjoy it, there really are no additives you can use to completely mask its bitter taste. In that case, I would recommend you explore either of the two remaining options. 

Matcha:

It is rare that you find a casual matcha drinker. Find any random person and 90% of the time, they are either a matcha connoisseur or team “matcha tastes like grass.” Personally, while I like having a matcha here and there, there are a couple of reasons why it is not my go-to drink. 

Firstly, every matcha drinker I know, whether or not they are doing it to be performative, is incredibly serious about this drink…perhaps to a concerning extent. While most are willing to accept acid-like energy drinks and dirt-like coffee, a dull-colored matcha is suddenly impermissible. There seems to be so many things to get right for that “perfect” cup; from a vibrant green color to that smooth, creamy microfoam, there are an abundance of reasons as to why my drink is inadequate. 

As a result, matcha can get very expensive, very fast. For those of you who have ordered matchas at a cafe, this should be no surprise. While there are always cheap versions of this drink, I’ve found that even the more expensive matchas (80k+) are not always guaranteed to be good. If you instead want to make the drink at home, the starting kit to make a matcha is also incredibly expensive.

Before anything else, a good matcha starts with the powder itself, which has to be ceremonial grade and high quality. However, since the farms in Japan are unable to keep up with the demand, these powders are extremely scarce. Even when I have been able to find them online, the good quality ones would cost me as much per cup as it would to buy the same drink at a coffee shop. So while I am able to make matchas at home, this price tag has honestly been my biggest deterrent as I’m not sure if I’m able to commit to such a purchase when my other options for caffeine are much cheaper. Not to mention, if I were to buy a powder, to fully experience the quality of it, I would also need to invest in an extensive set up consisting of whisks, whisk holders, and bowls, all of which would add more dishes for me to clean

Thus, overall, while I think matcha is a good drink to have at a coffee shop occasionally, as a non-matcha fanatic, I don’t think it's worth the investment to have it as a daily drink. 

Energy Drinks:

Of all these sources of caffeine, energy drinks are the ones that I have the least experience with. In fact, given that I’ve only had 1 sip my whole life, I’m not sure if I’m even qualified enough to speak about it, though I will do it regardless. 

As someone who loves plain sparkling water and finds many canned drinks at supermarkets or convenience stores—i.e. kombuchas or teas—overly sweet, I’ve always been hesitant to try energy drinks out of fear I would not be able to finish it. The fact that many of my friends have also described it as tasting like acid (which they somehow consider a good thing), also has not helped matters. However, I can understand the many reasons why these drinks are so popular. 

Firstly, their convenience and price is unbeatable. When one purchases a canned coffee at the convenience store, they have likely accepted that they will be settling for a lower-quality product than what they could get at a proper cafe. However, with energy drinks, there are no better quality alternatives to be found. What you buy at your local Circle K is probably already the highest-quality version of that product. 

Moreover, this is a great caffeine alternative for people who don’t enjoy the bitter taste of coffee or matcha. Even among energy drinks, there are endless flavors to choose from, all of which taste vastly different from each other. From tropical mango to whatever flavor a White Monster is, there is truly something for everyone to enjoy. Not suffering from chronic coffee breath is also a welcome bonus!

Before I leave you to pick your winner in this caffeine battle though, it is important that I remind you to consume everything in moderation! I know it’s tempting to rely on caffeine in place of sleep, but this can only sustain you for so long. Especially for you Monster or Red Bull drinkers, it can be easy to forget that these fun drinks also contain stimulants which can very quickly add up if you’re consuming multiple per day. Ultimately, it is always better to simply have enough sleep to stay awake, but for situations when that isn’t possible, I hope I’ve been able to give you more insight to fuel your late nights!