Caffeine and Theacrine: The 150 mg + 150 mg Blend

A 1:1 blend of two powders sounds trivially simple. It is the most exacting thing on this site — not because the chemistry is hard, but because 300 mg is a quantity most kitchens cannot measure, and one of the two ingredients can kill you in a measuring error.

Reading time ~10 min · Acute combination trial · Last updated February 2026

1. What the tested blend actually was

The combination arm in the published trial — referred to in the paper as CTC — contained exactly two active ingredients:

The comparator arms were 300 mg caffeine alone and placebo. The materials were supplied by Compound Solutions, the TeaCrine® patent holder, and third-party tested by Dyad Labs — disclosed in the paper because ingredient identity and purity are part of what makes the result interpretable.

That last point is the one to carry away. The result belongs to verified caffeine plus verified theacrine at those exact amounts. It does not automatically transfer to an unlabelled powder of unknown assay, which is what most people would be measuring at home.

2. Why 1:1 by weight, and why that is not 1:1 by scoop

The blend is 50:50 by mass. It is not 50:50 by volume, and this trips people up constantly.

Caffeine anhydrous and theacrine are both fine powders, but they do not share the same bulk density or flow behaviour: one may pack down more than the other, one may cling to the walls of a container, and both are prone to static. "One scoop of each" therefore produces a ratio that depends on the scoop, the humidity, and how hard you tapped it — which is why the trial's design, and any honest description of it, is written in milligrams.

Two practical consequences:

• A blended master batch has to be mixed thoroughly, not stirred once. Two powders of different particle size and density will separate again over time; a batch that was homogeneous when you made it may not be when you take the last serving from the jar.
• Any pre-blended commercial product is a different intervention. It may be convenient and safer, but its exact ratio, filler, and assay are its own — you are no longer talking about the tested blend.

3. What measuring 300 mg properly requires

If the ratio is the easy part, the total quantity is the hard part. 300 mg is a third of a gram — roughly the mass of a small paperclip, or a pinch. Kitchen scales cannot resolve it; most resolve to 1 g, which is more than three times the entire serving.

The measurement requirements, stated plainly:

• A milligram scale (0.001 g resolution), calibrated, on a level surface, out of draughts, with the powder weighed into a tared vessel rather than scooped onto the pan. This is a hard requirement, not a preference — and it matters far more for the caffeine than the theacrine, because caffeine's toxic threshold sits much closer to its active dose.
• A master-batch approach if any blending happens at all: a verified 50:50 mass mix (for example equal masses of each, thoroughly combined) means each serving is a fixed fraction of the batch total rather than a fresh set of measurements. The arithmetic is the same either way; the number of measuring events is what changes, and each measuring event is an opportunity for error.
• Filler is optional. A size 00 capsule physically holds roughly 500–800 mg of fine powder depending on density, so a 300 mg serving fills it partially. Microcrystalline cellulose is the standard inert filler if a fuller capsule is wanted — but filler adds another thing to measure, and adds nothing pharmacologically.
• Never eyeball, never use a spoon, never "estimate by eye from a level scoop". The failure mode is not a slightly weaker dose. The failure mode is a multi-gram one.

4. The timing used in the study

The combination was taken about 60 minutes before the exercise and cognitive testing, and effects were still being measured through roughly 125 minutes after supplementation. Participants' conditions were controlled in ways that matter for interpreting the result:

• A fast before testing (roughly two hours), so absorption was not competing with a meal.
• Other caffeine controlled in the day or so beforehand, so the measured effect was not confounded by a background dose.
• Cognitive testing at fixed points — before supplementation, after it, immediately post-exercise, and 30 minutes post-exercise — so the fatigue-related change was observable rather than inferred.

Those controls are why the result is interesting and also why it does not describe normal use. A blend taken at 60 minutes before a controlled exercise test in a fasted, caffeine-cleared participant is a very specific situation. If any of those conditions change, so may the effect.

One further note on timing: theacrine's apparent duration is longer than caffeine's, so a late-afternoon serving is a straightforward way to lose sleep — which will cost you more cognitive performance the next day than the blend could plausibly return.

5. Form matters: capsules, powder, and lab standards

That last row is a common and expensive mistake: high purity does not mean food-grade, and a certificate stating 99.9% assay says nothing about handling, packaging, or suitability for consumption.

6. Sourcing and verification

We do not sell anything and we do not recommend suppliers. What follows is what to look for, not where to buy — and we accept no responsibility for any third-party product or vendor you deal with.

• Look for a per-lot certificate of analysis naming the actual batch, with assay and identity confirmed by a method you can read (HPLC is standard). A generic "COA available on request" that never arrives is a red flag.
• Prefer branded, single-ingredient products from established manufacturers over anonymous bulk powder. The theacrine used in the research is a branded material; generic theacrine is the same molecule but is not the verified material the trial used.
• Check the declared milligram amount per unit, not just the total container weight. "500 g of powder" tells you nothing about dosing accuracy; "100 mg per capsule" does.
• Expect regulatory variation. Supplement rules differ substantially by country, and the legal status of theacrine is not uniform. Knowing the law where you live is your responsibility, not ours.
• Third-party testing on the finished product (the trial used Dyad Labs) is the standard that matters — it verifies what is actually in the container, not what the supplier intended.

7. Safety limits and who should not go near this

Both compounds are stimulants, and combining them is not a way to make a stimulant "gentler" in any guaranteed sense. The longer duration of theacrine is a particular issue for sleep, and the interaction described in the pharmacokinetic literature means the blend is not simply two independent doses.

The longer-term safety picture for theacrine comes from limited work — commonly cited repeated-dose data used 300 mg per day for 8 weeks with no adverse clinical markers or habituation reported. That is a short window relative to years of use, and it does not cover the combination at higher doses or in people with health conditions.

8. Common questions

Sources and how to read them

• Acute combination trial: caffeine 150 mg + theacrine 150 mg versus caffeine 300 mg versus placebo; supplementation ~60 min pre-testing, cognitive battery before and after fatiguing exercise, materials supplied by Compound Solutions (TeaCrine®), third-party tested by Dyad Labs.
• He et al. (2017), pharmacokinetics of caffeine and theacrine co-administration — caffeine raised theacrine peak concentration and total exposure without changing heart rate or blood pressure.
• Repeated-dose theacrine data at 300 mg/day for 8 weeks, reporting no adverse clinical markers or habituation.
• National food-safety guidance on caffeine intake, pregnancy, and cardiovascular caution.

We summarise, we do not reproduce, and we name brand holders only to identify the materials used in research. Suppliers change formulations — verify anything current with the manufacturer. Tell us if something here is out of date.

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