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Have you tried cold brew? It has about 10x the caffeine of an espresso shot. Espresso has the least amount of a caffeine of coffee drinks. Cold water and long exposure extracts more caffeine than hot water and short exposure. Source: I’m a coffee nerd.


The difference isn't typically that vast. At usual dilution levels, drinking a 16oz cold brew would be slight caffeine gain on the double-shot. Heat does extract caffeine better that cold, which is why the shot is prepared in ≈25 seconds and the cold brew concentrate takes 12-20 hours.

Source:10 years experience as a working barista.


Also, I don't keep cold brew on hand during the winter, but I can whip up a double espresso in under a minute and get ~150mg of caffeine, which is basically equal to my daily intake. And I can _consume_ it faster than trying to chug a 16oz cup of cold brew. Gulp, done. :) And yummy.

I could take the excedrin-style things but coffee is pretty easy. And the goal isn't "max caffeine", the goal is 150-250mg.

The funny thing is that I really have no idea if this caffeine+ibuprofen routine is actually effective. One of my doctors in grad school suggested it, as someone who also suffered aura-only migraines. He said it worked for him, and I figured that either it was sometimes effective, or I'd have some placebo action working for me, so I just adopted it. :) I'm OK with placebo if it's working. The caffeine is based on an older theory of vasoconstriction that seems to not be aligned with the modern thinking on migraines, but, eh, mine are pretty tame compared to what some people get so I haven't felt the need to work too hard to optimize this.




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