Have trouble waking up in the morning? Maybe your cup of joe isn't giving you the jolt you need. But not to worry: there’s a new coffee on the market that promises to inject 200 per cent more caffeine in your mug than ordinary coffee.
Its name? Death Wish -- and it claims to be the strongest coffee in the world.
While your everyday cup of coffee tends to contain about 250 to 300 milligrams of caffeine, depending on how you brew it, a 475-ml (16-ounce) shot of Death Wish will hit you with about 660 milligrams.
The safety of caffeine had recently been in the spotlight, with reports of more than a dozen deaths linked to caffeine-laced “energy drinks.” Health Canada advises adults consume no more than 400 mg of caffeine a day, noting it can cause headaches, insomnia and irritability in some people.
Recently, the agency capped the amount of caffeine allowed in “energy shots” at 200 milligrams. As well, larger-sized energy drinks, such as Red Bull and Monster, are no longer allowed to contain more than 180 mg of caffeine for a single-serving container.
Death Wish, with its black package emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, makes no apologies for its strength.
“This coffee is carefully formulated to provide maximum taste and caffeine content without the addition of anything artificial. You probably can’t handle its flavor and intensity,” the label reads. “Many sleepless nights will result. By making this coffee, some have called us irresponsible, we think it’s revolutionary.”
“This is extreme coffee, not for the weak,” its website adds. “Consider yourself warned."
So how did Death Wish make a super-coffee? Not by adding extra caffeine. Instead, the company says it uses a different kind of bean, called Robusta, in place of the Arabica beans typically used for most coffee.
Robusta beans have a much higher caffeine content than Arabica, but most coffee lovers avoid them because they have a harsh taste. Death Wish claims they’ve found the perfect Robusta blend that delivers a rich, bold taste as well as a big hit of caffeine.
What’s more, the coffee is organic, shade-grown, and Fair Trade-certified.
Because the coffee delivers such a caffeine wallop, the company’s founder Mike Brown says they couldn’t really give it any other name than “Death Wish.”
"We're making the world’s strongest coffee. You can't really call that ‘Puppies’ or ‘Kittens’ -- or anything like that,” he recently told ABC News.
Death Wish is not available in any stores, but it can be ordered off the company’s website. At US$20 a pound, it‘s not cheap. (The company also charges a whopping $24 for shipping to Canada). But from the sounds of it, a little will go a long way.
