I first heard about Kimera Koffee in a sponsored ad on the Ben Greenfield podcast.  Ben espoused the benefits of having nootropics in coffee and how great he felt when he drank this.  He even took to sprinkling in additional boosts like chaga mushroom powder and various other things that created a super potion for him.

After hearing him talk about this enough times, my mind inexplicably went from, “you’re not going to catch me with your fancy marketing” to “hmmm maybe there’s something to this, why not give it a try?”

I swear I really must be a podcast marketers dream.  Since I don’t watch tv, except for the various on demand Netflix binge, and I don’t listen to the radio since I always pop on a podcast when I commute, podcasts are pretty much my main source of entertainment… and the main route in which I get exposed to ads.

I may not know what the latest hot movie is coming out, but I’m up to date on all the sponsors on the Ben Greenfield Podcast, Tim Ferriss Podcast, and Jocko Podcast.

After hearing the ads enough times being promoted by these people who I have come to trust, I succumb to typical consumer marketing psychology and become curious.

Or as the BJJ Cavewife would say, I’m a sucker.

The Price

I ordered two 12 oz packs from Amazon for $21.95 each which comes to about $1.83 / oz.

At the time the BJJ Cavewife and I were mainly drinking Dave Asprey’s mycotoxin free Upgraded Coffee $19.41 for 12 oz or $1.62 / oz.

I reasoned that since the prices were so similar, why not pay the extra $0.21 /oz for the additional Ben Greenfield approved infused nootropics.

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Nootropics

What are nootropics you ask?  Well they’re chemicals that supposedly have brain boosting capabilities and Kimera Koffee claims to have 750 mg of these bad boys which include:

Alpha GPC: Natural choline compound found in the brain and can be found in soy, meats and fish.  Improves memory, enhances mental focus and increases power output.

Taurine: An organic acid commonly found in eggs that delays cognitive decline due to aging, fights oxidative stress, reduces fatigue, and helps boost fat metabolization.

L-Theanine: Tea extract that balances daily anxiety, improves sleep patterns and helps prevent cholesterol-related damage.

DMAE: Choline molecule in fish that boosts mental performance, increases energy, improves oxygen efficiency and promotes red blood cell function.

Now just reading through these descriptions, it seems like the nootropics being used are all from natural sources, and that they’re essentially adding components from fish, eggs, and tea into the coffee.

The benefits they supposedly confer all sound like things it’d be great to have, I mean who doesn’t want enhanced mental focus, increased power output, reduced fatigue, and delayed cognitive decline due to aging?

In my particular case I know that I can definitely benefit from “prevent cholesterol-related damage” and “helps boost fat metabolization.”

If this coffee could do any of those thing then we’d have a veritable magic elixir and it’d be worth every penny, if not more.

Now I didn’t do any independent research on any of these nootropics because frankly it was just easier to take Ben Greenfield’s word for it (see? a marketers dream) and try it out first.

Even just thinking about the amount of time and work required for a deep dive into pubmed to look into each of these components is giving me a headache!

Once we finished with our last few cups of Upgraded Coffee I broke out the Kimera Koffee.

When I poured out the contents of the bag into my coffee canister, I noticed white chunks in it.  At first I was alarmed and thought it had been contaminated, but then it occurred to me that those white bits were probably what I was paying extra for… the nootropics.

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Taste

Now I’m not much of a coffee connoisseur and don’t really know how to review the taste.  I don’t even know the proper vocabulary in describing coffee, although the terms “full body” and “rich” and “best part of waking up” jump into mind.  But then again those might just be from something I heard in a Folger’s commercial.

What I do know is that there is coffee I like (yum) and coffee I don’t like (yuck).

The typical medium roast coffee I get at Starbucks falls more on the yum side of the scale whereas the free coffee they give at work is definitely yuck.

So in terms of taste, Kimera Koffee tastes yum to me.  The more heavy cream I add, the more yum it tastes, but that probably speaks more to the powers of cream than it does to the actual taste of the coffee.

What about all of the magical properties from the nootropics?

In short… I didn’t notice a thing.

When I didn’t get a goods night sleep, I felt just as crappy with this coffee as without it.  When I took a BJJ class, I got tapped out just as much and manhandled just as much when I drank this coffee as without it.  Where the heck was the “increased power output” when I needed it at the bottom of side control?

My weight stayed the same so the magical fat burning properties didn’t do much for me.

I can’t really comment on the “improves oxygen efficiency,” “promotes red blood cell function,” and “fights oxidative stress” benefits… nor can I comment on the “delays cognitive decline due to aging.”  All I can say is that I felt exactly the same and didn’t experience any of the tangible benefits that paying $1.83 / oz for coffee was marketed to confer.

Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I just didn’t drink enough of it.  Or maybe my expectations were just too high.

In Kimera Koffee’s defense it does have a 4.4 star rating on Amazon and people seem to really like it.  There are even posts like this (albeit the writer is a Kimera affiliate) confidently touting the benefits of it.

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Because I felt a little guilty about spending so much on this, when we finally needed to re-up our coffee supply, the next batch of coffee I picked up was a 3 lb bag of San Francisco Bay coffee from Costco for around $20, which comes out to $0.42 / oz.

While exponentially more cost effective, this tastes a lot closer to the “yuck” end of the scale for me.  I’m not sure what I’ll do when I finally get around to finishing all 48 oz of this distasteful brew.  I guess it depends on which podcasts I listen to and how many times I hear the ads…

I can already imagine the BJJ Cavewife roll her eyes and say “you’re such a sucker.”  Hey at least you guys can benefit from all the stuff I fall for…