The team that already replaced your breakfast is coming after your morning coffee next.
Soylent started compressing meals into bottled liquid two years ago, and later developed a powder supplement that customers could buy to make their own meal-replacement drinks at home. The startup’s goal was to disrupt food, and Silicon Valley, hub of disruption, took to the fad. Made by a software engineer for software engineers, Soylent quickly became a favorite among time-crunched workers looking for a quick fix to replace full-fledged cooking and eating. Three Soylent trucks even made into the Season 3 opening animation sequence of the HBO’s Silicon Valley, alongside Amazon’s drones and Alphabet’s offices.
Now Soylent is taking it a step further, adding a dash of caffeine—150mg per serving to be precise— to the pre-existing Soylent 2.0 formula, and releasing it as a spin-off product called “Coffiest” today (Aug. 9).
Each bottle of Coffiest contains 20% of the daily recommended values for all essential vitamins and minerals and Soylent’s self-proclaimed ideal 47-33-20 ratio of fats to carbs to proteins respectively. Founder Rob Rhinehart is quick to add that the latest iteration “also tastes great!” in a company blog post announcing the stuff. Considering Soylent has typically led reviewers to comparisons to all sorts of unsavory, inedible things, upping the taste quotient could rope in more users. Personally, I would still go for my morning cuppa, but there must be an audience for the product if Nestlé is also working on a custom blend of vitamins and minerals meant to eliminate food from our diets.
Coffiest has one other special ingredient. To “promote relaxation without drowsiness” and “boost cognitive performance,” the makers have added 75mg of the nootropic L-theanine. The company isn’t totally off base— some research has suggested the amino acid can help lower anxiety, high blood pressure and psychological stress. In addition, because l-theanine doesn’t come with too many health risks—it’s also found in green tea—it might help Soylent score extra points with overworked techies looking for a way to relax.
The new drink is available to subscribers in US and Canada for $37.05 per case, which contains a dozen bottles. One-time orders are priced at $39 per case.
The company also introduced the 250-calorie Soylent Bar that claims to contain the same complete nutrition as other Soylent products but with “a lighter, more portable form factor.” The Bar isn’t up for sale yet, but it appears that Soylent is trying to take over snack time, too.