When did Morning Thunder lose its buffalo kick?

David Sewell · 2004-01-24T20:21:32+00:00

I've purchased Celestial Seasonings' Morning Thunder tea off and on overthe years, since the days when it was nearly the only bagged tea withyerba maté that you could find in the U.S. I had always vaguelyremembered that a bag was supposed to have the caffeine content of a cupof drip coffee, around 100 mg. And a Google search of old Usenetpostings shows that it had the reputation of being even more potent, orperhaps nefarious; the FDA and/or one or more states were rumored tohave banned it sometime in the early '90s. (I do remember it wentmissing from the shelves for a while.)Whatever the case in the old days, it's currently simply a blend ofroasted maté and black tea. And according to Celestial Seasonings'website, an 8 oz. cup contains 40 mg of caffeine, significantly lessthan the 65 mg in a cup of their pure organic black tea.I'm pretty sure that the original formulation had added caffeine tobring it up to coffee strength. Does anyone know when it changed? (Theamusing thing is that some of the recent Usenet postings are stillreferring to it as if it were a dangerous drug... I wonder if any aginghippies furtively stick it in their shopping carts when no one else islooking, feeling mildly guilty...)