A Harvard professor believes that people will soon be inhaling their caffeine from a lipstick-sized tube.
It's called AeroShot, it went on the market late last month, a single unit costs $2.99 at convenience stores.
Biomedical engineering professor David Edwards said AeroShot is safe and does not contain common additives, like taurine, used to amplify the caffeine effect in common energy drinks. Each grey-and-yellow plastic canister contains 100 milligrams of caffeine powder, about the amount in a large cup of coffee, plus B vitamins.
AeroShot, we are told, safely delivers caffeine into the mouth, just like coffee.
There are some concerns about how safe is AeroShot is, but professor David Edwards says,"Even with coffee — if you look at the reaction in Europe to coffee when it first appeared — there was quite a bit of hysteria," he said. "So anything new, there's always some knee-jerk reaction that makes us believe `Well, maybe it's not safe.'"
Once a user shoots a puff of calorie-free AeroShot into his or her mouth, the lemon-lime powder begins dissolving almost instantly. Each single-use container has up to six puffs.
Dr. Lisa Ganjhu, a gastroenterologist and internal medicine doctor at New York-based St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, said people need to be aware of how much caffeine they are ingesting.
"You want those 10 cups of coffee, it will probably take you a couple hours to get through all that coffee with all that volume that you are drinking," Ganjhu said. "With these inhale caffeine canisters you can get that in 10 of those little canisters — so you just puff away and you could be getting all of that within the hour."
Even the product packaging warns people not to consume more than three AeroShots per day.
Northeastern University students who sampled the product gave it mixed reviews.
"This tastes really good and I think it rocks," student Zack Huang said after puffing onto a free sample before rushing to join a group of friends who were walking away from campus.
Still, one student was not happy with the taste, echoing sentiment expressed online by some consumers.
People elsewhere vowed they would never give up their morning coffee.
The makers of AeroShot say that the product isn't about switching away from coffee, but rather making it easier for people with active lifestyles to get their caffeine fix.
"AeroShot can be used in a variety of settings inconvenient for liquids, such as when you study in the library, board an airplane or get into the car for a long drive," they say in the section dedicated to frequently asked questions on their website. "It's easy to take AeroShot with you when you go biking, skiing, curling, or any other activity that consumes energy."
AeroShot, manufactured in France and the flagship product of Cambridge-based Breathable Foods Inc.
We think we'll give it a try.
