Mary Jane’s Soda

I first heard about Mary Jane's Soda online, as a part of the relaxing drinks trend, obviously using the name to relate it's properties to something like a weed soda, even though it contains no marijuana. It's made by The Relaxing Company, which also makes a relaxing tea. Both drinks contain kava extract as the active ingredient. Click "read more" for the full review.

Mary Jane's Soda tastes like a weak cola. it's got a little bit of carbonation, and is sweet like a typical brown soda. As for unique flavors, it tastes a little bit herbal or flowery, maybe similar to china cola or thums up. Based on taste alone, it's a respectable soda but nothing special.

I first drank one at 8:30pm, didn't feel much in the way of relaxation. Drank another at 9:30, and still didn't feel anything, or didn't think so. Since two was the limit on the bottle, I figured it would be enough to feel some kind of effect, so I waited a while. I read online that the effects sometimes take half an hour to take effect, which is why I waited so long in between bottles. If there was any effect after the 2nd bottle, it was indistinguishable from what could have been a placebo effect or me just being a little tired. At 11:00 I went for a third bottle in the name of science. After the third, I could feel some slight tingling sensation, and a very tiny bit of a "heavy arms" feeling, but only when I stayed perfectly still. It was so slight that if I moved or walked around, the feeling was completely gone. I can't honestly say that it felt relaxing at all though, but then again, I wasn't particularly stressed out to begin with either. After going to bed at around 1:00, I had trouble sleeping, but I can't attribute that to the drink either - it could easily just be my overactive mind. I can only safely say that Mary Jane's Soda didn't help me sleep better than usual.

There is one factor that may have interrupted the experiment - I ate a big bowl of noodles for dinner before drinking the soda. The website says to try it on an empty stomach. So, experiment two will be to drink it faster without any food beforehand to see if I can achieve some sort of significant relaxing effect.

Update: I decided to go all the way to test if there was any sort of effect whatsoever, so I drank the remaining bottles (don't try this at home), which was about 6 and I can conclusively say that it doesn't have any significant relaxing effect. If you are looking for a drink that does have noticeable relaxing effects, try Kava Kwik.