Customer Reviews

STAY ALERT Military Caffeine Energy Gum - ARCTIC MINT - TRAY (24 packs, 5 pieces per pack) - 100mg Caffeine per piece

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The first time I chewed a whole piece I literally wanted to vomit because of the aftertaste. I looked at the remaining box of 23 packages and thought "Crap, I'm going to have to resell them individually on eBay." But then within a minute, I realized that I was wide awake and super energized, which I've never felt so quickly from any other energy product (liquid, solid, or gel). Over the next few days, I discovered that if I chewed half a piece of the gum at a time, the taste is actually much more tolerable and the effects are just the same. So... thumbs up.

I love this product and most highly recommend it! Unlike the cinnamon version of this product, I cannot taste any of the bitter caffeine taste. The sweet coating and mint flavor are excellent, and the gum maintains a pleasant mint flavor long after the caffeine is gone. By contrast, the cinnamon version completely loses all taste after 5-10 minutes and I want to spit it out. With the mint version, I actually enjoy continuing to chew the gum.

The screwy thing is the pricing: The 24-pack costs $2.00 more than buying four 6-packs ($28 vs. $26), so it's clear they've adjusted their pricing to make money on the "shipping costs." I have Amazon Prime, but instead of "free shipping" it's really "$2.00 shipping." (If shipping was really free, the 24-pack product price would be LESS than $26 because the manufacturer's cost for the tray must be less than their cost for four 6-packs.)

Aside from the shipping cost, it's a great product!

I'm the type of person who uses caffeine as a drug to stay focused. My friend, who was former military, gave me a pack of these to try. Let me just say that the military money gets results! This was fact acting, small, and cheap. It works out to about $0.25 a cup of coffee- each gum has 100mg caffeine (5 pieces per packet, 24 packs per box). This destroys any other caffeinated products I've ever tried- it beats coffee for price and ease of use. It beats jolt gum cause it has 6x the amount of caffeine jolt does. It beats energy drinks because they are so expensive and loaded with TONS of sugar. These things are extremely portable- just carry in your pocket (they were meant for military!). Great for law enforcement to have in the war bag to stay awake in the field when you are stuck on a call or stakeout. A friend who is in vet school loves these cause they have to stay alert and study so much. To be honest, you don't buy stuff like this for taste. The first minute of these things you just taste the sugar and flavoring, but after that the bitter taste of the caffeine starts to be come apparent. The taste comes out slowly at first, and never completely overpowering, but anyone chewing this just to enjoy gum, and not as a tool to stay awake, would never chose this gum over any other gum in the world for flavor. That being said, the taste isn't terrible. I've had all 5 flavors. The Cinnamon is the worst, and unless you are a fan of big red or gum like that I would avoid it (I don't like Cinnamon flavor). IMO, the Spearmint flavor tastes the best at first (only slightly better than Arctic Mint), but then the caffeine is more noticeable with Spearmint in the end than with Arctic Mint flavor. Overall, if you are going for the best overall flavor experience I chose Arctic Mint. I cannot recommend these enough.

This gum has been amazing for college. Let's face it, as a college student there are going to be many nights where you won't get the proper amount of sleep. Since I tend to have little self-control going to bed on time, I've had more than my share. For those days when I'm stuck in a 3-hour lecture trying to keep my eyes open, Stay Alert has always come through. About 10-12 minutes after popping one I immediately find myself more focused and the material interesting again. Of course, this is not a replacement for sleep and the effects are only good for a couple of hours (which is why I try to time it so I take it in the middle of a lecture). However, if you need a temporary "pick up", nothing beats it.

Now, on to the taste. Due to me having used this for a while, and probably also due to not having what you would call a refined palate, I don't mind it all. I enjoy the sugary taste at the beginning and the neutral taste for the duration. Still, I have to add that sometimes near the middle I'll get a taste that I can only compare to how car exhaust smells (which isn't a bad thing necessarily). Because of this, I highly recommend that you be careful about letting others try it. Around 90% of the people I've given a piece to will spit it out within 5 minutes (I had one fellow student comment that it tasted like stale cigarettes). Given that this is not exactly cheap, and I see them as extremely valuable due to the service they offer, I'll now only give out pieces after the receiver has sworn that they're going to chew it 10 minutes regardless of the taste (that way they'll get most of the effect). Otherwise, it'd be a complete waste.

This is an amazing product. I use it like coffee (the acid in coffee kills my stomach), but this gum makes me alert without the "tweakiness" I associate with coffee. It is, quite literally, the only thing that's kept me going through law school. Production quality control seems variable though; I've had one box where the quality of the gum itself is significantly inferior to the other -- the gum disintegrates after an hour or two of chewing. I've also had two packets of the 48 I've gone through contain four pieces rather than five. The mint flavor is vastly better than the cinnamon.

Bought these awhile ago, and I'm happy I did. First time I chewed a piece, I was amazed on how awful it tasted. My best attempt at describing the taste is like rancid pepto bismol. Yes it kinda tastes like that, but it does work. I work retail so the first actual test for me was on Black Friday of last year. I was scheduled to start at 2:30AM, so I needed to be up and ready. But....thanksgiving had different plans, so in the end I ended up with about half an hour of sleep. Well with a few pieces I was able to work through a 12 hour shift with no issues. They may not taste great but they do work.

I've been chewing the STAY ALERT energy gum, Arctic Mint flavor for almost a year now. I work in an office and get the afternoon slumps almost every day, just one piece of gum and I perk right up without the jitteriness that I often get with other caffeine products. It doesn't have any affect on me except that I feel wide awake and energized. It didn't take long for me to get used to the bitter taste and now I don't notice it at all. I enjoy the taste and I especially enjoy the energized feeling I have almost immediately after I start chewing.

One word of warning is that I won't chew the gum after 3pm because it will keep me awake at night.

I often wonder how I got through my work days before I started chewing the gum!

For me, this gum has no unpleasant flavor nor does it make me feel queasy. Those were the concerns I had based on some reviews, and I didn't know what to expect since this is the first caffeine gum I've tried.

This gum seems to have a more rapid effect than drinking coffee. Maybe I only feel that way because it's what I read online, but either way I'm happy. Obviously, it's quicker and easier to grab a piece of gum and put it in your mouth than it is to brew coffee and drink a hot beverage. For highway driving or waking up for a morning run, I will be switching to this.

I have bought this gum several times over the past year, for my husband. He thinks it is a very good product by helping him stay alert.
This product has a high level of caffeine and works when he cannot drink coffee.

This is an awesome product, especially for those of us who cannot drink coffee. Within minutes of chewing this gum, I felt fully awake and alert. The taste isn't the greatest, but the work around for that is to mix it in with a similar tasting regular gum. My preference is the Artic mint, add a piece of the Extra peppermint chewing gum and you can't taste the bitterness of the Stay Alert at all!!