San Francisco entrepreneurs Geoffrey Woo and Michael Brandt have come up with a revolutionary way for coffee lovers to get their early morning caffeine fix – chewable caffeine cubes. Each 35-calorie bite-sized ‘Go Cube’  is the equivalent of drinking roughly half a cup of coffee. So if you’re running late with no time to brew a fresh cuppa joe, just pop two cubes and you’re good to go.

Go Cubes are 100 percent vegan, made of a special blend of compounds that improve memory and alertness. With a texture similar to gum drops, each cube contains 50 mg of caffeine, 10 mg of Vitamin B6, and 100 mg of L-Theanine, an amino acid found in green tea. B6 helps aid cognitive function, while theanine helps reduce the anxiety associated with a pure caffeine buzz. They also contain about six grams of sugar per cube, and come in three different flavors – pure drip, latte, and mocha.

Brandt and Woo used crowdfunding to raise nearly $40,000, and are now all set to release Go Cubes internationally – priced at $20.70 for six packs of four. That works out to about $1.73 per cup of coffee, which is cheaper than what you get at most coffee shops.

According to their Indiegogo page, “The amount, concentration, and ratio of each compound in Go Cubes were significantly drawn from double-blind, peer-reviewed journal studies that statistically demonstrate the compound’s efficacy and safety.” They have used a theanine-caffeine ratio of 2:1, which “significantly improves the cognitive performance and alertness, beyond just each compound standalone.”

“Our goal with Go Cubes is to combine what people love about coffee to make a cognitive-enhancing product that’s delicious, shareable, convenient, and affordable,” they revealed. “We take pride in quality products and a brand that is both smart and down-to-earth.”

As fantastic as this sounds, you can’t really shake off the feeling that Go Cubes is just a fun way of marketing brain-enhancing drugs. But that’s the perception Brandt and Woo are trying hard to fight. They want to make nootropics – chemical supplements that make people smarter and more alert – user-friendly, so that’s why they’ve chosen to package them as candy instead of pills.

But they are quick to add that Go Cubes are not a substitute for hard work, and should be used only to enhance potential and get into a productive state of mind. “In principle, I can reach that state on my own,” Brandt said. “When I first started using nootropics, what I thought was really cool is that they can help me reliably get into that state. I can take full advantage of that time every time.”

Photos: Go Cubes