KKM said these Viagra coffees are “poisonous”… so we tried them.

If y’all have been to any mamaks or Malay stalls, chances are, you’ll have seen something like this hanging somewhere in the premises:

You’ll probably also have heard that these kopi tongkat ali or kopi jantan can do miracles for the male species… in bed, and from what I’ve seen, they’re pretty popular; some uncle is always ordering a cup on any given visit to the mamak near our office.

I’ve always wondered if they actually work, so I finally caved in last Wednesday and grabbed a packet of Coffee A to see what’s up. As I was paying for the coffee, our marketing guy saw what I had in my hand and said, ‘Bro, you know that’s classified as racun by our Health Ministry, right?’

Wait, what?

Some of these coffees legit have Viagra in them

Uh huh, it’s true. Looking up “kopi tongkat ali racun” on Google is gonna net you a whole bunch of articles, a list of banned products by our Ministry of Health and a press release by Noor Hisham all saying the same thing – this stuff’s dangerous. A quick look at the press release tells us why:

For y’all who aren’t familiar with big science words, sildenafil and tadalafil are drugs commonly prescribed for erectile dysfunction. You might be more familiar with their brand names, Viagra and Cialis. The fact that none of these drugs are listed on the packaging is one thing, but more disturbingly, you can’t get Viagra or Cialis without a doctor’s prescription in Malaysia. How’s that for raising eyebrows (and penises)?

When asked whether I should try the coffee or not, a friend of mine who’s a doctor only said this:

Just don’t, man.

…but I tried it anyway.

You can’t just drink the coffee for it to work…

…and yes, I found that out the hard way (cue laugh track). The first pack of coffee I tried tasted pretty much as expected – there was this herbal bitterness underscoring what could only be called terrible coffee. But hey, flavor’s not what I was going for here; it’s the, uh, “strengthening” effect I was after.

Here’s where the plot twist comes in – an hour after I downed the nasty beverage, all I had was a racing heart and a mild headache. No boner whatsoever. Another two hours passed by with no erection in sight. The hell?

I reported the results of the experiment to the CILISOS team the next day, and boy did I get berated. Turns out, I made a crucial mistake:

I was supposed to “stimulate” myself after drinking the coffee.

Aight, take 2. I had to do it for science. In for a sen, in for a ringgit, right? This time, I decided to switch it up and got a packet of Coffee S. Right off the bat, the coffee tasted better than Coffee A, which is good, and I gave it an hour to work its magic.

Trigger warning: this next part’s gonna be a liiiiiittle explicit. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

With one hand on my mouse and the other on my member, I loaded up some good ol’ research material (cough cough) and went to town. 15 minutes or so later, my biological missiles were launched. Lo and behold, my dong was still standing tall, and would continue to do so for the next 2 hours. A pleasant surprise, to be sure.

The coffee isn’t just great for going solo, tho…

It’s also great for doin’ the dirty

Seeing as how I couldn’t get any action, I hit up Omar (not his real name) to see what it’s like to bang under the effects of these kopi-kopi jantan. Omar first found out about one of these coffees in Singapore, of all places; he was walking down the streets of Geylang when a Chinese dude who’s totally not shady at all approached him and said:

Bro bro bro, you want power ah? POWERRRRRRRR.

Omar was then led to a tiny storefront where he could get his hands on this “power”… which ended up being sketchy performance drugs for sex. Amidst various scuffed containers, paper boxes and plastic tubes with Chinese, Cyrillic and cetak rompak English written on them, were packets of kopi jantan. Apparently, these bad boys are being sold north of our borders as well. He didn’t buy any of the coffee at the time, but he would go on to try it out at a later time.

When I drank it, I could feel my face going flush, my heart beating faster, my body getting warm.

The biggest thing the coffee does for intercourse, according to Omar, is that it lets men skip the post nut refractory period and go for multiple rounds. That’s the “cooldown period” guys have after ejaculating before they can go again. The caveat is that for some, their peeners feel extremely sensitive and/or painful cuz of the prolonged erection. Talk about a double edged sword… for your sword.

It can work, but try it at your own risk

Having said everything, we won’t recommend the consumption of these coffees since they can be fatal for people with comorbidities like heart conditions, and the Health Ministry has banned them from being sold (even though they’re still widely available). A final year healthcare student I talked to said thusly:

The erection isn’t induced by hormones, but by stimulation of high blood pressure. It makes blood concentration thicker and increases blood pressure. It’s dangerous, especially if the person has cardiovascular or other underlying risks unactivated in genetic alleles.

Yeah, the prospect of an affordable sexual ambrosia can be immensely attractive, but getting your Viagra fix from products that don’t even fully list their ingredients is perhaps a cock-up waiting to happen.