The 03:00 can · the dead hour
03:00 Kara DutBlack mulberry
Black mulberry from the trees in every Istanbul courtyard: deep, winey and not very sweet.
On duty at 03:00
Mert, 33Emergency nurse · the ambulance bay, Şişli
The dead hour is the busy hour in A&E. He has his can at three, so it is mostly gone by the time he sleeps.
Generated images, made with ChatGPT from our own drawings of the cans. The people are as invented as the company.
The dose
40 mg at 03:00. About 20.6 mg at 08:00.
Drunk at 03:00, it is in you within the hour — the peak is about 47 minutes in, 35.9 mg — and then it leaves at the pace your liver sets. By 08:00, when you are meant to be asleep, 20.6 mg is left: 1.0 glasses of çay.
40 mg is the rule's dose for this hour (38.8 mg) rounded to the nearest 10. At 16 mg/100 ml it is over the EU's 150 mg/l line, so the can carries the high-caffeine wording.
| clock | mg in you | glasses of çay |
|---|---|---|
| 03:00 | 0.0 | 0.00 |
| 04:00 | 35.5 | 1.77 |
| 05:00 | 31.2 | 1.56 |
| 06:00 | 27.2 | 1.36 |
| 07:00 | 23.7 | 1.18 |
| 08:00 | 20.6 | 1.03 |
| 09:00 | 17.9 | 0.90 |
| 10:00 | 15.6 | 0.78 |
The label, unrolled
All 166 millimetres of it.
The hour is bare aluminium — no ink — which is why it flashes when the can turns. Round the shoulder runs a dial with this can's hour at the front. The side carries its own dose curve; the back carries the ingredients, the nutrition table, the EU wording and a barcode whose check digit is computed.
front
dose curve
for the ones on duty
back · ingredients
What is in it
Kara Dut, water, and one active ingredient.
Karbonatlı su, konsantreden karadut suyu (%15), asitlik düzenleyici: sitrik asit, siyah çaydan kafein (160 mg/l), doğal aromalar, renklendirici: siyah havuç konsantresi.
Carbonated water, black mulberry juice from concentrate (15 %), acid: citric acid, caffeine from black tea (160 mg/l), natural flavourings, colour: black carrot concentrate. No added sugar, no sweeteners.
High caffeine content. Not recommended for children or pregnant or breast-feeding women (16 mg/100 ml).
| Nutrition | per 100 ml | per can, 250 ml |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 25 kJ / 6 kcal | 63 kJ / 15 kcal |
| Fat | 0 g | 0 g |
| Carbohydrate | 1.5 g | 3.7 g |
| of which sugars | 1.4 g | 3.4 g |
| Protein | 0 g | 0 g |
| Salt | 0.01 g | 0.02 g |
| Caffeine | 16 mg | 40 mg |
Barcode · EAN-13
2 948170 030008
From the GS1 restricted range (20–29), so an invented product can never collide with a real one. The last digit is computed: the first twelve weighted 1, 3, 1, 3… sum to 82; 82 + 8 is a multiple of ten.