Unless you have access to coca leaves, your recipe is likely to taste like generic cola.
Coca-Cola has special privileges to import raw coca leaves. They extract the cocaine (which is then sold for pharmaceutical use). The mostly-cocaine free extract is then used to flavor their cola. AFAIK Coca-Cola is the only entity in the US allowed to do this, so it is unsurprising that other cola brands taste significantly different.
I'm a physician- although I don't disagree with the spirit of the article the headline is exceptionally misleading.
Phenylephrine is useless as an oral decongestant. It is still quite useful for other indications, including as a vasopressor (given IV to increase blood pressure such as in hypotensive shock). I believe it is actually the only commonly available vasopressor in the US that is a pure alpha-1 agonist which in certain scenarios is desirable.
It is also indicated for treatment of priapism.
The real kicker is that phenylephrine actually does work as a nasal decongestant when it is used as an intranasal spray, which has the added benefit of fewer systemic side effects compared with oral decongestants.
Hypothetically if a person did experience myalgia as a direct result of drinking Earl Grey tea and their proposed mechanism is accurate, the treatment would probably involve K+ channel opener with a lower K_d (higher affinity) than the culprit bergapten, perhaps Diazoxide.
Because the proposed mechanism has nothing to do with histamine or immune response. Such a K+ channel blocker should hypothetically have the same effect in the vast majority of the general population.
Excessive black tea consumption can also cause fluorosis. It's quite difficult to say just how much tea one would have to drink to cause any symptoms though.
Coca-Cola has special privileges to import raw coca leaves. They extract the cocaine (which is then sold for pharmaceutical use). The mostly-cocaine free extract is then used to flavor their cola. AFAIK Coca-Cola is the only entity in the US allowed to do this, so it is unsurprising that other cola brands taste significantly different.