Taking pine pollen and tongkat ali together is one of the most common stacks in men's testosterone threads on Reddit and men's health forums. Both plants have been studied in men, and both have numbers behind them. Men who stack them usually start with pine pollen as the daily base, add tongkat ali on top, and take the pair in the morning.
Why men put pine pollen and tongkat ali together
The two come from opposite ends of the plant world. Pine pollen is the dust a pine tree releases from its male cones each spring. Tongkat ali is the root of a slender shrub from the rainforests of Southeast Asia. Men pair them because each one has its own line of human research on testosterone, and both fit into the same two minutes of a morning routine.
Most stack posts put pine pollen first. It is the one men take every day, and tongkat ali is the one they cycle on and off around it.
What tongkat ali is
Tongkat ali is Eurycoma longifolia, a member of the Simaroubaceae family. It grows wild in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, and on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The plant is a thin, often unbranched shrub that can reach 10 metres. In the US it is sold as long jack.
The root is the part used. For centuries in Southeast Asia, people boiled the root in water and drank it as a bitter tonic. One of its Malay names, penawar pahit, translates as "bitter medicine." Almost every tongkat ali study on men uses a standardised hot-water root extract, usually at 200 or 400 mg a day.
Total testosterone rose from 362.5 to 448.4 ng/dL in 8 weeks.
Pine pollen, the half most men take every day
Mara's pine pollen comes from Pinus radiata. Each grain carries two small air sacs so it can drift on the wind. The grain wall is tough, so the pollen is cracked to open it before it is extracted.
Pine pollen has a long record in two directions. In 1971, the Croatian researcher Šaden-Krehula isolated testosterone, epitestosterone and androstenedione from Scots pine pollen, the first time those compounds were found in a plant. In China, pine pollen (松花粉, song hua fen) has been written into herbal texts since the Tang dynasty, and it is listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2020 edition). Korean families still make songhwa dasik tea cakes and songhwa-milsu, a drink of pine pollen stirred into honey water.
For the full background on the plant, read our guide to pine pollen.
What the studies report for each
Pine pollen
In a 2024 pilot study led by Wolkodoff, 10 men took pine pollen for 8 weeks. Their average total testosterone went from 362.5 to 448.4 ng/dL, and their qADAM score (a questionnaire on drive, energy and mood in ageing men) rose from 23.9 to 31.7. A 2025 pilot with 11 men reported free testosterone rising from 10.48 to 11.72 ng/dL, with SHBG (the protein that binds testosterone in the blood) falling over the same period.
Men who take pine pollen daily most often report two things in their posts: stronger morning wood and more drive.
Tongkat ali
Tambi, Imran and Henkel gave 200 mg a day of a standardised tongkat ali extract to 76 men with late-onset hypogonadism (Andrologia, 2012). After one month, average testosterone went from 163 to 240 ng/dL.
Henkel and colleagues gave 400 mg a day to 13 physically active men aged 57 to 72 (Phytotherapy Research, 2014). Average total testosterone went from 384 ng/dL at the start to 409 at three weeks and 442 at five weeks.
Talbott and colleagues ran a 4-week trial on 63 moderately stressed adults taking 200 mg a day (Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 2013). Compared with placebo, salivary cortisol was 16% lower and salivary testosterone was 37% higher. Tension scores fell 11% and anger scores fell 12%.
A 2022 meta-analysis by Leisegang and colleagues in Medicina pooled seven comparisons covering 267 men and found a significant rise in total testosterone with tongkat ali, with the largest effect in men with hypogonadism.
How men time the pine pollen tongkat ali stack
The pattern that comes up again and again in stack threads is a morning routine. Men take a dropper of pine pollen tincture under the tongue when they get up, then their tongkat ali capsule with breakfast or before training. For tongkat ali, the usual forum advice is morning or before a workout.
Cycling is where the posts differ. The schedules men report most often for the tongkat ali half:
- 5 days on, 2 days off, repeated week to week
- 8 weeks on, then 1 to 2 weeks off
- 6 to 8 week blocks, then a reassessment
- 3 weeks on, 1 week off, when tongkat ali is paired with fadogia
On the Huberman Lab podcast, Dr. Kyle Gillett described 11 months on and one month off as a reasonable option for tongkat ali alone. Pine pollen tends to stay as the steady daily part of the stack while the tongkat ali days come and go.
The pine pollen half should be the easy half
Tongkat ali is almost always a capsule. Pine pollen gives men more choices, and most of them are messy. Powder has to be scooped and stirred into something every morning, and uncracked pollen keeps its tough wall.
Mara's Pine Pollen is a spagyric tincture. The cracked-cell pollen is extracted, then the minerals left behind after extraction are returned to the liquid, so the whole plant ends up in the bottle. You take 1 to 2 droppers a day and hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds before you swallow. It tastes soft and lightly earthy, with a faint sweetness. If you would rather not take it straight, it stirs into water, juice or a morning smoothie.
A 50 ml bottle lasts 30 to 50 days at 1 to 2 droppers a day, which lines up with a 6 to 8 week stack block. The bottle is dark Miron glass. If you buy any pine pollen tincture, dark amber glass is a step in the right direction, but dark Miron glass is the gold standard because it keeps light off the extract and holds its quality for longer.
Pine Pollen – Spagyric Pine Pollen Tincture
50 ml dropper bottle. Wild-harvested, cracked-cell Pinus radiata pollen.
Add to bagThe bottle sits next to your tongkat ali on the shelf. For more on how men use it day to day, read pine pollen for men.
Pine Pollen considerations
Contains alcohol. If you're pregnant, nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.
Questions people ask
Can you take pine pollen and tongkat ali at the same time?
Yes, and most men in stack threads do. The usual routine is a dropper of pine pollen tincture under the tongue in the morning and tongkat ali with breakfast or before training.
Which should I start first?
Many men start pine pollen alone for two or three weeks, then add tongkat ali. Starting one at a time makes it easier to tell what each plant is doing in your day.
How much tongkat ali did the studies use?
Most human trials used 200 mg or 400 mg a day of a standardised hot-water root extract. Tambi 2012 and Talbott 2013 used 200 mg; Henkel 2014 used 400 mg.
Do men cycle pine pollen too?
Some do, usually in 6 to 8 week blocks with a week off. Many keep pine pollen as the daily constant and cycle only the tongkat ali.
