[ydant]

For what it's worth, my wife and I also sit and drink coffee in the morning together (although not as a consistent daily ritual). Ours is just decaf. (good) Decaf can taste very good. I've certainly had decaf that was better than most caffeinated coffee I've had. But it's harder to find serious attempts at decaf roasts, sadly.

I can also say that after quitting caffeine (8-9 months ago) my sleep improved dramatically for about 5 months. Then I started getting sloppy and mixed in light-caff (like chocolate and decaffeinated teas/coffees) and other factors in my life also kicked in and sleep got worse again. Unfortunately I don't have the drastic caffeine cut to fall back on now.

For me, the change 9 months ago was entirely one change - unsweetened caffeinated drinks to unsweetened purely non-caffeine drinks (like "dandy blend" and rooibos).

Anxiety didn't decrease noticeably when I made the change, but sleep improved a lot. Now if I drink caffeinated teas (3 times in the past 2 months) or eat a lot of chocolate I definitely feel the anxiety and just general discomfort. So there's a link of some sort. It feels uncomfortable now...

[loeg]

Decaf can taste ok but even really good decaf pales in comparison to caf, unfortunately. The process of getting the caffeine out is just inherently harmful to the flavor. I think moderation is the key for most people. Drink at most a moderate amount of coffee once in the morning; don't drink it throughout the day.

[nunez]

Hard disagree. Look into swiss-method decafs if you haven't already. High-flavor decaf exists; I make it daily!

[rubslopes]

> Decaf can taste very good. I've certainly had decaf that was better than most caffeinated coffee I've had. But it's harder to find serious attempts at decaf roasts, sadly.

James Hoffmann made a great video about this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYTSdlOdkn0