Hello everyone!
The past year I’ve been getting into coffee a bit more. I love brewing my own thermos in the morning since the coffee at work is insert descriptive terminology.
However I’ve always been pretty sensitive to caffeine. If I drink a daily cup for weeks I’ll end up with my heart going nuts at the least bit of stress (my adhd meds probably contribute to this). And my sleeping pattern totally messed up.
So decaf it is, which limits my choices.
My question: does the quality of coffee have anything to do with this? Type of beans? Roast?
Why is my coffee shaking? I dont want my coffee shaken!
Type of beans matter. Robusta for example has more caffeine content than Arabica. The elephant in the room is your adhd meds though. I’ve used it myself in the past with and without coffee. Without coffee was clearly better in every single way
From my understanding, the lighter the roast the higher caffeine. You could consider taking some L-theanine with your coffee, which is a compound usually extracted from green tea leaves than helps reduce anxiety, and more importantly for you it seems to reduce caffeine jitters in a lot of folks.
It’s more caffeine per bean, less per weight. Darker roasts weigh less because they contain less water, so percentage-wise they have more caffeine
As a fellow decaf drinker, I recommend extracting ~25-33% less with decaf. The beans are porous from the decaffeination process so they extract more quickly. I suggest using less water or lower temps or both. I used to hate decaf before I figured this out
Tbh, cutting back was a big benefit for me.
I was up to 4+ coffees per day. At my worst, 8+ to self medicate with that sweet, sweet dopamine (which I now get from prescription meds). I did not realize how much it was increasing my anxiety and making me agitated.
I am back to 1 or 2 per day, not typically after noon, and it is much better. I sleep better, my baseline anxiety is lower.
Ditto. I was averaging 6+ large cups a day, now down to 2 max and feeling way better.
Ditto. In college I was up to 6 cups before noon, some 3 or more later on depending on my class workload.
My shrink gave me a stern talking to and I reduced it to basically nil. Funnily enough and for unrelated reasons I haven’t had a panic attack in years.
I find with decaf, it is the process that matters the most. Good quality beans will go through a water decaf process just fine and come out tasting great. The challenging is finding the quality beans AND somewhere willing to do the decaf process right. Roasting also plays an important part to flavor. So gotta find a good roaster too that isn’t destroying the fuck out of the flavor by overdoing it into bitter sludge.
I’m on adhd meds too, the doctor can prescribe a tiny dose of beta blockers to counteract the jitteryness. Ofc that doesn’t mean you should drink like 10 cups of coffee, but it makes one in the morning perfectly fine.
I have a similar problem with caffeine sensitivity. I can have one or two coffees a week without much incident, and quite a bit more tea than that. However if I don’t break the habit and give my body time to rest, the negative side effects of caffeine start compounding. I get heart palpitations which feel like anxiety and can induce anxiety if you aren’t aware of where they are coming from. I get long piercing headaches. I get pretty bad diarrhea. However I can still have a coffee now and again so long as it doesn’t become habitual. It seems to me the deciding factor really is caffeine content. Decaf isn’t very good for you and still has a non negligible amount of caffeine in it. Herbal tea can be great but it doesn’t give you that buzz.
Decaf isn’t very good for you
Doesn’t this depend on the processing method? Methyl chloride (bad for you) vs swiss water method?
Yeah it does.
Roasting and process both affect it greatly.
The coffee we produce is a soup full of a variety of compounds in the bean. Some of those are taken up by the water easier than others. Caffeine is one of those.
So as a general rule, the more you extract a bean, the more caffeine you get. Dark roasts extract much easier than light roasts, so a properly extracted light roast has more caffeine. This is also why you need so much less espresso than with other methods, it’s extracted with so much pressure.
Also, the common sense answer, use a lower beans/water ratio. Find whatever brewing method you like best where you can minimize the amount of coffee you use. I personally find I prefer a much lower amount of grounds when I make it with a french press (30g/liter) vs a pourover (45g/liter), so if I was trying to minimize my caffeine, I’d be using that. It’s not that the french press is less caffeine inherently, but the coffee is objectively waterier while still tasting full to me.
Also, in a similar thought, diluted coffee drinks will serve you better, as well. If you like a latte, swap the 1-oz espresso with an ounce of regular, and see if you still like that.
Any way that makes a coffee drink with less coffee should smooth over those jitters.
Try Colombian EA processes beans. Amazing on their own once you are dialed in. Can also do a 50/50 blend with regular coffee to take edge off.
I was a long time caffeinated coffee drinker but switched to decaf about a year ago. I have a cappuccino every day in the morning and the coffee beans you use matters a lot. Through trial and error I’ve found the following ones that are pretty good:
Fresh Roasted Coffee Mexican, Columbian, Sumatra, Peru, and Honduran decaf ones are really good.
Victrola Coffee Deco Decaf
Lavazza Dek
These ones are nasty:
San Francisco Bay Decaf Gourmet Blend
Amazon Fresh Decaf Columbia
I ended up quitting coffee altogether after drinking it for nearly 15 years regularly, except on special occasions for reasons similar to the problems you are having. I’m also becoming less tolerant to acidic foods and drinks. I switched to matcha and find my energy levels way more balanced now.
