If you love coffee, the best alternative to coffee is decaf. If you buy directly from a great roaster, you'll hardly be able to tell the difference. I'm not sure I'd be able to in a blind taste test (decaf if anything takes a little less bitter in latte form).

If you have a grinder, you could buy beans from any number of places online, like Blue Bottle. I'm lucky enough to live near a ton of roaster coffee shops that will grind bags for me.

I considered this, but the options are very limited where I live (Lithuania). We have a few high quality local roasters, but even they have only one blend of decaf (and dozens of normal coffee).

Off topic but I visited Lithuania recently and got acquainted with the šakotis. Now I'm back in Estonia and can't find it anywhere in stores and having withdrawal symptoms :D It was so good.

I'm curious as to why you have the roasters grind the beans for you. Quality of ground coffee deteriorates much faster than whole beans. It depends on the grind size, but I'm pretty sure it's hours compared to weeks. A manual grinder like the Hario Skerton only costs $40 which is about the cost of a month of coffee beans for people who drink a cup or 2 every day.

I'm fairly lazy so rather than make one or two cups of coffee a day, I prefer to make a one-week batch of cold brew at a time. (It's also a pain to manually grind that much coffee at once.) Cold brew is a lot more forgiving about "grind freshness."

I'm considering buying a grinder, but it'll probably be $100-200, and I'm not sure if that's worth the price when the coffee shop will do it for me.

Oh, if it's for cold brew than that's completely fine. Definitely not worth the price if that's all you're doing, but a grinder does give you the flexibility to make other types of coffee.

Had your DNA scanned? There are some protein configs that are associated with caffeine having a lesser effect. 23andme will show them up.

I have them, and I find coffee aids digestion - I'll finish a big restaurant meal with an espresso - but I can immediately get to sleep when I get home.

I'm the same. I don't get any effects until I drink about a pot of coffee (about a liter) in an hour or two and even then it's just my stomach that complains. For the record, I've gone over a month without coffee and still nothing.

Seriously, try 1-2 weeks without coffee... you'll feel it.

I did that, and after a couple of days the withdrawal disappeared and I felt exactly as before. No better and no worse. Started drinking coffee again since it's good, cheap and healthy-ish (at least more so than what I would replace it with). YMMV

Same here. Except I don't notice any signs of withdrawal (and I drink multiple cups a day). There are people who drink a pot plus a day, maybe those are the ones who would really benefit.

I drink a pot plus a day, stopped for a couple weeks, felt no difference. Prior to that I used to drink a 12-pack plus of diet soda a day. Stopped. BIG difference.

I think the difference is that coffee is a morning thing for me. I'll get through the pot by noon and be done, so it doesn't affect my sleep.

Some people don't though. I've gone months without drinking any coffee and months drinking 5 or 6 cups a day, and I've never noticed a difference (obviously there may be a difference and I just haven't noticed it).

I have and I genuinely don't notice any significant difference compared to drink 3-5 cups a day.

I'm very much the same. And I do envy people who gets into some kind of hyper productive mode after a coffee, or like my partner who can't sleep at night if she gets a cup after 2pm.

I can have a large cup of coffee at 10pm, become tired and be sleeping at 11pm. Also, during extended vacations (>2 weeks) I typically go without coffee and, what I can tell, don't feel the difference.

I wonder why this is case...?

I can have a cup at 16:00 and then have a problem sleeping at night. It does not make me hyper or active though - just keeps my anxiety levels higher so I can't fall asleep.

YMMV.

Two days is not enough. Try being off it for a week. I bet you will feel terible on day 4.

Not really. I drink coffee off and on throughout the day, too - but to be fair, I'm making each cup fresh and rarely drink two cups in a row.

Folks react really differently to caffeine. I've never been able to use it to fight against sleepyness, for example. I'm fine drinking it before bed, though I try to give 30 minutes afterwards just so I can pee. I miss drinking coffee if I quit, and tea is hardly a replacement if you are skipping caffeine. (My other beverage is water, and I don't vary often). My father, on the other hand, needed to stop caffeine after lunchtime to sleep well at night. My mother develops headaches, which might not be a problem if it weren't for migraines and cluster headaches. Oddly enough, sometimes the caffeine helps that bit.

Other folks get grouchy if they quit suddenly. A few get hungry, and some folks just feel generally bad.

I drink 3 cups of coffee every day. Often when traveling I'll have occasional periods of 3-5 days without any coffee whatsoever. Don't feel any different.

I drink a cup of coffee every day. If I go a day without it, then I'll get a minor headache around 4pm and then the next day I'll be fine. It heavily depends on the person.