I'm curious if there are a lot of people like this that really feel some extreme effect from caffeine like this.
I've read articles about people drinking too much, too little, being addicted, or having withdrawal symptoms, but I never really experienced any of that during my coffee-life so far. I also don't often meet people that do, but sometimes when I do meet someone that has a really intense relationship with caffeine it does tell me that there must be something to it.
You'd think that if this is such a potent 'drug', it would affect everyone at last at some base level, and others even more. But in my variations of 1 to 8 cups each day, sometimes none for days, sometimes only espresso, sometimes only filter coffee it's never really done anything 'different'. Granted, the larger quantities of coffee were the crappy kind which probably never really got a good extraction anyway, but even 2 or 3 proper cups of filter coffee would have a caffeine content that should create the same symptoms or dependency I would think. But it doesn't (for me). I'm not really more less sleepy depending on the coffee quantity. I can sleep minutes after drinking coffee (if tired), yet not drinking coffee doesn't make it 'hard' to stay awake.
Actually we already know that people metabolize caffeine differently. https://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/content/70/2/384 - but caffeine is also very transparent drug. You can use it for years without realizing the negative/positive impact it has on you. How long have you even quit caffeine for? Withdrawal effects tend to show up in 2 weeks or so for me. The anxiety that it causes for me isn't very acute either. It's more like just background anxiety.
I used and abused coffee for most of my twenties without ever realizing it had such an impact. Nowadays I just drink small cups of tea.
I've had pauses of a few months when there wasn't any good coffee around; sometimes there wasn't even any decent tea (green/black). There was mediocre chocolate (supermarket stuff) but I don't think I ate a whole lot of that either (as a caffeinated-coffee replacement). Mostly happened when I was doing a weird combination of travel for work and not knowing where the good coffee spots were, coming back home after being away for two weeks to then move to a house I bought that was finally ready to move in to so another few weeks of having too much stuff packed away to make any coffee (and too busy to do it anyway). And then when the move was over, on vacation for a few weeks, again with no clue where to get coffee and all there is, is Starbucks, gas stops, and restaurant coffee (which more often than not is terrible anyway).
Maybe it does have an effect but being too busy to notice masked it?
I've had shorter pauses as well, broke a few bones in a sporting accident and didn't really feel like getting or making coffee, was very into ginger infusions, sometimes tamed with a bit of honey or lemon.
On one hand this makes me very curious to just not drink coffee for a few weeks and see if it does anything, on the other hand I pretty much stopped drinking sugary drinks years ago so that just leaves water and tea for me, and tea would have to be paused as well because I have a variety of teas where some have caffeine as well. Maybe if there was a good decaf around I'd just drink that as an experiment, but I haven't found one that doesn't taste weird yet.
That said, I'm not drinking all that much coffee (1 or 2 filters or 2 espressos or maybe one of each is about average), and sometimes I just forget to make some if I'm busy doing stuff.
You and me both. Also my father and grandfather.
However, my wife has terrible headaches around 3pm if no caffeine has been ingested. So I suspect something different in our genetic makeup.
I do find that later in the evening if I'm started to feel tired coffee makes it a little easier to shrug off the sensation. Otherwise it doesn't have a grand effect. I tend to drink it because I like the ritual (and I'm already brewing for my wife).
This comment could be written by me a year ago. Only when I drove my caffeine consumption to zero for a whole week (no coffee, no tea, no coke..) I had this massive headache. I am now back to one or two cups of coffee per day, which I enjoy much more.
I'd like to report an experiment I did for the last 12 days; I drank no coffee or tea with caffeine (only rooibos, water and isotone sports drink), didn't notice much except if I smelled coffee I'd feel like "I would enjoy some of that".
Today just had my first cup again, tasted great and no noticeable change then either. I wasn't sure if maybe I'd taken the wrong beans and I had wanted to try a new Ethiopian bean for a different taste and no change then either (well, except maybe that after two cups over 6 hours I didn't really feel like another one).
Maybe I just got lucky (genetically) or it takes a bit more time to feel significant effects.
I've read articles about people drinking too much, too little, being addicted, or having withdrawal symptoms, but I never really experienced any of that during my coffee-life so far. I also don't often meet people that do, but sometimes when I do meet someone that has a really intense relationship with caffeine it does tell me that there must be something to it.
You'd think that if this is such a potent 'drug', it would affect everyone at last at some base level, and others even more. But in my variations of 1 to 8 cups each day, sometimes none for days, sometimes only espresso, sometimes only filter coffee it's never really done anything 'different'. Granted, the larger quantities of coffee were the crappy kind which probably never really got a good extraction anyway, but even 2 or 3 proper cups of filter coffee would have a caffeine content that should create the same symptoms or dependency I would think. But it doesn't (for me). I'm not really more less sleepy depending on the coffee quantity. I can sleep minutes after drinking coffee (if tired), yet not drinking coffee doesn't make it 'hard' to stay awake.