Something nice to replace my afternoon coffee and evening alcohol?

[PaulL]

That rings a faint bell–I think it used to be a hobby of mine.

[PaulL]

If you want to go completely decaf, it takes about two weeks of headaches and irritability for the caffeine to leave your system. But it means staying away from sodas–or reading the labels very carefully. Chocolate is also not a good idea, since it contains both caffeine and theobromine, a related chemical that is also a stimulant.

If you have access to a shop that sells good-quality coffee, you can get an excellent decaffeinated blend by blending two parts of decaffeinated dark French roast to fourteen parts of decaffeinated Colombian. It makes for a robust, satisfying brew, and even your diehard caffeine-fiend friends won’t be able to tell that it’s caffeine-free. (Until they can’t stay awake, that is.)

I used to be caffeine-free until, no longer having access to a good coffee store, the yearning for the taste of real coffee started to get to me again. But even though I returned to drinking high-octane coffee, I’ve kept on drinking only tap water or seltzer. Sodas taste far too sweet these days, and now that I am sugar- and (mostly) carbohydrate-free, I don’t want to be seduced back to sugar again by trying to drink artificially-sweetened sodas. (I’ve met a number of alcoholics who were triggered to start drinking again by the taste of non-alcoholic beer.)