UKH

I've reached that age where the quacks are getting their claws into me. I was told that I should cut out coffee. I'm not a regular coffee drinker (tea is my poison) but it has been my exclusive flask filler for decades past. Normally, I would take a half-litre of brewed ground coffee out on a walk and consume it in two or three breaks. Yesterday, I tried tea in the flask as an alternative. It was OK but not particularly inspirational. I was told that decaff was OK. Does anyone have alternatives or recommend any particular decaff?

Pelican rouge is the only ok decaf I've tried. 

What is it they are suggesting that cutting out coffee will fix?

I find decaff awful. 

Ginger sliced up with a little honey?

Lavazza decaf is pretty decent, but this is lovely:

https://potterbeans.coffee/products/decaf-mexican

Hot honey and lemon 

It won't 'fix' anything I think, just not aggravate it? I had an ECG and apparently I have an extra heart beat. No symptoms or effect that I'm aware of of but more testing to come.

I haven't bothered with it before so can't comment

I was found to be 'pre-diabetic' so I'm supposed to avoid too much sweet stuff. I already cart round chocolate biscuits with my sandwiches so not exactly toeing the low carb line.

I shall have a look for that next time I'm in Booths (live quite close to one). It looks the sort of thing they sell. I wonder if half the time it's all in the mind? If something hot and brown with a half-decent taste is coming out of the flask then all may be OK.

Green Tea without milk.

You could try peppermint tea.  Fill flask, drop in two or three bags, it'll be right when you want it.

Although try it first as you may find it a bit weak and want to put an extra bag or two in.

T.

Sounds to me like you're The Doctor!

These two (particularly the first) aren't at all bad in a flask;

https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/whole-earth-organic-no-caffe...

https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/lavazza-caffe-decaffeinato-ground-co...

But if I go back and 'fix' myself the whole space time continuum will rupture or something won't it?

Cheers There's a H&B in Lancaster I think that's closest to me and I think Booths (Waitrose equivalent up this way) stock Lavazza coffees. Never tried the chicory stuff before. I suppose anything's worth trying at least once.

Sainsbury's own brand Utz certified cocoa powder is tasty, it has a mental buzz which isn't found in tea or coffee (they act on the brain in individual ways), and it helps in short term alertness, I'm not aware of it doing anything to stimulate the heart. It could help to maintain the mental pick me up element of your hot drink stops. 

Not for me. Just diluting the coffee would be worse than going without. Whatever I end up taking needs to have a decent amount of taste.

Fair do's, I felt irresponsible about suggesting weak coffee and you now have a different suggestion.

+1

Diluting coffee is not to be contemplated. I have proper coffee in the mornjng and like decaff real coffee after dinner (not instant under any circs) - both are the Fair-trade Macchu Picchu brand.

I also like peppermint tea, and also turmeric is quite nice. Green tea yuk yuk yuk no ...

Rave do excellent decaf 

I wondered about cocoa. I have occasionally put it in a flask but I don't think I could drink it 'neat' without sugar which probably isn't great for the pre-diabetic situation. I think I'll have to check out Horlicks/Ovaltine for sugar content.

Nothing wrong with a bit of sugar if you are exercising hard.

IME most drinks taste rubbish out of a flask. You say you're a tea drinker, so I'm guessing less fussy about bad coffee than many on here and therefore probably better and to tolerate decaff.

Herbal teas are quite weak, but not adding milk means (once you get rid of the residual taste/smell of previous drinks) they don't really taste any different. Hot blackcurrant was my goto when kayaking, with the added bonus that if it goes cold in the flask it's still an enjoyable drink.

What about chai tea with a good slug of milk? This stuff’s not bad: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/tea-india-masala-chai-40-teabag...

Good decaff is great. I only drink it at home now (or in my flask). I drink Black Mountain Roast Colombian decaff which is great and it is roasted ground just over the hill from where I live. Highly recommended. 

https://blackmountainroast.com/ 

I had never been one for anything other than real coffee, but have recently been drinking a lot of turmeric tea. It's really nice, even when cold. I got the Vahdam brand.

 

You could perhaps see if you could develop a taste for bitterness, the head rush from chewing on 100 cocoa blocks intended to be melted into making drinking chocolate is something else, I could only one square intended for making drinking chocolate. The Aztecs knew what they were about, in their liking of cocoa and chocolate. 

Hot Vimto. 

Mike drop. Thread closed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro_(drink)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro_(drink)

apparently it's called 'Muckef*ck' in Germany. Hmmm ...

Slight thread derail but where I'm staying currently the landlady has provided some instant Lavazza prontissimo! INTENSO, instant coffee with 10% ground coffee added. I am drinking it rather than faff around with a cafetière.

OMG. I am drinking instant coffee.

It's actually not bad at all.

To the OP: I would say "humbug" to the prescriber, and demand more evidence. YMMV.

It has to be hot diluting juice (maybe called squash, depending on where in the UK you are!)

Robinsons do a nice mint and lime one. I am neither a tea or coffee drinker, so hot juice is one of my standard flask options 

I mix coffee with Barley Cup to make a milder drink.  Barley cup isn't a bad drink but it is expensive.

Years ago I tried making "ersatz" coffee by roasting skinned acorns and grinding them up and rearoasting the granules.  Amazingly it was drinkable

As others have said, Lavazza blue the decaf is probably one of the very few decent tasting fully decaf coffees.

Also try Tea Pigs Winter Red tea, that’s pretty good and doesn’t taste like cheap potpourri 

In reply to: all

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I think it will be a process of trial and error to break the habit of decades and find something I can 'live with'. Next job is to find some way of protecting my breakfast

Lavazza. Illy. Some local roasteries. Aldis own , when I'm slumming it 

Green tea still contains a fair bit of caffeine so not necessarily ideal for the OPs dilemma. 

I gave up caffeinated coffee about a year ago and feel better for it. I vary my drinks........tea, barleycup,  hot water, hot orange ('rocks' is really nice), fruit teas. 

I’m told if you cut out coffee and alcohol you can reduce your enjoyment of life by nearly 80%🤣🤣

good luck

Toby

Surely if it's a caffeine issue the tea has to go too, no?

My local roaster offers decaffeinated versions of a few of the beans on offer. Definitely an avenue worth exploring. I've tried a couple of them (admittedly once by accident) and they look, smell and taste the same as the caffeinated versions. 

In my experience tea in flasks can be made entirely palatable by carrying the milk separately, one of the small Klean Kanteen type bottles is ideal, and you can even stick it in the freezer if you want the milk to keep for a bit longer in that form (useful for one night camps or hotel stays where you want proper milk rather than those little UHT things).  To me the taste of warm milk is overpowering and even strong tea isn't strong enough (unlike coffee) to me at least to mask it.

But it'd be unusual to be asked to give up *coffee*, but rather *caffeine*?  In which case tea is an issue as well - so in that case look for decent decaf as others have said.  Decaf coffee does lack a bit of bitterness (caffeine is bitter) but can be made acceptable by being brewed quite strong.

Though decaf isn't totally caffeine free, it contains a little bit.  My Dad found caffeine was the trigger for his Menieres, which stopped entirely when he stopped *all* caffeine including the piddling amount in decaf and chocolate, he now drinks fruit teas and Rooibos (which isn't quite as strong tasting as normal tea so is perhaps better with a little lemon than with milk).

Strong decaf filter (or cafetiere) coffee contains a similar amount of caffeine as a very weak cup of tea (like my Mum has, the cup barely sees the tea bag, the water is poured on and it's straight out) or Nescafe.

If the OP has to totally cease caffeine as my Dad did, then that necessitates moving to naturally caffeine free infusions like rooibos and fruit teas (and giving up chocolate! )

However I did go a bit mad with coffee at one point, and switching most of my daytime coffee to decaf does at least prevent me having jitters by late afternoon.

By the way if you want vaguely drinkable decaf instant (sorry for swearing! ) the best one I've found is Kenco Millicano.  Specifically that one, the similar powdery one by another company (I forget who) is nowhere near as nice.

This, with added ginger sliced/cubed

HOT SQUASH.

Love hot squash in a flask.

Acorn coffee.  Blanch, peel, roast, grind, roast and enjoy.

Rooibos is also much lower in bitter tannins so really doesn't need milk added anyway, which is perfect for flasks. 

As for the caffeine in tea v coffee argument. My mum has been advised to avoid coffee, but not tea (although given how weak she drinks it, you could argue that it's really just a cup of off-white milk).

There is a lot more caffeine in coffee than tea, to be fair, I guess it depends on whether you need to reduce caffeine or eliminate it (the latter in my Dad's case - he was still having attacks until I pointed out to him that decaf contains a bit - and from that day he stopped that too (and chocolate) and never had another attack).  Could have been sheer coincidence (as Meniere's is sometimes self-limiting) but the doctor considered it likely was enough to be a trigger.

There are other reasons to avoid coffee, I suppose, e.g. that it's very acidic - if you have acid reflux problems or IBS for instance decaf will likely still cause problems.

I've also just been told by the doctor to cut out coffee and good lord, I didn't think I could miss something so much - it's awful isn't it?! Trying to limit myself to three cups of tea a day but... gah.

Tried my first decaf coffee and it just sent me to sleep. If you like it fair enough, but my brain just gets disappointed when it tastes like salvation but really isn't that.

In my flask when hiking/climbing I normally have earl grey; make sure you don't oversteep the bag when you make it as it goes too bitter, but it's decent enough and much nicer than trying to put milk in a thermos I think.

I also drink a lot of ginger tea - NOT lemon and ginger, but Twinings Spiced Ginger (can buy in Tesco but a lot of other places don't have it and this really does seem to be the best one). Obviously decaffeinated but it has quite a kick to it which perks me up a bit (more than decaff, any road).

I also have hot ribena at home when I'm craving more caffeine and have hit my allowance but not sure I'd fancy it on the hill. It's expensive but much nicer than hot squash I think.

Good luck.

Is the cat tasting all these suggestions first, then? 

MDMA.

Bovril, ideally chicken Bovril*

*If anyone can find it let me know, it seems to have disappeared.

Did you drink instant or ground?

If instant, and it's the better quality stuff, I can't taste the difference between caffeinated and decaf.

Something I learnt recently however, decaf isn't as decaf as the label suggests.

I forget the numbers, but for example, a decaf bean might be labelled as 99.5% caffeine free. Great, they've removed 99.5% of the caffeine. Right?

Wrong!

Your average caffeine bean may well be 98% caffeine free anyway as caffeine is a small proportion of the bean total mass.

So in realty they've removed 3/4 of the caffeine and the label is deliberately misleading. Otherwise known as lying.

'Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone?' as Joni Mitchell says. It's the forbidden fruit syndrome where being told not to do it makes you want it more.

If I've got it, he wants it. I swear if I had a plate of rusty nails and broken glass he'd yowl for his share.

I drink/drank(?) ground. It's early days but I'm supposed to have more tests done to see what my heart is up to. Can't say I feel any symptoms. Perhaps they'll tell me I'm just a Gallifreyan and can carry on drinking coffee?

My experience is that I can drink tea all day. Coffee no. I found this;

In general, tea has about half the amount of caffeine than what’s in coffee; however, what most do not realize is that all caffeines are not created equal. There are many phytochemicals classified as caffeine. Those who drink both coffee and tea can usually tell they feel a bit different when drinking one or the other.

In coffee there are five different phytochemicals classified as caffeine. All five of those phytochemicals affect your nervous system and can cause jitters, nausea and racing heart. The specific caffeines in coffee metabolize very quickly in the body; coffee generally gives a rapid spike in energy followed by a heavy crash as it burns off.

Tea (camellia sinensis) on the other hand has three phytochemicals classified as caffeines, and they support and stimulate the endocrine system. Those three phytochemicals in tea stimulate the adrenal gland, adenoids and thyroid, which is one way tea helps increase metabolism. This is also why tea has a mood elevating effect as it wakes your body up. The caffeine in tea is buffered by theanine which metabolizes the caffeine much slower and evenly in the body, resulting in a longer, sustained energy level.

Switch to decaf. You can get some decent ground decaf coffee.

Except folk dancing and incest, so I’ve heard.

Well I scoped out a bottle of Camp chicory in Booths today, Rog but was disappointed to see that it also contains coffee. Thanks for the warning against the other stuff!