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Comment by krrrh | Hacker News Reader

For anyone reading this and wanting to get off caffeine, but finding it difficult because of withdrawal symptoms like headaches, here’s a trick that makes it easier.

If you’re drinking a morning coffee you’ll be getting 100-200mg of caffeine. But even a small amount of caffeine will take almost all the edge off withdrawal and prevent headaches. A 75g dark chocolate bar at 70% will give you 20-25mg of caffeine. Costco sells boxes of Lindt chocolate bars that meet this criteria. Eat one in the morning instead of coffee (the sugar and theobromine seems to help as well). Once you’ve done this for a week it’s easy to just stop because most people won’t get withdrawal symptoms from 20mg.

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I typically weigh my coffee, either for making espresso (20g) or for pourovers (25g). Last time I quit, went like this: a) move from two espressos -> one espresso for a few days. Once steady on a single 20g espresso... b) move from 20g espresso to 20g pouroer. c) each day take a few grams off the pour over. The last time I made one I used 5 mg beans, and then quit pretty easily the next day.

This taper method made it totally doable for me, no headaches. The hardest part was going from 2 espressos to 1, mostly because of the habit. I substituted in herbal tea for my second cup....

Why americans drink 20g espressos is beyond me. Thats a triple espresso in european standards. A single espresso is 7 grams. Having double espresso in america would basically translate to 6 espressos in europe. I moved from Europe to New York City a few years ago and I always ask the baristas how many grams is their espresso and they dont know. I ask them if the single espresso drink they have is essentially dopio espresso and they have no clue what i am talking about. And on top of that it costs 4$ for an espresso + taxes which equals to around 4.50$. Coffee culture in NYC is subpar to any major european city, and I am afraid to even find out hows it like in other cities in the US! Even the shit third world european country I come from (in the balkans) has better coffee culture than NYC! Then they're wondering why nobody can sleep here!

Yeah, good point. I didn't even realize that they make e61 baskets as small as 6g (I just googled).

I don't know, though, about size. I get espressos in europe a lot. Last time I was in Paris, most my espressos seemed like american size ones. Maybe because I was drinking mostly third-wave coffee shops?

When I was in Italy awhile ago, the espressos were definitely small 7-10g singles that cost 1€.

Traditional cafes serve espressos that are 7 grams and its 1eur, 1.50 eur perhaps. I assume some would do 14 grams that are more modern as you say third wave, but 20 grams is a lot of caffeine in there I dont think its common in europe for an espresso. Take it this way, if you order a cappuccino or a fredo espresso, they need to put double espresso in there with the foam, and in a place where they serve 14 gram or 18 gram espressos that means you're getting 28 gram or 36 gram total in there, and thats a heck of a lot of caffeine. Once I tried just a normal american drip diner coffee with my bagel in nyc and besides that it tasted horrible as if i was drinking just pure mud water i somehow got so much caffeine from it that I got jittery, and I am a coffee drinker with usually have 1-2 espressos a day. I think everyone in the US is overdoing coffee to be totally honest with you. Not to mention the starbucks large iced coffees, they're like straight adrenaline in a cup basically you might as well inject it at that point.

Yeup, agreed on the overdosing caffeine. When you start talking about those Venti starbucks (and large Dunks), those have upwards of 300mg of caffeine [1], which is probably equivalent to the five shots you have. We don't sleep enough and have to work too hard here. :(

However, if you're comparing drinking crappy NYC diner coffee to coffee culture, there's a ton of great coffee places and third-wave coffee in NYC.

[1] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/the-complete-guide-to-starb...

NYC has nice cafes for sure for their coffee, just to name a few, Devocion, Afficionado, Everyman Espresso, Blue bottle, and there's some other ones that I haven't tried yet. But in all the places I've been so far an espresso was upwards of 3.75$ without tax, and not once it was an actual solo 7-9 gram shot, it was a dopio basically. There were some baristas that knew what I was talking about and told me they can make a solo but it would cost the same amount. In addition, the cafes are filled to the brim with people working on laptops, theres barely any coffee culture in NYC in the european sense, and most have big drinks so they can sip it over hours just typing on their keyboards. One other small fact is that you cannot choose what kind of beans you want in your espresso, except for Devocion which has a blend and a single origin but they're not that different since all their beans are colombian. Quite a few specialty coffee places in Europe have a few bean varieties from different regions and you can choose which one you want. In addition, european coffee culture means sitting outside under the sun sipping an espresso and talking to a friend or reading a book or just enjoying life, not typing away on a laptop and working. I really miss that. Another thing is affogatos are not popular but its an amazing drink.

20g yield or dry?

In Australia, the convention I've seen is broadly 10-12g dry with a 2:1 ratio. I normally go a bit higher if pulling a ristretto.

I don't believe my portafilter would perform very well with 7g.

Dry. 7 gram ground beans. Although now its moving more to the side of 9 grams but the smallest portafilter pot is the espresso solo.

I just put my smaller portafilter on my espresso machine and made a 9g pour. (I'm on a taper right now anyway, so this was a good move).

20g dry. I was 18, but I have a bigger basket.

I found switching to green tea easy. Got infusion jug and still have morning routine to do it, it's actually much more convenient to have it at the desk to refill. You can also control how intense you want it - with water temperature and quantity - as even very light version is great to sip through the day.

Cold turkey. I do it all the time. Not hard but yes I get a headache. I don't understand people who have to ease their way off a substance.

There was a joke like that, it went something like: "Quitting smoking is so easy, I've done it so many times already!"

Joke works if the plan is to quit permanently. I like my substances, but its still good to take breaks.

You could try decaf plus tyrosine/phenylalanine supplements as well.

Theobromine is another stimulant, so I'm not sure it helps.

decaf does not mean caffeine-free (usually < 5%, but not always)

FWIW... in my 30s, caffeine withdrawal yielded headaches, but beginning in my 50s (IIRC) it no longer did.

> "75g dark chocolate bar at 70%"

> "Eat one in the morning"

That's like ~ 35gr. of fat in the morning of which ~ 20gr. saturated fat. Ouch...

That's a great time for fats. Definitely better than the usual breakfast approach of giving yourself an insulin spike.

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