Comment by zeta0134 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zeta0134 | Hacker News Reader

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I went on a similar caffeine experimentation journey, and eventually settled on one (1) cup of coffee in the morning, followed by usually plain water for the rest of the day. I appreciate the boost to "get a task started" willpower that the caffeine provides, and by limiting my intake, it's mostly flushed out of my system by the time I'm ready to sleep. For my body, this balance seems to work well: I sleep deeply, dream vividly, and am occasionally woken by nightmares. (always wasps.) Usual stuff.

Ideally I'd avoid caffeine entirely, but when I tried to sustain this (for over a year) I felt lethargic and fatigued more often than not. From a willpower perspective, it was far too easy to go, "I'm too tired to start this task right now, I'll put it off." Some of that is mental, I realize, but the quick fix won. I have stuff to do and I don't want to spend months in misery trying to force a major lifestyle change when the coffee is right there.

What I *cannot* do anymore is drink caffeine (in any form) all day long, like I used to when I was younger. I have no idea how I slept at all. I'm partly convinced I mostly did not, and in hindsight it explains a lot of weird sleep consistency issues I was constantly struggling with.

If you feel tired and lethargic without coffee than to me that is a bigger problem to solve. I find the view on coffee here so strange. If I don't drink coffee I still get up and go for a run, I can still do everything just the same. My performance at work is the same. I drink it because I enjoy the taste and that's where it ends.

> I drink it because I enjoy the taste and that's where it ends.

Coffee is a very bitter drink. I don't know you of course, but my guess is that what you like more is the dopamine caffeine releases in your brain, which you've now associated with the taste. You can try and experiment with good decaf coffee to see if it is actually the taste that you like.

A strange sentiment. Do you think in general people can’t like ‘bitter’ flavors?

Bitterness is very loosely defined in general - we know what ‘sweet’ and ‘salt’ are; bitterness is sometimes associated with some sort of acidity, but a lot of people seem to just describe things that have strong flavor but lack sweetness as ‘bitter’. Lemon, chocolate, kale, and red wine are all sometimes described as ‘bitter’ and they have virtually no common flavor compounds.

It’s definitely possible to like the taste of coffee. My evidence for this is that when I drink coffee that tastes bad, I don’t like it as much.

Acidity causes things to taste sour, not bitter. Bitterness is associated with alkaloids (many alkaloids are poisonous, so the fact we have taste-buds for bitterness is an advantage).

I experience lemons as both sweet and sour, but certainly not bitter.

[Edit] Perhaps the peel is bitter; the white pulp is certainly bitter.

Some acids are bitter, e.g. in hops https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00253-021-11329-4 and in bile https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04971-3.

If you like coffee, dark chocolate, grapefruit, kale, arugula, etc., you might just love bitter flavors.

Many people cut their coffee with milk and sugar to complement the bitterness. But then they typically enjoy the resulting flavor, too.

I've known plenty of people who loved caffeine but not coffee. They drink soft drinks or take caffeine pills.

Believe people when they say they like the flavor of coffee.

I drink decaf in the afternoon. Otherwise I'll have an Americano with a little bit of milk at least twice a day. I'll happily drink espresso and filter coffee though.

Personally I don't find well made coffee bitter at all.

Coffee isn't inherently bitter, but overextracted coffee is bitter. If you ever have the chance to try a well-extracted specialty drip coffee I encourage you to try it, it's quite an eye-opening experience as to what black coffee can taste like!

Twenty or thirty years ago (the time flies!) the Starbucks closest to me in downtown Seattle obtained a very limited amount of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. They sold beans and brewed it for day or two before running out. It was the smoothest, most flavorful coffee I've ever had.

Coffee isn’t all that bitter if it’s a decent cup of coffee. I love coffee but mostly drink decaf and also like 90+% dark chocolate. What makes you think people don’t like bitter things?

Same journey for me, sadly I don't think drinking coffee consistently is the perfect answer. No matter what amount I drink it either becomes too little (because I adapt) or too much (Far worse sleep, somewhat depressive, can't work out or jog anymore because of heart fluttering, only truly feel good for ~4-5h per day, then worse all day). I think the only theoretical way to consistently get value out of coffee is to drink it during the work week and then force myself to withdraw on the weekend so my body always has a fresh response to it. The reason why I don't like this either is because I obviously lose two entire days of my life to feeling pretty bad per week and you still eventually start drinking more because it's inevitable. Now what I remember seeing over the years is that whenever somebody would mention that they don't drink coffee and that person is still a high performer then they always seemed to be really into fitness and sports. Maybe this is the only way, using physical exercise as a stimulant instead of coffee.

Caffeine is great for working out. I have a coffee before running or lifting weights. It's also usually included into lots fitness oriented supplements.

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