Hello everyone!
The past year I’ve been getting into coffee a bit more. I love brewing my own thermos in the morning since the coffee at work is insert descriptive terminology.
However I’ve always been pretty sensitive to caffeine. If I drink a daily cup for weeks I’ll end up with my heart going nuts at the least bit of stress (my adhd meds probably contribute to this). And my sleeping pattern totally messed up.
So decaf it is, which limits my choices.
My question: does the quality of coffee have anything to do with this? Type of beans? Roast?
Roasting and process both affect it greatly.
The coffee we produce is a soup full of a variety of compounds in the bean. Some of those are taken up by the water easier than others. Caffeine is one of those.
So as a general rule, the more you extract a bean, the more caffeine you get. Dark roasts extract much easier than light roasts, so a properly extracted light roast has more caffeine. This is also why you need so much less espresso than with other methods, it’s extracted with so much pressure.
Also, the common sense answer, use a lower beans/water ratio. Find whatever brewing method you like best where you can minimize the amount of coffee you use. I personally find I prefer a much lower amount of grounds when I make it with a french press (30g/liter) vs a pourover (45g/liter), so if I was trying to minimize my caffeine, I’d be using that. It’s not that the french press is less caffeine inherently, but the coffee is objectively waterier while still tasting full to me.
Also, in a similar thought, diluted coffee drinks will serve you better, as well. If you like a latte, swap the 1-oz espresso with an ounce of regular, and see if you still like that.
Any way that makes a coffee drink with less coffee should smooth over those jitters.