I only drink decaf coffee, but my tea can be either decaf or car. Lately I am drinking Republic of Tea's British Breakfast and Ceylon Breakfast. I also have a British decaf tea.
I hear you about the green tea. But, you might be surprised if you try the Republic's Green Tea Honey Ginseng.
I belong to a coffee club and so my coffee is delivered . And, there is a wide selection to choose from.I use the K-cups. My newest favorite decaf is Emeril's jazzed up decaf. I also like Green Mountain and have tried a few of there decaf.
Caffeine is also in chocolate.
It's true, as we get older we need to reevaluate how we eat, live and exercise.

I switched to decaf many years ago when my husband died unexpectedly and I couldn't sleep - never went back to caffeine. I live in the PNW, the coffee snob capital of the country, and we have many boutique roasters with fabulous coffee bean choices (much preferable to starbucks in my mind).

If you stick with a roaster who uses the Swiss Water Method of removing caffeine and buy only organic coffee, no worries about the chemicals.

Here is a link that might be useful: swiss water decaf

I guess I should have added that I also use a Keurig -- the Vue model. But obviously I can also make tea the old-fashioned way!

Here you go...

Here is a link that might be useful: Keurig decaf swiss water method

All kinds of teas. I like mostly black teas- Irish Breakfast, English breakfast, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, lady Grey. I love this tea called Irish cream, it has an excellent flavor. White teas are also good. Numi white rose is one of my favorites. I do not like herbal or flavored teas (with the exception of the white rose).

I order the bulk of my tea from the Frontier natural products co-op (http://www.frontiercoop.com) You can get a lot of tea for a reasonable price that is organic. I only ever drink organic teas and try to only drink fair trade teas.

I adore tea, even had a special cabinet built to house my tea collection!

Coffee is actually good for us as we age. IMO, the pro's outweigh the con's by a landslide.

K cups are very strong and I would always use the K cup twice.

I can drink tea (iced) until late afternoon because the caffeine in it will keep me awake. I can drink a strong cup of coffee in the evening and still be able to fall asleep. Go figure!

I drink one good sized cup of coffee in the morning and often it sits on the counter most of the day then I pour it over ice. In winter, I drink hot tea during the afternoons and evening and in summer, occasionally iced tea. In rare social gatherings, I will drink more coffee.

I firmly believe in drinking -in moderation-what makes you happy and makes you feel at least, physically, neutral.
Our mental states are as important as our body and feeling deprived or not enjoying what you eat and drink is wrong, especially in our culture.

I drink anywhere from 2-5 cups of tea every day. The first two are either Irish or English Breakfast and then I switch to green tea. I don't drink caffeine after noon though because it will keep me awake.

I have never been a coffee drinker. I just don't like the taste whether it is ice cream, candy, whatever. Love the smell, though!

A local roaster makes my java(chik).

I am a coffee-holic! The real stuff...plain old Maxwell House.
Coffee is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. Must keep my Bunn because anything else is too slow!
Coffee is what gets me through a busy afternoon.
Coffee transitions me from the work day to the home day in the evening.
I am a coffee-holic.
Now if must go refill my cup this Sunday morning.

Same here, Tuesday! My husband made the coffee this morning and as I was pouring my first cup I could see through the coffee and knew immediately it was too weak. So I put in a big scoop of instant coffee. I must have instant coffee on hand in case we run out of the other kind. :)

Mostly, I drink tea. My daily go-to is Red Rose tea, but I have lots of other kinds around. Red Rose makes an Irish Breakfast tea that I really like.

If you search around a bit, you might be able to find a tea store that will let you sample a few kinds before you buy. If there's a Chinatown near you, check that out.

About caffeine--in general, tea has less caffeine than coffee, but a lot depends on the type of coffee or tea and how it is brewed.

Coffee--95-200 mg per 8 oz.
Tea--30-61 mg per 8 oz.
Green tea--20-40 mg per 8 oz.
Soda--30-45 mg per 8 oz. (for sodas with caffeine--some sodas have none)

You can decaffeinate your own tea. Boil water. Put tea bag in cup, pour boiling water over. Wait 15-20 seconds. Pour water out. Pour more boiling water over tea and let steep for usual amount of time.

Most of the caffeine comes out of the tea in the first 15 seconds of steeping. There will still be a little caffeine in your tea, but not nearly as much as there would have been. Most commercially decaffeinated coffee and tea still has a tiny of bit of caffeine, so you aren't losing anything by trying this method.

Decaf coffee in the a.m. or when I'm out. Rest of the day it's a variety of tea....green, white, black, chai, english breakfast, whatever....and it can be regular or decaf.

Generic brewed coffee can have between 95-200 mg of caffeine. Generic black tea can have between 14-61 mg depending on how long it is brewed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Caffeine

Full test Italian espresso, very large cup, with steamed milk in the morning. We have been known to travel with our (stovetop) espresso contraption. We started this habit when we rented an apartment in Venice many years ago, and nothing else will do.

I drink tea the rest of the day--iced or hot, depending on the season, and a great variety. Every once in a while we'll have an espresso after dinner, but more typically it'll be herbal tea.

Tea, basic, skim milk and sugar. As soon as my eyes open in the morning. Afternoon. Before Bed. Fav teas: Assam, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast.

Coffee basic, half-and-half and sugar. Mug during mid-morning and lunch. On special evenings -- maybe after dinner.

Travel with my own teapot, mugs, sugar, tea, biscuits and even a small electric kettle! LOL! :) After a long day of travelling in the car -- Very nice to be able to have a hot cup of tea before bed.

A local roaster makes my java(chik).

I rarely drink caffeine. I used to not like coffee at all but that was before I discovered yummy flavored creamers. I don't keep them on hand because they are not a habit I need to start LOL! I do like iced coffee but only flavored. It's an occasional treat. I don't like hot drinks in warm weather and would probably never drink hot tea/coffee in the afternoon or evenings. We drink iced tea year round for dinner and more often in the summer. My husband takes a container of tea to work most days! We used decafinated tea and I add one tea bag of green tea to it (for the health benefits).

During the day, water is my drink of choice. Well, maybe not my first choice, but I drink it because it's good for me. LOL

i love lime added to my water and iced tea.

I simply never developed a taste for coffee. To me it is acrid, strong, and somewhat redolent of tobacco. I wonder if many people enjoy their first cup of coffee, or if it more of a social thing or wanting the caffeine or kids wanting to be adult? I never got it. Plus, I didn't want coffee breath or stained teeth.

I love tea. There is so much variety, and i love the little rituals. I like loose teas, but I also like the kind in little silk sachets. I have lots and lots of teas -- black, green,herbal.
And we drink iced tea about 6months of the year. We don't even sweeten it it's so good.

I only use spring water for tea. I think it makes a huge difference.

coffee and probably too much of it! but, i don't make it strong...
i do hate the coffee breath tho! definitely have to brush my teeth after drinking or chew gum if i bring it with me!! (altho it doesn't stain teeth as much as tea does...!)
one of these days, i will eliminate it from my diet---altho, i keep coming across articles on the health benefits of coffee, so we'll see! just wish i could drink it black...!

As I recall, a study of identical twins suggested that genes influenced our preference for coffee...but environmental factors and age (the older, the more tea) were more important factors for tea preference.

A friend posted this link on FB tonight. I thought the tea drinkers here might want to read it. It's about the Celestial Tea brand.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pesticides

Oh great....who can you trust?

Coffee. coffee coffee coffee . Did I say coffee ???? LOL.
I drink about 2-3 cups in the morning. In winter maybe occasionally a cup in the afternoon. In summer I drink a lot of unsweetened, plain iced tea in the afternoons.
That being said I do like hot tea as a wintertime treat- I prefer hot teas with sugar and honey, do I don't have them often.

" But I just noticed a comment on another thread saying that decaf coffee is processed with formaldehyde."

And did you look into this to see if it is true?

I love coffee in the morning, teas the rest of the day. I like green loose and Republic of Tea bags. I read that the sachet tea bags are made of plastic and are really bad for you. Yet another thing to avoid. I do have some Celestial Tea, and I'm disappointed to hear about the pesticides.

Good strong coffee in the morning is one of the great pleasures in my life. I drink Starbucks French Roast, no cream, no sugar. I buy big bags at Costco. I agree with mtnredux, it does have a tobacco-y taste, even though I have never been a smoker. My father smoked and also drank coffee, so I associate those aromas.

I rarely have more than my two morning cuppas, although sometimes it is the perfect afternoon pick me up. I usually rely on Diet Coke for my afternoon caffeine fix.

Oddly, I do not enjoy coffee after dinner. If I am out for dinner with friends and they order coffee, I always have herbal tea.

I just read an article that was a couple of weeks old regarding coffee, from the NY Times Sunday magazine. Basically they were saying 2-3 cups of coffee is good for you, even in terms of helping to avoid Alzheimer's. I was partly thinking of cutting back because my BP has been borderline high at times, but there's no clear correlation there, as far as I can tell.

I definitely need to avoid coffee after about 3 pm, though, unless I want to be up really late at night. Until maybe 5 years ago, I could have coffee at 10 pm and go right to sleep...not any more! DH can still do that, though.

My "Keurig cabinet" now has a variety -- regular coffee, decaf, half caf, and black tea -- so I certainly have options!

Thanks for all the feedback.

PS I had a glass of "berry iced tea" (unsweetened) at a restaurant today and it was amazing! I need to try to make some of that myself -- should have asked what type of tea they used but I have some raspberry herbal tea in the cabinet, will try that.

Oakley: Not sure how reliable that article is. It states that the Twinings brand tea gets an "A" rating by rankabrand.org, but when you go to that site they actually give them a "C' and they give Celestial Seasonings a "D", not an "E" as the article states.

It also sounds like it wasn't truly an independent study as the company paying for the test had a financial stake in the outcome.

At the very least, I think it warrants more fact-checking. I hate to see companies hurt by repeating questionable data.

" But I just noticed a comment on another thread saying that decaf coffee is processed with formaldehyde."

You can get swiss water pressed now days rather than the chemically decaffeinated brews.

Here is a link that might be useful: nih - scientific test on residual formaldehyde in coffee

"Oakley: Not sure how reliable that article is" on pesticides.

What I've come across over the years is that coffee and tea are two things you should choose to go organic on.

I love coffee but feel much better and more relaxed not drinking it. I drink herbal teas, no caffeine, or decaf green teas.

Snookums, interesting find. But the abstract just says the researchers found small amounts of formaldehyde in commercially brewed and instant coffees in aqueous forms. It doesn't explicitly say anything about decaf coffee, and it certainly doesn't prove that formaldehyde is used to decaffeinate coffee (or rather, we can't discern that from the abstract.)

As this report is 27 years old, I wonder why there has been no follow up or more extensive research if there is a formaldehyde issue. Too bad we can't read what's in the report to know if the coffees sampled were a broad spectrum of brands or even if it's an American study (brands readily available to us in our markets). I'd like to know if the study team postulated how the formaldehyde got into the coffee.

Perhaps it occurs naturally? I found this in article via library online databases:

"Natural carcinogenic and DNA damaging chemicals present in a cup of certified organic coffee (4)

Aectaldehyde, benzaldehyde, benzene, benzo (a) pyrene, benzofuran, caffeic acid, catechol, 1,2,5,6-dibenz (a) anthracene, ethylbenzene, formaldehyde, furan, furfural, hydroquinone, d-limonene, 4-methylcatechol, styrene, toluene."

( Gold LS, Slone TH, Stern BR, Manley NB, Ames BN. Rodent Carcinogens: Setting Priorities. Science 258, 261-265, 1992., cited in "Organic Food Sales Increasing 20% Annually Last 20 Years,"
Hale, Jamie. McClatchy - Tribune Business News [Washington] 05 Nov 2009.)

In researching, I thought this was interesting:
"Another argument raised against formaldehyde as a
human leukemogen [cause of leukemia] has been the presence of potentially significant amounts of formaldehyde or formaldehyde precursors in food. However, food is a
complex mixture of chemicals. For example, coffee
contains caffeine that would be metabolized to formaldehyde, but among the close to a thousand other
chemicals components identified in coffee, some are
antioxidants that might well have anticarcinogenic
activities. It is difficult to predict the toxicological
effects of simple mixtures, let alone mixtures that
have thousands of chemicals nor can the possibility
be ruled out that formaldehyde derived from food
intake plays a role in the existing background incidence
of leukemia."
(Hematological and toxicological evaluation of formaldehyde as a potential cause of human leukemia
Goldstein, Bernard D. Human and Experimental Toxicology30.7 (Jul 2011): 725-35. )

I drink coffee in the morning only, 2 shots of espresso in hot milk, sometimes another shot later in the morning.

The rest of the day I might have herbal tea once in a while but no caffeine after 10 a.m.

I just did a quick google and looked for the most official one. Didn't notice it was not for decaf because that's where it is always discussed.

I'm not about to research for a dissertation on the subject but will google around a bit to see if I can find a source people would find reputable (sources are usually dismissed). I do know that it's been discussed for many years and I thought that's why they started the Swiss Water Press method and that is recommended for the formaldehyde (or any other chemical process) reason. I doubt it is rumor and heed the caution.

Some people think coffee is not healthy, sometimes you'll hear it is (nutritionists). So I guess the jury is out there among the pros.

Personally, I think it's a drug that should be outlawed, lol.

I see quite a few references to formaldehyde but when looking at a couple outlines of the history of decaffeination, they talk about the use of several chemical solvents (used for paint stripping, for instance) but don't mention formaldehyde. Benzene, a petrochemical, is also found to be used as a solvent.

I sure would avoid decaf not labeled SWP or other safe methods. It has a history of using unhealthy chemical solvents, whichever they might be.

Apparently there have been some (fairly recent) scandals where formaldehyde has been added to foods as a preservative. You just never know what these companies are doing.

nih residual methylene chloride test for decaf coffee, tea

Here is a link that might be useful: Swiss water company references chemical solvent methods