The Best Coffee Substitutes (By Goal)

It's 9:40 a.m. and you're halfway through your second coffee. Or it's 11 p.m., the latte you had at 3 is still with you, and sleep feels a long way off. You like the warm mug and the routine. The trouble is what's in the cup.

A good coffee substitute lets you keep the habit and change the contents. Some coffee alternatives copy the dark, roasted taste with zero caffeine. Others give you a lighter lift. Which one fits depends on what your current cup is doing to you.

We judge every pick on taste, so each drink starts with how it tastes. A swap that's kinder to your afternoon is no use if you pour it out after three sips.

Coffee Substitutes by Goal: Quick Comparison

A coffee substitute is any drink that takes over one of coffee's jobs: the bitter, roasted flavor, the caffeine, or the morning habit itself. You'll also see them called herbal coffee, grain coffee, or cereal coffee, plus the older wartime term, ersatz coffee.

Most options fall into two families. Roasted brews made from chicory, barley, or dandelion root copy coffee's flavor and contain no caffeine. Teas, matcha, yerba mate, and most mushroom blends keep some caffeine and taste nothing like a roast. Our Morning and Midday blends carry natural caffeine, and our Evening blend is completely caffeine-free.

For reference, an 8 oz cup of home-brewed coffee averages about 95 mg of caffeine, and a 16 oz coffee-shop cup averaged 188 mg in one University of Florida analysis. The FDA cites about 400 mg a day as an amount not generally associated with negative effects for most adults. Sensitivity varies widely, so treat it as a general reference.

Find the row that matches what's bothering you about your current cup, then read that section for how each drink tastes and brews. Caffeine in teas and blends shifts with the brand, how strong you brew it, and how much you use.

For Coffee Taste With Little or No Caffeine

If what you'd miss is the dark, bitter cup itself, look at roasted roots and grains. They brew like coffee and smell close to it, though the body runs thinner than coffee's. Decaf is here too, for anyone who wants the real thing with most of the caffeine taken out.

Chicory Root

Roasted chicory root (Cichorium intybus) is the closest you'll get to coffee with no coffee in the cup. It's woody and bitter with a roasty finish, and it brews dark enough to take milk the way coffee does. It also contains inulin, a type of fiber.

Chicory went mainstream in France in the early 1800s, when Napoleon's Continental Blockade cut off coffee imports. It stretched short coffee supplies again during the American Civil War and later wartime rationing. New Orleans still pours its famous coffee-and-chicory blend into café au lait.

Brew ground chicory in a drip machine or French press, starting with a little less than your usual coffee measure, since it brews strong. Mixing it half and half with your regular grounds is an easy first step if you're cutting back.

Roasted Grain Drinks (Barley and Rye)

Roasted barley and rye taste nutty and toasted, with a lighter body than coffee. Italian cafés pull caffè d'orzo, a roasted barley brew, the way they'd pull an espresso. Instant grain coffees like Postum dissolve in hot water in seconds and have been a pantry staple for generations of coffee skippers.

Barley and rye both contain gluten, so skip them if you avoid gluten. All three of our blends are gluten-free.

Dandelion Root

Roasted dandelion root is earthier and a little rounder than chicory, and the two often share a bag in herbal coffee blends. Brew it the same way, steeped or in a French press. Dandelion may interact with some medications, so if you take any, check with your healthcare provider before making it a daily drink.

Decaf Coffee

Decaf is the only option here that's still coffee, so the flavor, aroma, and acidity stay where you left them. Swiss Water and CO2 processes remove caffeine with water or carbon dioxide, while other methods use chemical solvents. Some labels say which process was used.

Decaf does keep small amounts of caffeine, and the amount varies by cup. When researchers tested decaf from 10 coffee outlets, they measured between 0 and about 14 mg in a 16 oz serving. For most people that's negligible, but it adds up if you're holding to a strict limit.

For a Lighter Lift

If you still want a lift, aim for a smaller one. Tea-based drinks in this group naturally pair caffeine with L-theanine, an amino acid found in tea leaves, and that pairing has some research behind it.

In a small, short-term trial of 27 healthy adults, caffeine plus L-theanine improved speed and accuracy on an attention-switching task and made people less thrown by distracting information on a memory task. A second small trial in 44 young adults found better task-switching accuracy and higher self-rated alertness, with less reported tiredness.

These were small, short studies of tea compounds, not of any product, ours included.

Matcha

Matcha is whole green tea leaves ground into powder, so you drink the whole leaf. It tastes grassy and faintly sweet, with a vegetal bitterness that milk smooths out. Nothing about it tastes like coffee, which some people count in its favor.

How much caffeine you get depends on how much you whisk in. Half a teaspoon and two teaspoons make very different drinks. Ceremonial grade is brighter and smoother for drinking straight, while culinary grade is more bitter and suits lattes. There's no official standard behind these labels, so quality varies by brand.

For an iced midday version, our Matcha Strawberry Lemonade pairs organic matcha with rhodiola and ginseng in a tart strawberry-lemonade base. Its natural caffeine comes from organic matcha. It does contain sugar: 2.5 g per serving from organic sugar cane, alongside monk fruit and allulose.

Yerba Mate and Guayusa

Yerba mate (Ilex paraguariensis) carries caffeine close to coffee's, so the swap is mostly about flavor. It tastes grassy, bitter, and a little smoky, and it's traditionally sipped from a gourd through a metal straw.

The WHO's cancer research agency, IARC, classifies drinking any beverage hotter than 65°C, or about 149°F, as probably carcinogenic. Mate is often served very hot, so give it a few minutes to cool first.

Guayusa, a holly leaf grown mostly in the Ecuadorian Amazon, carries somewhat less caffeine than coffee and is usually described as smoother and less bitter than mate. Try it if mate's edge puts you off.

Black Tea, Green Tea, and Chai

Black tea has roughly half the caffeine of brewed coffee and a malty, brisk taste that holds up well to milk. Green tea sits lower still, with a lighter, vegetal flavor. Chai builds on black tea with cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom for a warming, spiced cup.

If your usual order is a latte, a chai latte is the easiest step down. You keep the foam and the mug while lowering the caffeine.

Mushroom Coffee Blends

Mushroom coffee comes in two styles, and only the ingredient list tells you which one you're holding. Some are regular coffee with mushroom extracts mixed in, so they still taste roughly like coffee and still contain caffeine. Others leave coffee out and build on cacao or chai, which keeps caffeine low or at zero. Even without caffeine, mushrooms can provide focus similar to coffee's.

The mushrooms you'll see most often are lion's mane, cordyceps, chaga, and reishi, added as extracts. Expect an earthy undertone, which is why so many blends lean on cacao, cinnamon, or vanilla. If you assumed mushroom coffee was caffeine-free, look for coffee on the label before you buy.

Our Mochanut Latte is the coffee-based kind: a mocha-coconut latte built on organic Arabica coffee with L-theanine and lion's mane, with chicory root in the mix as well. It has balanced caffeine from organic Arabica coffee. It suits mornings when you're cutting back on coffee and still want some.

If Coffee Doesn't Sit Well

Coffee doesn't agree with every stomach. If yours is one of them, try a caffeine-free cup for a few days and see how it goes. Roasted grain drinks and rooibos are easy places to start.

Give each new drink a fair try before you decide. If the trouble keeps up no matter what you drink, bring it up with your healthcare provider.

For Afternoons and Evenings

Caffeine sticks around. Its half-life in healthy adults averages about 5 hours, and it can run anywhere between roughly 1.5 and 9.5 hours depending on the person. For an average drinker, half of a 3 p.m. latte is still around at 8 p.m.

In one small study, 12 healthy sleepers took 400 mg of caffeine (about four 8 oz cups of home-brewed coffee) at bedtime, 3 hours before bed, or 6 hours before, with their sleep measured at home. All three cut into sleep compared with a placebo.

Even at the 6-hour mark, measured sleep dropped by more than an hour. The dose was high and the group was small, but the researchers concluded it makes sense to skip substantial caffeine for at least 6 hours before bed.

For the late-day cup, the roasted herbal coffees above work well, and so do these bedtime drinks.

Cacao

Chocolatey and rich, with some caffeine, so keep hot chocolate to the afternoon.

Rooibos

Sweet and woody, with no caffeine. It takes milk well, so a rooibos latte fits anywhere you'd have reached for an afternoon coffee.

Golden Milk

Turmeric and black pepper warmed into milk, creamy and gently spiced, with no caffeine.

Chamomile

Floral and mild, with no caffeine. It's an easy last cup of the night.

Blueberry Cobbler Latte

Our Blueberry Cobbler Latte is completely caffeine-free and melatonin-free, with magnesium glycinate, L-theanine, and reishi in a creamy blueberry base. It's naturally sweetened with monk fruit and allulose and tastes like the dessert it's named for.

For a Strict Caffeine Limit

If you're keeping to a firm daily number, decaf and tea are the simplest tools, since both keep a familiar taste at a lower dose. Count every source, including chocolate, soda, and any blend that lists coffee or matcha.

If you're pregnant or nursing, talk with your healthcare provider before setting a caffeine limit.

How to Switch Without the Withdrawal Headache

Stopping cold turkey is the hard way to do this. Caffeine withdrawal usually starts 12 to 24 hours after your last cup, peaks somewhere between 20 and 51 hours, and can last 2 to 9 days. Headache is the classic symptom, along with fatigue, low mood, trouble concentrating, and irritability.

A slower switch is easier to stick with:

• Taper gradually over a week or two: Go half-caf, or mix chicory into your grounds and raise its share every few days.

• Keep the habit around the cup: Use your usual mug at your usual time. Our Electric Frother turns chai or matcha into a proper latte, and the rest of our gear covers the scoop and the tumbler.

• Wake up without the drink: Get some daylight and a glass of water before your first cup.

• Match the drink to the hour: Keep caffeinated picks for the morning and early afternoon, and go caffeine-free in the evening. Our Daily Bundle sets up all three of our blends, one each for Morning, Midday, and Evening.

If you're pregnant, nursing, or take medication (especially blood thinners, blood pressure medication, immunosuppressants, SSRIs, SNRIs, or other serotonin-modulating medications), check with your healthcare provider before adding any new functional drink, ours included.

What to Check on the Label

• A clear caffeine statement that tells you where the caffeine comes from, such as coffee, matcha, or tea. "Contains caffeine" alone leaves you guessing.

• Gluten, if you're looking at barley or rye drinks.

• For mushroom blends, which extracts are included and how much of each per serving.

• Third-party testing, and whether the company shares its results.

• Cost per serving compared with a cup of coffee you brew at home.

Choosing Your Morning, Midday, and Evening Cup

Want the roasted taste with no caffeine? Start with chicory, a barley brew, or dandelion. Want a lighter lift? Try matcha, black tea, or a coffee-based mushroom blend. After mid-afternoon, switch to rooibos, golden milk, or chamomile, and leave at least 6 hours between your last caffeine and bed.

If your first swap tastes wrong, try the next one on its list before you go back to a second coffee.

Check out our favorite gifts for coffee lovers, whether you're searching for the perfect substitute or just holiday shopping.