I Finally Quit Coffee, Replaced It With Matcha & Have One Huge Regret

But coffee was always there for me. American culture seems to have positioned it to be a magical potion, and I bought into it big time. Feeling tired? Coffee. Stressed? Coffee. Need an emotional pick-me-up? Coffee. Afternoon slump? Coffee. Instead of approaching it from a functional standpoint, coffee became a mental and emotional crutch.

I'm not gonna lie; the first week was rough. I endured withdrawal headaches, but they were never as bad as relinquishing caffeine altogether. I also learned the hard lesson that not all matcha is created equal. I got a few matchas at other restaurants and matcha shops in the city, but none were as good as the single-origin Hikari I was drinking. "Single origin" means it all comes from the same farm and allows for better quality control. If you're switching from coffee to matcha, I recommend getting a higher grade, at least at first, to help with the taste.

Matcha does have less caffeine than coffee, and it varies depending on how much matcha you add to your drink and how much coffee you drink, but the matcha I was drinking has 34 milligrams of caffeine per serving, versus 95 milligrams in a typical cup of coffee. Before matcha, I would get bouts of anxiety during the day that seemed to come from nowhere—simply sitting at my desk, heart racing. Or, if anxiety was prompted by a stimulus like loud music or a crowded subway, it would spiral out of control quickly. After a month of matcha, this stopped completely. There are even preliminary animal studies that show matcha may have stress-reducing properties1—however more research is needed to confirm similar affects in humans.

Hannah Habes, matcha expert and founder of Matchaful, hooked me up with an at-home matcha kit to use on weekends. I never thought I'd enjoy the ritual of making warm drinks at home, but now I make morning matchas more often than not. As a result, I'm saving $20 to $25 a week, which really adds up.

I learned this was thanks to L-theanine, an energy-boosting amino acid found in green tea that's been shown to boost memory2, slow cognitive decline, and overall make you feel calmer cognitively3. Depending on how your body metabolizes coffee and how you take your coffee, it can give you an energy burst, but that often comes with a crash later on. That's the case for me, but I don't think I even realized until feeling the slow burn of matcha. Buh-bye, 4 p.m. slump.

Moving forward, I'm going to stick to matcha save for one day a week. I'll always love the taste of espresso, but now that my body has "recalibrated" from the cumulative effects of coffee, it can handle the intensity. My only regret is not trying it sooner.

If you find that coffee may have too much caffeine or is giving you unwanted side-effects, matcha may be for you. In fact there's been decent research so far about the benefits on energy, stress-reduction, and cognitive health.