Sam Reyes
Lifestyle Writer
Sam Reyes is a freelance writer based in Austin, Texas, and Coffee Alternatives’ most prolific first-person voice. They quit caffeine cold-turkey in 2022 (bad idea), tapered back in the following year (better idea), and settled somewhere in the middle — a daily morning tea, a late-morning herbal coffee, and a firm “no” to anything after 2pm.
Sam writes for the reader who has tried three “coffee replacements” already and wants the real one. Their pieces are personal, experiment-heavy, and tend to end with “here’s what I actually drink” rather than a ranked list.
Longtime tea drinker, sometimes cold-brew relapser, permanent afternoon-nap enthusiast. Current rotation: morning genmaicha, mid-morning Teeccino Hazelnut if working, Crio Bru if not.
Articles by Sam
Staying caffeine-free while traveling: airports, hotels, and the 6am flight
I can tell you the exact place my caffeine-free streak has come closest to ending, more than once. It isn’t a bad day at work or a rough night’s sleep. It’s ...
Drinking coffee again after quitting caffeine: what one cup actually feels like at six months
I want to be honest about how this happened, because the internet version of quitting caffeine is a clean line — you stop, it’s hard for a week, and then you...
Why caffeine wrecks your afternoon: the half-life math nobody does
I used to think my afternoon was just like that. A good morning, a productive run until about 1pm, and then a wall — that heavy, can’t-focus, why-is-everythi...
Quitting caffeine when everyone around you drinks coffee: the social part nobody warns you about
The first time I quit caffeine, I braced for the headache. Everybody warns you about the headache. Three days of feeling like someone parked a car on my fore...
Day-sleep that actually works: the blackout, the cold room, and the setup for sleeping when the sun's up
I am not a shift worker, but I’ve spent a strange amount of my life trying to sleep when the sun was up. Red-eye recovery. The summer I worked a 4am bakery p...
A morning routine for shift workers, without caffeine — when your morning isn't morning
A couple of weeks ago a reader named Marco left a comment on my piece about waking up without coffee. He’s a rotating shift worker — nights and days, on what...
What happens at day 30 off caffeine: an honest accounting of the part nobody logs
A few weeks ago I wrote a day-by-day log of my first two weeks off caffeine. I ended it on day 16, said the trade was worth it, and promised — mostly to myse...
How to wake up without coffee: the cortisol awakening response, explained
The first morning I quit coffee, I sat at my kitchen counter at 6:40 a.m. waiting for the version of myself that opens the laptop and starts doing things, an...
Two weeks without caffeine: an honest day-by-day log
This is the second time I’ve done fourteen days off caffeine. The first time was eighteen months ago and lasted nine months. This one started two Mondays bac...
The best morning drink instead of coffee (from someone who's tried most of them)
I drank coffee every morning for nineteen years. Then for about eighteen months I didn’t. Then I started again. Then I cut back. Along the way I tried, in ro...
What to drink during caffeine withdrawal
On day 2 of my first real attempt at quitting coffee, I poured myself a glass of water with lemon and stared at it like it had personally insulted me. The pr...
How to quit caffeine without the headache
I have quit caffeine four times. The first time was cold turkey, a Monday morning, and by Tuesday evening I had a headache so bad I thought I was getting the...
Teeccino French Roast review: the closest-to-coffee herbal coffee we've tried
I have reviewed a lot of herbal coffees. Most of them disappoint in the same way: they’re reasonable herbal drinks, but they taste nothing like coffee, and m...