Decaf in the morning and caffeine at night, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

March 12, 2010 6:41 PM

Why doesn't Starbucks brew decaf continuously after 2 p.m.? I mean, obviously, it's because demand goes down. But how does that make sense? Who are all these people drinking their decaf in the morning, and what's the matter with them?

If I'm having a decaf, it's usually because it's late in the day and I don't want to be up all night. (Well, sometimes it's because I've painfully weaned myself off caffeine and I'm trying to keep it that way, but that's another story.) That's got to be a pretty common situation, right? Yet Starbucks doesn't sell enough decaf in the afternoon and evening to keep it brewing continuously. I don't see why, and every time I go work in a Starbucks and there's no decaf, I wonder about it a little more, and eventually it drives me batty enough that I have to post about it on Ask Metafilter. Who are these people who only order decaf in the morning? Are they not entirely clear on the concepts of stimulants? If you're one of these people, please explain so I can move on with my life.

Or is the explanation just that way, way more people get their coffee (of either variety) in the morning, and so, even though relatively few of them are ordering decaf, more of it still gets sold early in the day?

And yes, I know you can always get decaf espresso drinks made to order, or a decaf cup of that precious, over-overpriced new Clover® Crafted Small Batch Coffee brewed on demand — I'm not complaining about the policy (unlike some people). Just mystified.

I can't believe how much time I've wasted on this question, but I really want to know. (As it happens, this evening a nice young barista offered me a decaf Clover® cup at the regular coffee price, and for the record, it was absolutely delicious.)

posted by fermata to Food & Drink (33 answers total)

People who drink caffeinated coffee routinely are usually hooked, and need doses all day. People who drink decaf are not hooked, and for them coffee is a beverage they associate with the morning.

So people who drink coffee in the afternoon are far more likely to be doing so in order to get another shot of their drug-of-choice. And decaf sales are a lot weaker in the afternoon.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:43 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I drink decaf. Always. I had to stop caffiene in an attempt to alleviate cysts in my breasts. The smell and ritual of coffee is so ingrained in me that even a cup of decaf makes my morning.
posted by eggerspretty at 6:49 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

I went off caffeine over 5 years ago, with AskMe's help -- there are some recommended decaf coffees in that thread, by the way, if you want to switch to brewing your own decaf -- and now I rarely even crave that cup of decaf. When I do, it's almost always in the morning, for the reasons Chocolate Pickle suggested. On occasion, I like the ritual of a coffee with breakfast. After that, I don't really need or want it.

(And nowadays, having said goodbye to caffeine some time ago, I tend to opt for good low-caf. white tea instead -- morning, afternoon or evening).
posted by .kobayashi. at 6:53 PM on March 12, 2010

Some people just don't like caffeine but like the taste of coffee. I'm one of them -- whenever I order coffee, I always order decaf, and I frequently do this in the morning. It acts like a pick me up (I'm a former caffeinated coffee drinker and stopped because caffeine bothers me; gives me the shakes) without actually giving me a dose of caffeine.

I actually have this same problem, but the Starbucks I frequent stops brewing after noon and told me that this was the new store policy. I have taken to ordering a decaf Americano, which is actually tastier and brews much faster than the entire pot of decaf (which they sometimes make noise about making for just me, although I don't think they're technically supposed to complain and discourage).
posted by k8lin at 6:54 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: For what it's worth, when I'm making my own coffee at home, caf or decaf, I use Trader Joe's Bay Blend (preground) and a French press. I know that may scandalize some of you, but I love it.
posted by fermata at 6:55 PM on March 12, 2010

I drink decaf (from Starbucks) every morning. I don't need the jolt. I just like the taste and think of coffee as a breakfast beverage. And I don't want to get hooked, so I stay away from the real stuff. People at work think I'm crazy too, for spending three bucks on flavored water with no caffeine.
posted by supercapitalist at 7:00 PM on March 12, 2010

i used to work at starbucks - they should brew at least a quarter pot of decaf continuously. it's company policy. therefore the starbucks' you are going to are failing miserably.
posted by assasinatdbeauty at 7:12 PM on March 12, 2010

I know a lot of older people drink decaf because health problems have caused them to switch from regular coffee. I would imagine after 30 years of drinking coffee every morning, it's a pretty ingrained habit.
posted by shownomercy at 7:15 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you want decaf in the afternoon/evening, you can also ask them to do a French press of ground decaf coffee for you (whatever type you like); it's a bit more expensive, but it gives you 2-3 cups, in case you want some for the road.
posted by sarahsynonymous at 7:16 PM on March 12, 2010

Must depend on the area- there was an announcement that decaf was getting cut off around noontime around here. Depending on the store and it's volume.

They aren't morons, I assume they were throwing away more coffee than serving, and figure that the decaf lovers will wait, or get something else. My store almost always offers an Americano for the same price.

Cynically, I noticed that the edict went out right before they started selling the little packets of instant coffee. I hope they weren't creating a problem that could be solved with their new product.

Decaf coffee does taste different, but not to any great deal. The caffeine does have a flavor. It's one of the things in Barq's rootbeer that gives it it's bite.
posted by gjc at 7:18 PM on March 12, 2010

I drink decaf only, morning and night, because I like the taste of coffee. My stimulants are of the Schedule II variety, adding caffeine to that can be a bad thing.

Starbucks will brew decaf on demand past 2pm. Have a little patience?
posted by elsietheeel at 7:21 PM on March 12, 2010

Who are all these people drinking their decaf in the morning, and what's the matter with them?

I have rosacea. My dermatologist has told me to avoid all caffeine.
posted by netbros at 7:36 PM on March 12, 2010

Maybe go to a different franchise or cafe. Yeah, it's annoying. It's the same up here with Tim Hortons, some of the restaurants just don't brew it because it's not selling and they have a policy of a time limit on how long a pot can sit there. Managers get pissed when low-pay employees are wasting supplies, so they just don't brew it.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 7:46 PM on March 12, 2010

Regular coffee makes me very anxious. I get decaf every morning from NYC street vendors for the warmth/taste/smell.
posted by laptolain at 7:55 PM on March 12, 2010

Doctors' orders, like everyone else said. I stopped drinking decaf because every time I drank it I missed the taste and smell and feeling of real coffee. But my dad, who stopped drinking coffee for entirely different but also medically-mandated reasons, drinks decaf in the morning because even 20 years after he had to quit, he still misses his morning coffee.

Pity us. No joke.
posted by little light-giver at 7:57 PM on March 12, 2010

When I worked at a bakery that served coffee, we would brew one pot of decaf in the morning with all the other flavored coffees. Our rush came in the morning - if we ran out of decaf in the morning, we'd brew another. However, a lot of times there wasn't ever a rush on decaf and by the end of the day we'd have the same half-full pot of decaf from the morning that we would toss out. Thus, a lot of times if decaf ran out later on our shift, we just wouldn't bother to refill (very few people come in for coffee after the initial rush, at least in our smal town). It was pretty rare that someone would come in and ask specifically for decaf - but we would always make another pot if requested. It's just a supply and demand thing.

Conversely, if you want decaf in the afternoon, just make yourself known to the employees that work your shift. In a good way. They'll get used to your schedule and start having decaf ready for you if you're a regular and you're nice to them.

When I worked at this bakery, I had unlimited access to coffee and I started to drink half decaf / half coffee to combat the afternoon chills and sweats of too much caffeine. I miss unlimited coffee.
posted by ajarbaday at 7:57 PM on March 12, 2010

Response by poster: Apologies to @eggerspretty, @netbros and anybody else who has to avoid caffeine out of necessity. When I said "what's the matter with them" (people who drink decaf in the morning), I was trying to be sort of funny, and it didn't even occur to me how that would read to someone who has a medical reason for sticking to decaf, which was rather thoughtless. No offense intended, and I don't think there's anything wrong with you.

My new theory about this: if way, way more people go to Starbucks in the morning than later on, which seems plausible, then even if relatively few customers order decaf, they could still end up selling more of it in the morning than they do later in the day. No idea if that holds up, but I'm willing to believe it if it makes the world make a little more sense.

Elsetheeel, re. patience: I'm not complaining, I never mind the short wait. I've had decaf drinks made for me on demand lots of times and everyone's always perfectly helpful about it.
posted by fermata at 8:06 PM on March 12, 2010

My aunt likes the taste and ritual of coffee, but caffeine will give her a mild tachycardia and anxiety. So she drinks decaf.

I actually have the same problem, but I love love LOVE my black tea, and so I put up with it (doing it after a meal helps too).
posted by sbutler at 8:16 PM on March 12, 2010

Actually, fermata, I have to avoid caffeine out of necessity too, and I wasn't the slightest bit offended. I thought it was obvious that it was a "no offense intended" bit of humor.
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:18 PM on March 12, 2010

I'm intermittently too sensitive to caffeine (for some reason, even small amounts will start making me feel way too hyped up and anxious), so I tend to go back and forth -- a few weeks/months of decaf and a few weeks/months of caffeine. Also, I sometimes have a stomach issue that's sensitive to caffeine, so that can make me switch as well. If I'm not having either of those issues, though, I can happily drink caffeinated coffee all day!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 8:19 PM on March 12, 2010

Think of it in percentages. If you sell 10 gallons of coffee in a morning, and 10% of all coffee orders are decaff, then it makes sense to brew decaff. But, if in the evening, you only sell 3 gallons of coffee, it probably is not worth the cost of brewing to sell a third of a gallon.

This is why we don't serve decaf coffee at all. Just regular coffee and decaf Americanos.
posted by OrangeDrink at 8:32 PM on March 12, 2010

assasinatdbeauty: they should brew at least a quarter pot of decaf continuously. it's company policy

It's a recent thing. When the new policy went into effect, my local Starbucks had a sign posted announcing that decaf would not be brewed after 3:00pm. Maybe it's a on a per-store basis, according to demand.

It mystifies me, too. I've cut down to only decaf for health reasons, but even when I drank loads of regular coffee I'd order decaf in the afternoon. I don't know how anyone can drink a double or triple at 5:00pm and then sleep at night.

I find a decaf Americano is an acceptable substitute.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:56 PM on March 12, 2010

I work at a Caribou Coffee. My shop brews a half gallon of decaf and regular coffee every hour or when we run out. In the evenings, we will frequently brew and then dump an untouched half gallon of decaf. In fact, this might actually happen more often than not (we are a relatively low-volume store).

Our policy is that a handful of decaf-loving satisfied customers per day is worth more than the wasted coffee. But that's not really something you can quantify easily. I guess Starbucks just made the opposite determination.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:16 PM on March 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

However, a lot of times there wasn't ever a rush on decaf and by the end of the day we'd have the same half-full pot of decaf from the morning that we would toss out.

Ugh, that's disgusting. At the cafe I worked at, we'd set a timer on each batch of coffee for half an hour. If it even lasted that long, we threw it out. We brewed decaf all day, too. I'm pretty sure we sold more decaf espresso (depresso, as we called it) drinks in the afternoon than we sold decaf coffee. I'm not sure what can be inferred from that; our cafe was in a posh outdoor mall with lots of older, wealthy women showing up in the afternoon. They would often get drinks and stay at the tables to chat, whereas morning decaf coffee drinkers would get their coffee to go.
posted by oneirodynia at 9:18 PM on March 12, 2010

Best answer: I used to work at Starbucks in the late '90s in Vancouver. I worked at a few different locations but spent a year at what was at the time the busiest location in Vancouver. It was on the mall level of the office building that housed the Vancouver Stock Exchange, and during our rush periods (from about 6:30AM - 9:30AM) we'd serve +90 customers per half hour. Here's what I remember about decaf:

1. Only during the busiest of busy periods would we actually have to brew a new pot of decaf because we'd sold through the entire last pot. More often than not, the old pot would have timed out (coffee wasn't allowed to be sold 60 minutes after brewing), been poured down the drain, and rebrewed

2. After about 11 AM we were lucky if we sold two cups of decaf in any given hour

3. We had many regulars who came in multiple times per day (pre-work, break-time, lunchtime, afternoon pick-me-up, etc.) and I don't remember any instances of anyone being a caffeinated drinker in the morning and a decaf drinker later in the day. Most folks stuck to a particular drink (exception being when they switched to iced drinks in the summer time). We knew who our decaf drinkers were.

4. We never brewed decaf after 1PM (or maybe 3PM). Customers coming in after that time were offered a Decaf Americano at the same price. This was based on corporate policy to reduce waste. This may be different now as I think the COD (coffee of the day) now comes in pre-measured, pre-ground packets , but back in the 90s, we had to grind and measure the coffee for COD ourselves. This was usually done the day before (e.g. Tuesday's coffee was ground on Monday afternoon). Once ground, coffee had to be used (brewed) within 24hrs or else donated. If the store was open for 10 hours, you needed to grind and measure out a minimum of 10 batches of coffee (because coffee expired every 60 minutes) so 10 batches of decaf were being ground everyday but probably only the equivalent of 3-4 batches were actually being sold.

4A. Now as I remember it, we could grind full batches or half batches. The machines had a setting to brew a full or half batch of coffee. Decaf was always only ground/measured/brewed in half batches because full batches would have been folly

5. On principal, I never drank decaf and still never do. I think there's a difference to the taste and also there's something intrinsic about the caffeine to coffee. If I don't want caffeine but want a hot beverage, I'll have a herbal tea.
posted by dismitree at 9:21 PM on March 12, 2010

I'll drink decaf drip or a split shot latte sometimes in the morning, if I'm in the mood for a coffee, but I don't want it messing with my Adderall. However, most of the time, I just drink tea throughout the day. In the evenings, I'll have decaf.

I actually prefer espresso drinks over drip coffee now; it tastes fresher, doesn't chew up my stomach as much, and I don't feel guilty about them wasting coffee just so I can get a cup.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:38 PM on March 12, 2010

I recently asked this question of a Starbucks areas manager. He said that it is a new policy aimed at reducing waste and thus the carbon footprint. If you ask, they will brew a pot for you (but they never offer)…but the general impetus is to provide a decaf Americano for the same price. He said that, while throwing out a pot of coffee is a cost, it’s really a sickening waste to use coffee and hot water, keep it hot and then throw it out. Since Starbucks is trying to reduce its carbon footprint, it’s an easy way to do so without alienate their core customers (who are addicted to caffeine).
posted by acoutu at 10:09 PM on March 12, 2010

Caffeine is my master migraine trigger. Even decaf is a risky thing, but I love the taste, so I succumb occasionally.
posted by umbú at 10:16 PM on March 12, 2010

I used to work at a Starbucks, and I remember that a significant number of our morning decaf customers were ordering half-caf coffee, especially in grande or venti sizes. A lot of people like to start the day with a large amount of hot coffee because of the taste, but don't need all the caffeine that's in 16-24 oz. of regular coffee.
posted by thisjax at 10:32 PM on March 12, 2010

(And nowadays, having said goodbye to caffeine some time ago, I tend to opt for good low-caf. white tea instead -- morning, afternoon or evening).

It seems that the benefits of caffeine, real and perceived, often override good intentions. Perhaps this is part of the answer to the OP's question...
posted by fairmettle at 2:23 AM on March 13, 2010

Fairmettle: Yes, but one takes the bad with the good, when it comes to caffeine, and I object to your use of my comments to support the benefits of caffeine. This isn't to say that your claims are incorrect, in general, about the consequences of caffeine intake. It is to say, however, that they are unsupported by anything I've written. I have found that reducing my caffeine intake has improved my day-to-day health to a noticeable degree.

Moreover, you'll notice that I said lo-caf rather than no-caf in my specification of white tea. While it is true that white tea has less caffeine than other teas, it still has some -- which can be further reduced with a little care. As many know, if you flush the first steeping of any tea, you remove a large percentage of the caffeine. A properly flushed white tea has roughly the same amount of caffeine as a cup of decaf coffee, and I think it tastes a whole lot better.

As such, perhaps a part of the answer to the OP's question is that, haven broken from old rituals, former caffeinated coffee drinkers now would prefer other beverages in the afternoon?
posted by .kobayashi. at 5:53 AM on March 13, 2010

You need decaf in order to make half-caff.
posted by tomboko at 6:29 AM on March 13, 2010

Moreover, you'll notice that I said lo-caf rather than no-caf in my specification of white tea. While it is true that white tea has less caffeine than other teas, it still has some

White tea actually has pretty much the same amount as any other tea. Tea processing doesn't do much to change the amount of caffeine in the leaves (if it does anything, it removes some caffeine. White tea is less processed, and can have more caffeine than black, red, or oolong teas). There's going to be some variation in chemical composition depending on the growing conditions, as with any plant. But it's really the brewing method (ie water temperature, infusion time) and the leaf surface area that make the biggest difference in what the drinker consumes, caffeine-wise. As you pointed out, you can flush the first steep. Cooler water, shorter brewing time, and larger leaf contribute to less caffeine in a cup. So anyone who drinks white tea from bags made with boiling water steeped for five minutes is likely to get a larger dose of caffeine than someone who drinks whole-leaf oolong brewed at a cooler temperature steeped for the same amount of time.

(This is merely for information for people in this thread trying to avoid caffeine. I'm not attacking your tea drinking style.)
posted by oneirodynia at 10:42 AM on March 14, 2010 [1 favorite]