I quit a heavy coffee habit recently.

I cut my caffeine in half each day (and went from a quarter cup to zero) I did experience some withdrawal symptoms, including headache, lethargy, and some mild but notable depression. The worst of it was over in a couple of days, I'd say the full deal took about a week and a half. Not a load of fun but honestly not that bad considering I was a heavy coffee drinker for 30 years.

I'd recommend drawing down a little slower than 50% a day. Maybe a third or quarter? Either way don't go cold turkey definitely draw down.

I've been out out caffeine since January because I did something similar (and got similar withdrawal symptoms): I started by mixing regular coffee beans with decaf ones. First two weeks I used a 25/75% decaf to regular mix, next two weeks 50/50%, then 75%/25%, etc.

The key for my was finding good quality (and expensive) decaf coffe beans. After triying differente brands I settled with Lavazza.

Biggest tip: make sure you're not addicted to sugar as well. If you are taking your caffeine as part of a sugary concoction, taper down the sugar part and get onto plain coffee/tea.

Then taper down the coffee. Have 3/4 of a cup when you would have had a whole cup. Then 1/2 cup. Etc.

YMMV but I find I can do it fairly easily over the course of a week usually. With the amount you're drinking, maybe a month would be easier. Go as slow as you want... it's not a "macho" contest, there's 0 reason to make it hurt. Go as slowly as you want... no need to impact your mood or anything.

I quit for a while by switching to black tea. Lots and lots of the stuff, and working down from there.

Isn't that caffeine, too (actually we have a name for caffeine found in tea vs. coffee called "teina" vs. "caffeina" in Italian, but not in English I believe)?

Sounds like quitting drinking by switching from wine to lots and lots of beer...

Black and green tea do contain caffeine, but quite a bit less: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-he...

It depends a bit on the specific preparation but black tea contains at most half as much caffeine as brewed coffee (per liter) and green tea is again half as much.

Thus an easy way to reduce your caffeine intake is to replace a cup coffee by a cup of the same size of black tea and maybe later green tea (you are not going to drink twice as much liquid and are not drastically cutting your caffeine intake).

Sure, OP was saying "lots and lots of tea", though :-)

Of course. Switching to lots of it and working down from there.

The English term, "theine" (not to be confused with theanine, an amino acid analogue also found in tea), is not commonly used anymore. It's occasionally used by cranks who insist that it's actually a different and preferable compound to caffeine.

No need to quit if you don't want to. Just drink less. Mix your coffee with decaf.

I kind of want to, because at this point I _have to_ drink it to function, but it doesn't really wake me up.

I would say that when I'm down of caffeine I'm more tired that I should, but not that I'm more awake when I drink it.