Anyone get into caffeine (coffee/tea) as an adult?

I got into tea as a young adult, although it wasn't for the caffeine (I don't really notice any improvement in alertness or concentration). It was just a good way of encouraging myself to keep hydrated throughout the day since it had more flavour than water. On top of that:

• In a world where pretty much everything feels like it's getting more expensive, it's still very cheap.

• You can be as lazy or as fancy as you like when preparing it, and it doesn't require any sophisticated equipment so you can prepare it practically anywhere (great during camping). It still tastes good even if all you do is add boiling water or cold brew it in the fridge.

• It's endless customisable with a broad range of blends, tea leaf varieties and added flavours (and of course you can add your own ingredients like milk, honey, jam and so on). There's also the option of herbal teas without caffeine if you want to drink in the evening.

• It has practically no calories and assuming you aren't drinking ridiculous amounts, no real health downsides.

• It's socially acceptable to drink practically anywhere (maybe not at the pub?)

I'm also a coffee drinker (and I do feel the caffeine boost in this case), but the higher preparation hurdle, cost and risk of getting the jitters if I take too much mean that I usually just make cold brew concentrate instead of getting a cup when I feel like it.

I got into coffee when I was about 25 and it helped me a lot being able to get caffeine high instead of using other drugs to feel less sober at the time.

Something that trips me up from time to time, if I drink coffee to help me focus on something I need to just start doing the thing soon as I start drinking the coffee cause if the caffeine kicks in and I’m still dicking around on my phone, now I’m super motivated to keep dicking around on my phone.

I started drinking tea after not being a coffee or tea all my life. The tea drinking started in my mid twenties. I'm in my mid 30s now.

It was a super cold day and I just got back from a run, I was at my mom's for the holidays at the time and she offered me a cup of tea. I said no but ma made the cup anyway. So naturally I tried it and loved it.

Now I drink two cups a day just on the weekends. I love it and don't feel like I need it to get through my day. I have ADHD so the caffeine does help me focus and if I need to some serious focusing I will have a cup if needed. Nothing fancy, loose leaf black tea from Harney and Sons or some cheap Yorkshire Gold. On the odd day or two when I have some during my work week I do feel super locked in. Not in a bad way, but just my mind can focus. Kinda nice.

I started drinking coffee around age 27. I went full on - drinking triple and quadruple shots to get through doing highly laborious work. I didn’t like coffee which is why I drank it black and as shots. It did the job. However at some point, like most stimulants I’ve done in my life, I ended up drinking it from wake to sleep. In my forties, I started needing a tooth guard when I went to bed because I was clenching my jaw so tightly it was painful. That’s when I slowed down on the coffee and stopped drinking it after 1pm. That did the job. I still drank highly caffeinated coffee, I just stopped drinking it all day. That worked for the jaw clench. Now I drink three very weak coffees every day, two in the morning, and another around noon, and then drink decaf until around 7. I like the taste of coffee now, and I think I drink it for that more than for it having much effect on me.

In the early days of coffee, it very much helped me have energy and stay on task. I will occasionally use it for that today, but at some point I was drinking so much of it, I can’t tell you what it was doing for me. When I stopped drinking coffee after 1pm, I don’t remember it having any noticeable difference on my energy levels.

Started coffee in my late 20s. At one point, I was drinking soda in the morning to get my caffeine, but that probably started in my early 20s and stopped a couple years in.

The caffeine helps me feel more awake and alert. Possibly helps with focus too. Oh, and coffee is both an appetite suppressant and can stimulate bowel movements, both of which are a positive for me. If I go without it for a few days, I get a headache.

I don't have much more to say in a personal light because I don't think there's any more to it - caffeine does what it says on the label. (Energy drink levels of caffeine on the other hand... that's something I won't partake in.)

I started drinking coffee/caffeinated teas in my early 20s. It was a necessary evil to pull the hours and long focus necessary to get my work done, and it tended to wreck my sleep habits as a result (plus it ramped up my paranoia/anxiety). The dependence is still kicking around, and I lean on the drug too often as a crutch.

If I had a time machine, I still wouldn't have avoided it -- the choice was slamming back four or five cups of black coffee a day, or pass out at the desk (since the pay was worth it) -- but if there were any way around growing this dependency, I would've taken it. There's also a small, nagging voice in my mind that I've done some amount of irreparable damage to my brain with the amount of caffeine I mainlined into it on the regular.

Another fun tidbit: over time, tea and coffee are likely to darken your teeth (not black but not pearly white), and generally people search for ways to diminish the effect -- not prevent it altogether.

Final note: for anyone who drinks caffeine on a daily basis, it's dubious whether they're getting a boost from their morning coffee, or are just returning to baseline after experiencing an overnight withdrawal. Quoting Wikipedia (and hopefully their sources back up this claim ...):

In habitual users, however, tolerance develops rapidly; the perceived attention and alertness boost after overnight abstinence primarily reverses mild withdrawal deficits (fatigue, reduced concentration) rather than elevating performance above a true non-dependent baseline, consistent with the withdrawal-reversal hypothesis.

Oh. Hah. I just re-read your comment and noticed this phrase:

could share what benefits, if any, they gained

Apologies, I'm a little sleep deprived, and missed that on my first pass. I suppose, please mark this comment as noise if it's not what you're looking for 😅

I don't think you have much to worry about. Caffeine is a fairly heavily studied drug. The main detrimental effects is on sleep; if it's not disrupting your sleep, then barring reaching the very high level required for caffeine toxicity, you're pretty much fine.

There's some weak correlative studies showing that coffee drinking is correlated with positive health metrics. I wouldn't take that as necessarily a reason to do coffee, but that is to say we've seen far from negative results in correlative or double blind studies.

On the other hand, green tea actually does have statistically significant results in studies showing health improvements, mainly as an antioxidant.

A nice bonus from brewed coffee (as in, coffee you brew yourself) is that it contains a significant amount of soluble fiber, which famously people don't get enough of. No calories, and caffeine is an appetite suppressant also helps with the usual maladies of obesity, although probably not a ton.

I started drinking coffee more regularly once I started working full time after college. I mainly got into it since I was living with my parents and they'd just make an extra cup for me in the morning to drink. I never previously had a need for it and I don't really have much of a need for it now as well. I've personally never actually felt much of the effects of caffeine when I do have it, even if I have 2-3 cups in a day. I haven't drank coffee regularly in the morning in about a year now but when I was doing so for a few years, it did give my morning routine more structure. I'd wake up, brush my teeth, and then slowly sip a mug of coffee as I caught up on work notifications.

I started in my late 20s after my S/O introduced me to cold brew coffee. When I was young I didn’t need anything. I just raw dogged the world. I like coffee a lot now though because it gives me something to look forward to in the morning. I’m a big soda head and cold brew scratches that itch but with a lot less chemicals.