It can sometimes feel like the world runs on coffee, but this ubiquitous hot drink isn’t exactly a miracle cure. While it’s one of the most potent ways to push yourself past the point of exhaustion, coffee can have a worrying impact on your cardiac health and dramatically impact your sleep cycles as well as causing issues like insomnia and irritability. 

Even putting the health issues aside, there are reasons to add coffee replacements into your rotation. Not only do they provide you with new flavors to mix up your daily routine, but they come with potent health benefits all their own. Here are some of our favorite types of coffee replacements in 2021.

Matcha Tea

Green tea has long been a beloved herbal remedy thanks to its combination of high levels of antioxidants, effective amounts of caffeine, and its ability to keep your metabolism working the way it should. Matcha tea takes all of those properties and magnifies them. Unlike green tea, matcha uses the whole leaf. That gives it additional levels of antioxidants to help combat the threat of free radicals. It also means that it comes with significantly more caffeine than traditional green tea.

Mushroom Coffee

Not ready to give up the taste or boost you get from coffee but looking to reduce your caffeine intake? Mushroom coffee is right up your alley. Most mushroom coffee mixes are half mushroom and half coffee. The drink maintains the flavor of the latter without being overwhelmed by the earthy and pungent flavors of the former. That makes it an obvious choice for coffee drinkers who are looking to slowly wean themselves off of caffeine. If it’s the taste that gets to you, mushroom tea offers an alternative that also reduces the amount of caffeine present.

Herbal Mixes

Teas are essentially nothing more than herbs steeped in water, but more and more brands are drawing from that fundamental principle while making some interesting changes in ingredients that are designed to maximize the health benefits. Herbal mixes like MUD\WTR will typically make use of a protein powder base that’s bolstered by the inclusion of different herbs and spices. Cardamom, cucumerin, ginger, and turmeric are all popular choices. Not coincidentally, they’re also spices that appear frequently in multigenerational folk remedies. These herbal mixes might not be technically traditional, but they’re rooted in some well-respected anecdotes and practices.

Chicory Coffee

Mushroom coffee provides a great way to get the flavor and caffeine of coffee on a smaller scale, but it accomplishes this by just cutting that ground coffee with mushroom powder. Chicory, by contrast, is chemically quite different from coffee despite tasting very similar. Chicory coffee is created by steeping a chicory root in hot water, but it doesn’t include caffeine. Chicory is often used as a digestive aid, earning it a place in your pantry even if you don’t decide to drink it every morning.

Yerba Mate

Yerba mate isn’t technically a tea, but the difference is largely negligible. Made from dried leaves and twigs, there’s an earthiness to yerba mate that’s distinct from the taste of popular alternatives like green and matcha tea. It’s been a staple in various Latin American cultures for generations, but it’s been gaining huge popularity elsewhere in the world for a few years now. Yerba mate’s antioxidant levels are arguably even higher than those in green tea, and those antioxidants are supplemented by a generous variety of vitamins and minerals. While the taste can take some getting used to and it’s not an exact counterpart to coffee, yerba mate is undoubtedly one of the most viable types of coffee substitute out there.