I Swapped Coffee for Ube for 30 Days: Journal and Results

I've been drinking coffee since I was twenty. When I worked in market finance, I got up to 6 or 7 cups a day, with that quiet dependence you only notice the moment you try to touch it. So when we launched Vytal Oya around ube, I told myself I had to really test what changes when you replace coffee with our own powder. Not three days for the sake of it: thirty, in a journal, unfiltered.

This is not a marketing article in disguise. There were hard days, mornings when I wanted to give in, and surprises I wasn't expecting. Here is the full journal, week by week, with the results as they came.

Why I tried this experiment

I've always competed: tennis first, for years, then padel today, with trail running and strength training on the side. A hybrid athlete's routine, between the courts, the trails and the gym, which demands consistency in training and serious recovery, whatever the sport of the day. Coffee served me for a long time as pre-workout fuel, whether before a match, a trail run or a gym session. The problem is the aftermath: the morning energy that drops off by late morning, the jitters on competition days, and sleep that wasn't always clean on the evenings when I'd had a coffee too late.

When we started developing Vytal Oya around ube, a purple yam from the Ilocos Region, in the north of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, the caffeine-free argument kept coming up in our product discussions. I believed in it on paper. But I wanted to live it, not just sell it. Hence this test: a full month, coffee at zero, ube instead, in my real life, with the training, the matches and the work that comes with launching a brand.

The protocol I followed

Quitting coffee overnight, when you're a regular drinker, is the best way to guarantee yourself a splitting headache. The literature on caffeine withdrawal is clear on this (Juliano & Griffiths, 2004): a gradual transition clearly limits symptoms compared with stopping abruptly.

So I eased in over the first three days: I kept one coffee in the morning and replaced the following cups with an ube latte, before switching over completely from day 4. Every morning, the same gesture: 6 to 8 g of ube powder in hot oat milk, whisked with a milk frother. The ritual stayed identical, only what was inside changed. That was important to me: I didn't want to lose the pause, just what was in it.

Week 1: withdrawal (days 1 to 7)

Days 1 and 2 went by without trouble thanks to the gradual transition. It was on day 3, when I cut my last coffee, that things got tougher: a dull headache in late morning, a feeling of mental fog during meetings, and an almost physical craving for coffee around 3 p.m. Nothing dramatic, but very real.

The peak came on day 4, exactly as studies on caffeine withdrawal describe it: symptoms generally peak around the second day after stopping completely. More pronounced fatigue at padel training that day, less explosiveness in the first rallies. From day 5, the improvement was clear. The headache disappeared, and I started to feel steadier energy through the day, without the morning peak, but without the afternoon slump either.

End of the first week: the morning ritual was in place, the withdrawal symptoms had almost disappeared, and I was starting to stop thinking about coffee when I got up. That was the part I'd dreaded most, and it was behind me.

Week 2: energy levels out (days 8 to 14)

This is the week I really started to feel the difference, rather than the absence. Coffee gave me an immediate kick followed by a drop around 11 a.m., almost every day. With ube, no more spike, but no more slump either. The energy came from the root's complex carbohydrates, released gradually, with no jolt.

On the sports side, I noticed a real change on match days. Before, a coffee taken too early before competition sometimes made me a bit too nervous in the first points. With no caffeine in my system, I found a steadier state of focus from the warm-up, without that background agitation. Nothing scientifically measured on my end, just a feeling, but it repeated across several matches that week.

Week 3: digestion, sleep and recovery (days 15 to 21)

This is the week that surprised me most. I wasn't expecting such a clear change in digestion. Coffee on an empty stomach had always given me a slight stomach discomfort that I considered normal, almost unavoidable. With ube, that discomfort disappeared. Ube is one of the richest wellness powders in fibre on the market, and that fibre seems to have played a real role in this renewed digestive comfort, even if my personal experience doesn't replace a clinical study.

As for sleep, the real test was the days when I would usually drink a coffee in the late afternoon, before an evening session. With no caffeine in my body, my late training evenings no longer affected my falling asleep in the same way. I fell asleep faster, and above all, I woke up less often during the night. Over that week, recovery between two close padel sessions felt faster, a point I link as much to sleep as to the absence of caffeine in the evening.

Week 4: the new ritual settles in (days 22 to 30)

The last week was the quietest, almost anticlimactic. No more withdrawal, no more adjusting: just a morning ritual that had become automatic. I even tried an iced version for the end of workouts in the heat, a nice complement to the hot morning ritual.

The real test came on day 27, a tournament trip where I only had access to a regular coffee in the morning. I took it out of curiosity, to see the effect after three weeks without caffeine. The response was immediate and a bit unpleasant: racing heart, slightly clammy hands, an unusual nervousness before stepping onto the court. My tolerance to caffeine had clearly dropped. That day, I understood that the change wasn't only in my head.

The verdict: what really changed

What improved: steadier energy through the day, with no spike or slump. A clear gain in digestive comfort, especially in the morning. Better quality sleep, especially on evening training days. Less nervousness before padel matches.

What was hard: the first three days of withdrawal, with a peak of fatigue and headache on day 4. Nothing insurmountable with a gradual transition, but worth anticipating honestly if you're a heavy coffee drinker.

What surprised me most: the drop in caffeine tolerance after three weeks. I wasn't expecting such a clear effect from the very first coffee back.

Thirty days later, I haven't gone back to daily coffee. Ube has kept its place in my morning routine, and coffee has become an exception again, rather than a habit. This is not a universal conclusion: it's my result, on my body, at my pace of life.

What I recommend if you want to try it

Don't go from full to zero. Cut back gradually over three to four days before stopping completely, as I did, to limit headaches. Keep the ritual intact: same time, same gesture, only what's in the cup changes. Expect a dip between day 2 and day 4; it's normal and temporary. Drink enough water over this period, as dehydration amplifies withdrawal symptoms.

And above all, give yourself at least three weeks before judging. The first two weeks feel like an adjustment. It's from the third that the real benefits, digestion, sleep, steady energy, come through clearly.