Thanks for sharing your story. Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience with coffee. I try to cycle on an of coffee every now and then. I also drink ginger tea, green tea, matcha, matcha and yerba mate. The last one actually gives me a similar energy boost, but pretty different to coffee. Bit more subtle and smooth. Perhaps you could try that to see how you react?
Oh, I do think this recipe could be made with decaf coffee ;)
Since I'm not drinking coffee, I'd like to have a cup of tea from time to time and I prefer green tea, sage, Indian tea and black tea.