Does the body not clear drugs like caffeine at a constant rate? If you drink less caffeine does the body clear it less quickly? Or am I not understanding it? Caffeine half life is about 5 hours (via Google), so regardless of if I drink 100mg or 900mg of caffeine, half (50mg or 450mg) will be left in my body 5 hours later? That seems like a pretty drastic difference in the rate of clearance.
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Trying to think up a very ELI5 analogy
Imagine your blood vessels going through your liver are a big slide. The caffeine in your blood is represented by hundreds of little balls rolling down that slide while your liver removing it is dozens of little holes spaced out in the slide.
While there are loads of balls rolling down, a large number fall through the holes as the slide is full of balls so some always go over the holes and fall in. As the number of balls drop, the slide is less full and less fall in. When few balls are left, lots of space in the slide and the holes are small so the balls can pass by with only a few falling in.
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