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How do you decaffeinate coffee?
- rememberlenny 6y agoThis is another good write up on the swiss water method: https://levels.io/swiss-water/ https://levels.io/swiss-water/ TLDR: Swiss Water > paint thinner
- anamexis 6y agoEhh, the whole premise there seems to be "chemicals bad," while acknowledging that the amount of solvent left in the coffee is negligible.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- grecy 6y agoI'm not sure about you, but I prefer the amount of solvent in my food and drink to be "none", rather than "negligible".
- anamexis 6y agoI have no preference, because a negligible amount of solvent is, by definition, indistinguishable from none.
- xnyan 6y agoI have some unpleasant news for you, literally everything you have ever eaten has some level of adulterants in it. It's allowed: https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredients-additives-gras-packaging-guidance-documents-regulatory-information/food-defect-levels-handbook https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredients-additives-gras-packagin...
- grecy 6y agoI'm reasonably sure the moose I shot 200km from a paved road and the vegetables I grow in my backyard are pretty free and clear.
- kaesar14 6y agoThere’s pollutants in literally every square inch of soil of anywhere mankind lives or lives near. Even seals eaten by Inuit in the Arctic Circle are polluted.
- jmnicolas 6y agoTo be fair the seals are probably far less polluted than some cheap random chicken bought at the supermarket. The fact that perfection is impossible to reach shouldn't make us abandon and do nothing about it.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoSeals are quite high up the food chain so are one of the most polluted foods regularly eaten by humans. It's much safer eating herbivores than carnivores.
- kaesar14 6y agoNot saying anything about not trying to find perfection. I'm only saying it's unlikely that anything you consume is free of contamination in 2020.
- plorkyeran 6y agoYou would be incorrect. Your backyard soil is not free from contaminants, nor is the foot that the moose ate.
- Falling3 6y agoSome additional bad news about water if you don't like solvents in your food.
- BurningFrog 6y agoI know what you mean, and this is bordering on willful misunderstanding, but I'll still do this: The most commonly used solvent is water. Ethanol is also a major one: https://www.worldofmolecules.com/solvents/ https://www.worldofmolecules.com/solvents/
- bradknowles 6y agoThe Greeks called water “the ultimate solution”, because it could dissolve just about anything, given enough time. It is the original solvent. Or do we need to restart that program to ban all use of the horrible dihydrogen oxide solvent that pollutes over 70% of the surface of the world? ;)
- exabrial 6y agoOne does achieve "none", tis marketing hype and wasteful. For instance, if you eat or drink any fermented foods, you are regularly consuming organic solvents. Undistilled alcoholic beverages contain quite a few interesting organic solvents that contribute to flavor (and hangovers).
- rowanG077 6y agoI'd wager that is impossible. There will always be some contamination. The important thing is that it's small enough to not cause any harm.
- yongjik 6y agoAmount of caffeine in regular coffee: ~100mg per cup. Caffeine LD50: 150-200 mg/kg (according to Wikipedia). Maximum allowed amount of methylene chloride in beverages, the dreadful paint thinner, according to the link above: 10 ppm, or about 2 mg per cup. Methylene chloride LD50: 1.25 g/kg (again, according to Wikipedia). I.e., you will literally die of caffeine poisoning long before the paint thinner gets you.
- out_of_protocol 6y agoSupercritical CO2 Decaffeination > Swiss Water > Chemical stuff
- rememberlenny 6y agoSwiss water decaf is relatively easy to get. I've yet to see Supercritical CO2 decaf.
- interestica 6y agoLink seems dead now
- ksherlock 6y agoStill up for me but here's an archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20201031145047/https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180917-how-do-you-decaffeinate-coffee https://web.archive.org/web/20201031145047/https://www.bbc.c...
- interestica 6y agoThanks. Guess it was just a temporary 404... Seems that decaffeinating coffee is stranger than I realized!
- beervirus 6y agoNileRed has some fun videos about decaffeinating things. Here’s one where he does Red Bull. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o
- montebicyclelo 6y agoNote that decaffeinated coffee often still contains caffeine: “decaf coffee typically has 2-15 milligrams in an 8-ounce cup”, caffeinated is 80-100mg [1]. [1] https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-much https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-bean...
- AstralStorm 6y agoThere are brands, expensive though, where the number is actually 0. You literally have to use multistage subcritical CO2 filtering to reach that level. Standard methods are not good enough.
- mhuffman 6y agoWhat are some of those brands?
- bserge 6y agoSeems similar to the process of removing alcohol from beer while still keeping the taste.
- umvi 6y agoI don't drink but I was always under the impression that alcohol-free beer doesn't quite taste the same (i.e. that the process of removing alcohol doesn't only remove the taste of alcohol, but somehow additionally damages the overall beer taste and makes it inferior).
- wombatmobile 6y agoThose terms you use, "damage" and "inferior", are of course, subjective, relative, and circumstantial, rather than absolute. When I used to drink a lot of beer, I might have agreed with their sentiment, since I would mostly be drinking because I wanted the effect of the alcohol. But since I stopped drinking alcohol, after several months I found, to my surprise, that a zero alcohol beer can be quite a pleasant experience. The taste reminded me of what I used to like about drinking beer with friends, whilst the differences helped me to stay connected to my new found appreciation of clarity.
- fhhjjsayghu 6y agoBeer has a incredible variety of tastes. Don't compare alcohol free beers with the alcoholic beers of the same brand, just view it as a separate family of beers. Try some and pick your favorite.
- sgtnoodle 6y agoI've been sampling non-alcoholic beers recently. A few of the brands taste pretty good. I like Athletic Brewing, and the Heineken is good for what it is.
- hpcjoe 6y agoWait ... but ... why? (in jest) I understand why, though some of us think of decaf "coffee", much the same way others view white "chocolate". At some point, the thing you modified it to be, isn't representative of the original thing. IMO, it should not be called coffee or chocolate, even with a descriptive adjective up front. This is a minor nit to pick, but still, for those of us with a strong love of (addition to) coffee (or chocolate), its an important distinction.
- edjw 6y agoThe flavour is the same
- sgtnoodle 6y agoThey're both still coffee and chocolate, though. That reminds me of my college roommate who tried to argue that gelato isn't ice cream, using light beer vs dark beer as an analogy!
- 1_player 6y agoTIL gelato isn't ice cream. I'm from Italy, where "ice cream" is the translation of gelato, and by that I mean the sweet and icy milk-based stuff people eat during the summer, however you English speakers decide call it.
- bengale 6y agoI drink decaf tea because I like drinking tea but caffeine messes with my heart these days.
- jimhefferon 6y ago:-) > I understand why, though some of us think of decaf "coffee", much the same way others view white "chocolate".1 Had a cardiovascular adventure some time ago. Caffeine was involved, and so I don't have. I agree decaf is a poor substitute, as is white, but they are all I can get.
- mFixman 6y agoIf you try to define what is or is not coffee (or chocolate, milk, meat, ...) using its composition you'll end up with a lot of ambiguous and incorrect rules. The correct way to solve this is to remember that language is an imprecise medium to transmit ideas. White chocolate is chocolate because people consider it chocolate, not the other way around.
- throwaway8432 6y agoAnyone tried coffee with l-theanine?
- mrfusion 6y agoIt would be cool if someone genetically engineered decaf coffee beans. In theory you just disable one gene, no?
- PaulKeeble 6y agoThere is such a variant and numerous attempts are under way to breed such a plant. There are many hundreds of natural coffee plant variants and some do produce almost no caffeine but also do not produce good fruit. So far there hasn't been much success on combining the properties, there is a commercial bean out of africa naturally low in caffeine but its not great or very available. I think it will happen at some point.
- darthrupert 6y agoCoffee has way more active ingredients than just caffeine, so removing just that does not really negate majority of the effects. This would be similar to removing nicotine from cigarettes. Better just go to tea instead of decaf if you're sensitive. Another alternative that allows you to keep using coffee would be to go to your grandparents' coffee cups. They're 2-10 times smaller than the current ones!
- currymj 6y agowhatever other non-caffeine effects coffee might have, they are probably neutral or positive (unlike cigarettes).
- darthrupert 6y agoNo, it has several negative effects on the digestive system that have nothing to do with caffeine. Some positive too, though. I'm not trying to imply that coffee and cigarettes are equivalent in terms of harm, of course. That would be silly.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y agoWhat are these active ingredients?
- darthrupert 6y agoI would like to know this as well.
- PaulKeeble 6y agoI drink both, caffeine in the morning and once past midday I move to decaf until as late as 5pm, I heavily favour much lower caffeine decaf. In my experience decaf tastes the best from either swiss or CO2 methods and from the beans. The best decaf can come pretty close to decent coffee but its also just as expensive as well. I find it works better under pressure immersion than drip, so more Aeropress or Turkish stove method than French press or V60.
- lvs 6y ago> In 1985 the US’s Food and Drug Administration said the likelihood of any health risk from methylene chloride was so low “as to be essentially non-existent”. This is somewhat poorly phrased. Methylene chloride is a neurotoxin and likely carcinogen, but it will be driven off by the roasting process. The boiling point of DCM is 40C, and roasting occurs at 200C, so any residual solvent should be long gone early in the roasting process. Nevertheless, this solvent is destructive to the ozone layer and should be phased out of industrial processes as much as possible.
- Ozzie_osman 6y agoI want the opposite. Caffeine without the taste of coffee.
- connorproctor 6y agoYou're in luck, caffeine pills cost pennies and are readily available at many strengths.
- Fezzik 6y agoYou can also buy straight caffeine powder to try to make your own drinks. I made a few attempts at creating my own energy drinks with my Sodastream, flavoring, and caffeine powder... it never quite worked though. The powder just tastes like powder, and you can drink it straight with water if you just want the caffeine kick.
- hinkley 6y agoTea?
- victor106 6y ago> Roselius discovered the secret to decaffeination by accident It’s amazing how many things we use have been discovered by accident
- confidantlake 6y agoI switched to decaf from regular because regular made me too anxious. I can't tell the difference in terms of taste. Both taste great to me.
- mvanbaak 6y ago> How do you decaffeinate coffee? You dont