10 ms·
A chemist explains the chemistry behind decaf coffee
- hooverd 2y agoSWP is trendy and "chemical-free" but in my experience every decaf made with it is lacking something. C02 is neutral. EA is probably the best for fruity coffees.
- BostonEnginerd 2y agoI agree. SWP coffee usually has a very flat profile to my taste. EA is far and away the better processing method.
- nosbo 2y agoI find the ethyl acetate processed to be the better of the decafs. It's my go to these days.
- jmann99999 2y agoThe way this author[0] took complex scientific processes and made them understandable to someone without a science background is admirable. I want to try and emulate this when I write for non-technical audiences. [0]https://miamioh.edu/profiles/cas/michael-crowder.html https://miamioh.edu/profiles/cas/michael-crowder.html
- martinpw 2y agoThe decaf process seems expensive so you might expect the end result to cost more, but it never does. Which means either the producers are making less profit on decaf, or they are using lower quality beans. If the latter is true, which seems more likely, that might explain why decaf sometimes tastes less good, separately from the effect of the process itself on taste.
- criddell 2y agoI suspect that when you buy decaf beans from a roaster they don't aren't the ones decaffeinating the coffee beans. I think roasters have a lot less choice when buying decaffeinated beans so I bet your theory is correct.
- edkennedy 2y agoThere are two main decaf plants, one in Vancouver and one in Mexico. The Mexican one is supposedly superior in taste, but the majority is processed through Vancouver with the Swiss Water plant. https://www.swisswater.com/blogs/sw/swiss-waters-new-decaffeination-flagship https://www.swisswater.com/blogs/sw/swiss-waters-new-decaffe...
- scottlamb 2y agoI've noticed many roasters have only one decaf option. But there are exceptions. Equator Coffees has many blends available in both regular and decaf, with the decaf costing slightly more (e.g. $15.30 vs. $15.75 for a subscribe-and-save 12 oz bag). They advertise "decaffeinated using the mountain water process of caffeine extraction", which I believe is the same as the article's Swiss water process. Not sure if they have their own equipment or if they assemble their blends, send them off, get them back and roast them.
- jolmg 2y agoThe decaf I buy states they have close ties with the farmers. The company they use for decaffeination seems to be a service-oriented company. You send them the raw coffee, they decaffeinate it, and then send it back with recommendations for roasting. So, the "roaster" (if they don't use a separate company for that) does have the ability to select the exact same beans between their decaf and regular coffee products. Whether they sort the beans they get from the farmers and choose which go to be decaffeinated according to some criteria, is a separate thing.
- johntb86 2y agoMaybe the extracted caffeine has some market value that can make up for some of the cost of extracting it.
- philipkglass 2y agoDry Arabica beans are about 1.5% caffeine by weight. Synthetic caffeine costs maybe $40 per kilogram, wholesale. A kilogram of beans could have perhaps $0.60 worth of caffeine extracted from it, unless there's a price premium for "all natural" caffeine extracted from beans.
- Kirby64 2y agoI’ve seen it marketed as “organic caffeine” in some beverages. Organic coffee was the base. Bit of an eye roll from me, but hey whatever.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jcynix 2y agoThe German inventor of a decaf process sold the extracted coffein separately in pills, which might have given him a second income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Roselius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Roselius
- amelius 2y agoI guess nowadays most of the extracted caffeine ends up in energy drinks like Red Bull.
- dustincoates 2y agoThis is like what happens with milk fat. I was surprised to see whole milk cost more, and I found out that it's because the fat skimmed off is used for other products.
- dyauspitr 2y agoSame with yogurt. Whey protein isolate goes for $11/lb, which is ridiculous pricing as a side note.
- globular-toast 2y agoYoghurt doesn't generally produce whey. Cheese does. Whey protein used to be the cheapest form of protein by a long way because it was just a byproduct that doesn't taste good and most people have no need for. But we are now in an age where regular people buy stuff with the word "protein" slapped on it, for some reason.
- jajko 2y agoMost people in this world don't eat enough protein (cca 65g daily for average human IIRC) and way too many carbs, hence a lot of civilization diseases. Or ratio protein : carbs (ideally complex) : fats (ideally unsaturated) is bad long term. But its true that not healthy food that has some additional protein mixed in ain't magically healthy.
- mellosouls 2y agoNot true in my experience - at least when I buy decaf beans online they are normally more expensive, which I put down to them being niche in comparison.
- harimau777 2y agoI don't know if this makes a difference, but my understanding is that most additive/non-natural (for lack of better terms) caffeine comes from caffeine extracted to make decaf.
- sBqQu3U0wH 2y ago>but it never does Depends on a producer, I guess. Where I'm from, same amount of decaffeinated coffee by the same producer is around 42% more expensive.
- reillys 2y agoThe same decaf coffee is more expensive. The producers decaffeinate their lesser coffees. But you've hit on why the "sugar-cane method" i.e. the solvent based approach produces better coffee. It's possible for it to be done at origin and so the actual coffee producers can choose what coffee to decaffeinate and can absorb some of the additional costs in the "processing" stage while using higher quality coffee in the process.
- malfist 2y agoCO2 can be reused so it's not that expensive, and the caffeine that gets extracted is sold separately, so it's possible decaffeinated coffee could have more profit that caffeinated. After all, we don't really make synthetic caffeine, we extract it from tea and coffee and add it to a lot of things.
- philipkglass 2y agoSynthetic caffeine has been commercially used in beverages and medicine for over 100 years. I believe that most caffeine consumed today is actually synthetic, but it's hard to find a good citation for its prevalence. Most of the web pages mentioning synthetic and natural caffeine are spam for "market research" reports or natural health woo. You can see section "2.1. Production and use" for some relevant information about synthetic and natural caffeine production, as well as dated 20th century statistics about synthetic production: "Coffee, Tea, Mate, Methylxanthines and Methylglyoxal" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507027/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507027/
- malfist 2y agoMy statement of synthetic not being super prevalent comes from a memory of a really old how it's made episode, so it could be wrong or out of date
- leetrout 2y agoDecaf that I buy is more expensive. It is the grocery store brand and looks identical to the regular bags they sell for a similar price but on close inspection you will find the decaf contains ~9oz net weight and the regular is 12oz net weight.
- tptacek 2y agoBoutique-roasted decaf coffee beans often are more expensive. But the logic also doesn't hold: it assumes coffee is being sold at or near the cost of its material inputs, and that's certainly not true. If you have a reasonable built-in margin for your coffee --- and boutique roasters certainly do --- it can be normal and rational to price irrespective of your cost basis. Customers are brand-loyal (especially if they have to go out of their way to buy your stuff). You want to get them in every packaging they're interested in. All sorts of products are "loss leaders", for that reason, and here we're not even talking about that; we're just talking about something slightly less profitable. Finally, just a note that the "lower-quality bean" thing is itself sort of hollow, in that: you're probably not buying the absolute best quality means no matter what coffee you buy, even if you're driving to a coffee roaster to get them. Unless you're an extreme coffee weirdo, there is, I'd confidently bet, a higher-quality bean available to you that you're sacrificing because of cost and convenience. Certainly, if you're buying beans of any sort at a supermarket, the "best bean" thing is inoperative.
- esquivalience 2y agoGP observed that either the profit margin or the input cost is absorbing the difference, so I think the logic holds well and you are in agreement :)
- tptacek 2y agoNot so much? Like I said: decaf beans often are more expensive, and they believe margin hits for decaf are unlikely, which is probably not at all true unless you're talking about Starbucks.
- esquivalience 2y agoThe premise may not hold - you're right - but the logic seems to.
- fabian2k 2y agoThe price difference between cheap supermarket coffee and high-end local roaster is large enough (up to 10x) that the potential additional cost for decaffeination doesn't seem that big of a deal if you're looking for coffee at the higher end of the quality scale.
- feyr 2y agothey either resell the caffeine for a profit themselves, or often the coffee producer send the beans to be decaffeinated, which is done for free. the company doing that process keeps the caffeine and resell it to pharma companies
- chewz 2y agoDecaf is bad business becuase processed beans are loosing taste more rapidly. You should drink it freshly roasted, buy more often but smaller packs and if this is not the case decaf simply tastes less good. So as a producer you have more expensive process and less consumer satisfaction...
- 7bit 2y ago> So as a producer you have more expensive process and less consumer satisfaction... This is illogical. People buy decaf for several reason, that don't include it's taste. Either they're allergic to coffein, they get nervous from it, they get elevated heart rates from it, or want to enjoy a coffee in the evening. All of of these reasons are fulfilled, therefore satisfactory. Personal note: I don't taste a difference in caf and decaf and ALWAYS prefer decaf.
- arikrak 2y agoThey use higher-caffeine beans for decaf coffee - Robusta instead of Arabica. Robusta beans aren't considered as good so they're cheaper, and they sell the caffeine they extract to e.g. soda companies.
- Kirby64 2y agoJust not true. Cheap coffee is already robusta anyways, and arabica is used in good quality decaf coffee. Even still, arabica is consistently used as a marketing bullet for coffee… even if there’s plenty of really really bad arabica coffee out there.
- smeagull 2y agoThere is nothing saying that a product needs to pay for all the processes inherent in making that particular product. There is value in having flat pricing across all your products. Especially if some of them aren't as popular, yet might driving purchasing decisions. Consider cafes that need to stock decaf, but want to buy from a single supplier. If you don't have decaf you're not going to see their custom, despite their order largely being non-decaf. So they'll want to supply decaf, but in order to encourage the sale of it (so they can reach a better economy of scale) keep the price the same as the equivalent non-decaf.
- throwaway290 2y ago> decaf process seems expensive so you might expect the end result to cost more, but it never does Where? Decaf coffee does cost more...
- flybrand 2y agoView it as a separation process wherein both products can be sold; the caffeine extract is also profitable.
- wnolens 2y agoWill an entrepreneur please make high quality (great tasting) decaf coffee ubiquitous? There's a growing anti-drug sentiment that should be a great tailwind. It's hard for me to find as good tasting a bean as it is with non-decaf. I've tried subscription services or pay huge shipping and product premium from some boutique retailer, the beans are always just ok. Decaf still doesn't get enough priority as the product itself, always an afterthought it feels like.
- Anotheroneagain 2y agoIt can't ever taste the same as caffeine has flavor.
- xeromal 2y agoI don't think people necessarily need it to taste identical. It just needs to not taste like ass.
- ClassyJacket 2y agoIt has a sharp, very bitter flavour most people hate. It's unlikely caffeine is contributing positively to the taste of anything.
- crazygringo 2y agoI'm not sure what your standards are, but I'm not sure if this is even possible. I drink Stumptown which I grind at home for my espresso machine -- their caffeinated Hair Bender blend in the morning, and then in the afternoon I'll often have their decaf Trapper Creek (Swiss water process) on the days I don't need an extra jolt. It tastes perfectly great to me. Maybe my palette isn't refined enough. But decaffeination is always going to alter/remove flavor somewhat. So if you've tried high-quality versions like Stumptown and find them lacking, I'm not sure it's even chemically possible. (Also I'm not super clear -- have you found high-quality decaf and you just wish it were more common? What brand(s) are high-quality? Or you haven't found it, and you're complaining that they're all "just ok"?)
- 2y ago
- deegles 2y agoI thought about buying a supercritical CO2 extraction machine from Alibaba and having a small business around making decaf beans for roasters, but the numbers didn't work out great. I believe it was around $20k usd for the medium sized ones.
- berlinquin 2y agoIs this written up anywhere? I.e. anywhere that walks thru a sample business model?
- deegles 2y agoWell it's not too complex. Say $25k for the machine amortized over 5 years is about $400/mo. Let's say $500. Cost of goods would be around $7.50/lb for some nice unroasted beans. Let's say you sell for $10/lb. Fixed costs would be rent ($5k?), utilities (1k?) and whatever other costs to package etc. not even touching salaries. So at $2.50/lb revenue you'd have to process and sell 2,400 lbs per month just to break even on fixed costs. That's a lot...
- AnotherGoodName 2y agoI'd like to talk a bit more about the cheapest and most common process here. They state that ethyl acetate is below the FDA limits and therefore safe. For a start ethyl acetate is still pretty bad but it's not the cheapest. Another common solvent not mentioned here is Dichloromethane. It's a pretty clear cancer causing agent https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/pr8k9v/til_some_food_company_brands_making_decaf_coffee/ https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/pr8k9v/til_s... You know what else is a solvent for decaffeinating coffee? Benzene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene#Health_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene#Health_effects Don't drink decaf. The CO2 method is pretty safe but the simple fact is unless you're sure how your beans were decaffinated you're better off not drinking it.
- ptsneves 2y agoThe reddit post mentions that DCM is evaporated and it is basically not present after the process. Actually the thread mentions that all the fuss like your post is mostly scaremongering without actual understanding the mechanisms. Do you have evidence that indeed the phase change and separations may not happen?
- anjel 2y ago"Basically" and "mostly" undermine your assertion.
- skrbjc 2y agoMy thought is: if the process is followed properly there is very little risk of these chemicals being in the end product, but if a mistake is made, they could be present in levels that may have some negative health effect. However, if the water or co2 processes were screwed up, the only risk is caffeine being present, which is not ideal, but not as bad as those chemicals. We all know mistakes happen, which is why I'd rather go with a process that has less negative outcomes from a mistake.
- bonestamp2 2y agoThis reminds me of a reddit post from about 10 years ago where people started to notice that when they get decaf coffee at work it sometimes bleeds through the styrofoam cup while the regular coffee never does. There have been several other reports of this since. The most credible theory was that sometimes there is solvent left over after the decaf process: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/2m2fiy/our_decaff_coffee_occasionally_bleeds_through_the/?rdt=49664 https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/2m2fiy/o...
- iscrewyou 2y agoA good video explanation from James Hoffman: https://youtu.be/yYTSdlOdkn0 https://youtu.be/yYTSdlOdkn0 And a quick follow up: https://youtu.be/IszQ2JR3Olc https://youtu.be/IszQ2JR3Olc
- nxobject 2y agoI can’t recommend James Hoffmann’s channel enough - he’s such a passionate coffee guy who’s just as happy teaching what he knows about coffee to anyone and everyone. (He also won a world barista championship back in the day, too.) I daresay he’s even got me into coffee.
- beAbU 2y agoPersonally I like Hames Joffman a bit more, but he's not posting as frequently any more. Jokes aside, another endorsement from James. He's an absolute coffee weirdo, and he knows it, and he embraces it. The equipment and ingredients that he buys is so out of touch with my reality it can't even compare, yet I watch his videos. I like his content because he does not take himself seriously, which is always a good sign to me. And because he's very pragmatic. Even though he takes snobbery to the next level, he will always sniff at a new product if it is complicated to use, because like me, his primary need for coffee is to overcome morning grogginess, and he does not want to faff about during that time.
- aequitas 2y agoI also like James Hoffman, a little bit more, a little bit less? I don't know. Even his review of toy coffee machines[0] had me watching with full interest. This guy can sell you anything, but I think that is also part of being a barista? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFt2T8aH9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFt2T8aH9I
- scruple 2y agoYeah, that's cool. As someone who fell down this rabbit hole well over a decade ago, complete with a history of my own large storage bins for green beans, multiple roasters, thousands spent in makers, etc... Yet, today, my most used preparation methods are an AeroPress or a Chemex pour over, albeit with hand-ground beans that a friend and neighbor roasts... I just don't think I want to hear 2 minutes of useful information from watching 25 minutes of videos (between the 2 that are linked here).
- jollyllama 2y agoDoes it work the same for instant?
- icegreentea2 2y agoInstant coffee is "just" freeze dried coffee. You make "normal" coffee, and then freeze dry it (and then usually you process the results to get nice shaped lumps instead of randomly sized flakes and powder). I say "normal", because you will get flavor loss/changes in the freeze-dry process, so you'll want to brew with that in mind.
- settsu 2y agoAnd if you're interested in an actually (relatively) decent instant decaf, I'd suggest trying Mount Hagen brand of instant decaf coffee. Although, just from personal anecdotal experience, I believe it could have slightly more caffeine than some other decaf coffees.
- zokier 2y agoIt is somewhat magical to me that these processes can be as selective as they are. Coffee beans must have hundreds if not thousands of organic compounds in them, and somehow something as simple as co2 (or the other solvents) picks up mainly caffeine. Somehow that is very counterintuitive to me.
- HPsquared 2y agoSurely it must also extract some other stuff. I wonder what the extracted stuff tastes like (minus the CO2 of course)
- tobias2014 2y agoI was interested and looked at the actual patent: https://patents.justia.com/patent/4348422 https://patents.justia.com/patent/4348422 (there seem to be multiple patent documents, but this one adds some explanation), and he writes "I have now surprisingly discovered". https://tastydecafs.com/blogs/learn-about-decaf/co2-decaf https://tastydecafs.com/blogs/learn-about-decaf/co2-decaf further explains "The story of C02 decaffeination goes back to 1967. It was then when a chemist at Max Planck Institute named Kurt Zosel stumbled upon an interesting discovery. Zosel, like many other chemists, was using high-pressure C02 to remove individual substances from other mixtures." It must have something to do with caffeine being an alkaloid, while coffee overall is acidic. So I suspect that this pressurized CO2 is able to dominantly remove such alkaloids... I leave the details to a chemist :)
- RamblingCTO 2y agoTo add some clarification: decaffeination is as old as 1903 (also Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decaffeination)
- DonaldPShimoda 2y agoBut the parent comment is about CO2 decaffeination specifically, not decaffeination in general.
- 2y ago
- jb1991 2y agoI love decaf but the main problem is how fragile the stability of the beans are. They go bad quickly. To get the same cup of decaf coffee every day requires more work if you are grinding your own and making espresso. Still, I love them. Personally, I've found the CO2 method to have a lot more flavor than the Swiss Water. I also found the CO2 beans don't deteriorate as quickly as the Swiss Water beans.
- haswell 2y agoHow quickly is quickly? I literally yesterday bought my first bag of decaf and mixed them with my regular beans. I need to sleep more, and reducing caffeine intake is the low hanging fruit. Decades of habits around buying and using normal beans are about to be replaced, and this comment is already helpful.
- jb1991 2y agoI think it depends how you brew it. Filter, for example, is a lot more forgiving on flavor than espresso. My decaf beans start to go bad for espresso after a few days of buying them, but for filter they will last much longer. One recommendation by coffee aficionados is to freeze your decaf beans as soon as you get them and then grind them frozen. I haven't tried that yet, I just buy in small batches so they are usually rather fresh. Mixing half decaf with regular beans is a great idea, I've been doing that for years. The mix of flavors is good too, if you are brewing filter. You can get away with a lot more when you do filter.
- haswell 2y agoThis is really helpful. I’m doing pour over, and I tend to use lower temperature water, so it sounds like I’ve got some leeway.
- whitehexagon 2y agoI hunted around for good decaf espresso beans for a couple years and then someone recommended local own-brand supermarket beans, 9.50e/kg and I've had some better tasting extractions than a lot of artisan expensive regular beans I've bought. No roast date, so who knows how old, but a good consistent cup until bag empty. What I also then noticed was that a lot of the coffee houses here use an inferior grinder for their decaf, smaller burrs, and/or the older hopper based grinder vs on-demand for their regular beans. No wonder it gets a bad rep. Anyway I was quite amazed to suddenly find myself enjoying decaf so much.
- pillefitz 2y agoI'd love if all psychoactive compounds could be removed from coffee beans. The stress response and inability to sleep I get from decaf beans is pretty much comparable to that from normal beans (and distinctly different from pure caffeine or green tea)
- eric-hu 2y agoHave you looked into L-Theanine? It’s an extract from green tea. I add it to my coffee sometimes and it smooths out the experience
- ricardobayes 2y agoDo you put sugar in your (decaf) coffee? A lot of energy comes from sugar.
- Teslazar 2y agoI had a similar problem. Coffee, decaf, even dark chocolate would be very stimulating and would mess with my sleep, even a single cup in the morning. I tried quite a few things to solve this and ended up discovering that supplementing with molybdenum solved it. Molybdenum is an essential element important in the metabolization of some compounds, including caffeine. It's cheap and may be worth trying. Also, I found that L-Theanine helped but only for maybe a week or so before it became less and less effective. For me, it was obviously a band-aid solution that wasn't correcting the underlying problem.
- hcrisp 2y agoI couldn't find any citations that mention molybdenum as a way to increase metabolism of caffeine. However, I found one reference [0] that mentions, "Consumption of broccoli and brassica vegetables in general and absorption of large quantities of vitamin C increase caffeine clearance". EDIT: It would seem that the vitamin C paper [1] concludes the opposite of what [0] states. "These results indicate that the elimination of caffeine in the elderly is not affected significantly by the concentrations of vitamin C achieved during this study." [0] https://www.coffeeandscience.org/health/coffee-and-caffeine/caffeine-and-metabolism [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7064899/
- eirikbakke 2y agoSo, in the Swiss Water process, caffeine-free coffee is made by soaking the beans in... caffeine-free coffee? (My initial though was, "then how do you get the cafeeine-free coffee in the first place", but I see the answer is that you can decaffeinate liquids by running them through charcoal filters... something you can't do with solid beans.)
- bishfish 2y agoWhy not try low caffeine variety like Laurina? It's about 1/3 to 1/2 the caffeine of Arabica.
- RamblingCTO 2y agoI wonder why we don't use genetic modifications to get caffeine free coffee?
- sethhochberg 2y agoAt least part of the reason coffee plants produce caffeine is as a defense mechanism from insects. If you genetically engineer out the caffeine, your effort to farm the plant just went up if you aren't also able to genetically engineer insect resistance.
- cryptonector 2y agoBesides that if the caffeine-free variants were to spread in the wild and cross-breed with regular coffee that would be disastrous.
- hilbert42 2y agoFrom comments it seems caffeine-free plants already exist.
- Chris2048 2y agoWouldn't the cross-bred wild coffee just fall prey to insects more often and diminish competitively?
- cryptonector 2y agoMaybe. But with very high pesticide use nearby maybe not?
- hilbert42 2y agoOn HN only the other day in a discussion about caffeine and coffee consumption I pointed out that caffeine was one of the more innocuous toxins plants use to protect themselves against insects—innocuous to humans that is, there being many more that are very much more toxic to humans. What I've never seen quoted is a comparison of caffeine's toxicity to insects compared with other common plant toxins (pyrethrins, terpenes etc.) and whether its toxicity is aimed at insects that specificly attack coffee beans. As far as I'm aware caffeine isn't used as an insecticide whereas pyrethrins are commonly used (but both have comparatively low toxicity in humans). Why I ask is that pyrethrins are effective against a broad spectrum of insects, that caffeine isn't used could imply its action is narrow and only targets a specific species of insect. No doubt this info is buried somewhere deep in the scientific literature and or within pesticide manufacturers' papers but it's curious it isn't common knowledge given the ubiquity of caffeine. Perhaps those in the coffee business don't want it known in case it affects business. :-)
- Murky3515 2y agoTIL about one of the solvents involved, ethyl acetate, and the fact that it is not good for you. How do I know that my local coffee shop's machine is working correctly and provides only safe levels of this solvent?
- xkcd-sucks 2y agoIt smells like nail polish remover, well nail polish remover with the acetone subtracted, and it is noticeable well below any toxicity threshold. It's also a characteristic component of some fruit / fermentation aromas
- jolmg 2y agoI wouldn't expect a coffee shop to do the decaffeination there. Rather, the company that does the decaffeination is its own thing, which then ships their product to the roaster, which then ships their product to your local coffee shop.
- valec 2y agohow did you get that from the article? "One of the common solvents, ethyl acetate, comes naturally in many foods and beverages. It’s considered a safe chemical for decaffeination by the Food and Drug Administration." speaking from a chemist's perspective, ethyl acetate is basically non-toxic. it decomposes into ethanol and acetic acid (vinegar). dcm (methylene chloride) is toxic, but should be completely removed before it ever reaches you. the nice thing about volatile organic solvents is that they're...volatile, so they are easily stripped from coffee beans.
- callalex 2y agoWhy are there no GMO decaf bean varieties? Is the caffeine really that necessary for pest control even when cultivated/farmed?
- xnavra50 2y agoWell, they used some unhealthy solvents to extract the caffeine in the past. Swiss water method should be ok, but I just don't trust that some cheap company is not cheating in the process every now and then. I drink regular coffee.
- gcanyon 2y agoNile Red demonstrates removing caffeine from tea here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIbff5iD0GQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIbff5iD0GQ and from coffee here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CoxEgbyeK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CoxEgbyeK4
- abcd_f 2y agoIt'd be interesting to compare these 3 methods side by side starting with same beans. I've tried, conservatively, a dozen and a half of different decafs available here in the EU, and some a markedly better than others. In fact, most are outright garbage with an exception of two that are virtually indistinguishable from each other even though they are from unrelated brands. So I wonder if the differences are due to the process rather something else.