Author: joshmitchy@gmail.com

Decaffeinated Coffee has always suffered from the challenge of maintaining the same qualities and flavor characteristics as regular coffee but without the caffeine. Many people choose decaffeinated coffee so that they can still enjoy a cup of coffee without experiencing the effects caffeine has on the body. This is the reason why it is important to make sure that the decaffeinated coffee is processed in way which ensures the quality and freshness is not interfered with. There are various methods used to extract caffeine from coffee beans. Here is a description of each below -

Swiss Water method

In this process, the caffeine is extracted using coffee flavored water together with carbon filters and it is proved to produce 99.9% coffee beans free of caffeine. This process is very simple and is one hundred percent chemical free hence it does not interfere with the original quality of the coffee apart from removing the caffeine.

Direct method

In this process the decaffeinated coffee beans are produced by soaking the beans in a solvent that absorbs the caffeine. The solvents that are mostly used are ethyl acetate and methylene chloride. After the caffeine has been removed, the solvent that now contain the caffeine is separated from the beans and this is done repeatedly until the beans are free of caffeine.

Indirect method

In this method the beans are soaked in water, then a solvent is used to remove the caffeine from the water that was used in soaking. The coffee beans are taken through this cycle until a given percentage of caffeine is extracted which can take some time.

Decaf Stick method

This is very different from all the other decaffeinating processes in that with this method they use the Decaf stick after brewing the coffee. The stick is inserted in a cup of coffee and used to stir it for a few seconds. The Decaf stick absorbs the caffeine from the coffee meaning that the quality of coffee is not interfered with in any way, however the effectiveness isn’t guaranteed.

The best decaffeinated coffee is one that will come from the natural caffeine free coffee that has exactly the same qualities as traditional coffee beans. Scientists have now discovered a coffee plant that produces coffee free of caffeine. This is promising to be the future of decaffeinated coffee.