02/28/2024
👩🏽⚕️"I'll have decaf, please." What decaf is and how it's made
Coffee addiction leads to health problems, such as poor sleep and high blood pressure. If you do not want to give up a fragrant cappuccino or latte, you can ask a barista to prepare decaf or brew it at home. What is this drink and how to choose it?
What is caffeine
Caffeine is a natural alkaloid found in tea, coffee and kola nuts. It serves as a defense for these plants by repelling insects. Caffeine has an invigorating and energizing effect - it quickens the heart rate and stimulates the nervous system.
For a healthy adult, a small dose of caffeine is not dangerous. A cup of coffee at breakfast or on the way to work, has long been one of the most popular ways to cheer up in the morning. However, caffeine should be used with caution by children, pregnant women and people with nervous system disorders. That's why they thought about ways to remove caffeine from beans many years ago.
Caffeine content in decaffeinated beans
The first method of decaffeination dates back to 1905. This method was frankly harmful - green coffee beans were soaked in benzene, a toxic carcinogenic substance. Not surprisingly, this option is now strictly banned.
Over time, an international standard of decaffeinated coffee was developed: this is a product with a caffeine content not exceeding 0.3%. Even stricter standards are in force in Europe: there they require to bring the index to 0.1%. The EU is the leader among the consuming regions and from year to year increases the import of decaffeinated coffee (data from the International Coffee Organization, ICO for 2020-2022).
Decaf is not hard to find nowadays: it is available on any major marketplace, in many coffee shops and online stores. It is sold in beans, ground and even instant. How is it made?
How decaffeinated coffee is made
In all modern methods of decaffeination, green coffee beans are first soaked in water or treated with hot steam. And then the technologies differ. Let's consider the most popular ones.
Swiss method
This method of obtaining decaffeinated coffee was invented in 1979. It is also called "Swiss water". First, a batch of green coffee is prepared, previously soaked in hot, but not boiling water. This allows the beans to open up, giving the water its substances, including caffeine. And then the extract is passed through a system of carbon filters.
The caffeine molecules themselves are quite large, so they are trapped in the filter, while the rest of the extract passes freely through it. The result is an extract with the correct flavoring properties, but without caffeine.
Then the next batch of beans is soaked in the obtained extract: caffeine from the beans gradually passes into the extract, and the substances affecting the taste and odor remain in the beans, because the solution is already saturated with them. It is usually not possible to remove all the caffeine the first time, so the procedure is repeated.
The Swiss method is not the fastest and cheapest. Such coffee is usually expensive and is rarely found in Russia. However, decaffeinated by this method, the drink retains the maximum taste, aroma and useful substances that are present in unprocessed coffee.
Traditional method
One of the most popular methods of removing caffeine, which is used by most manufacturers. It is also called direct, European, or conventional. It is this decaffeinated coffee that you can most often buy from Russian roasters or in supermarkets.
In the traditional method, coffee beans are first treated with hot water v***r. This procedure usually lasts about half an hour. Then the treated beans, to remove caffeine, soak in a solvent, only instead of harmful benzene, ethyl acetate or methylene chloride are used. The first one is considered the safest - this substance is obtained from fruit or cane sugar.
