What is decaf? How to remove caffeine from coffee?

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All coffee has caffeine in its natural state, and this chemical is seen as protecting coffee trees from pests and preventing seeds from competing for nutrients.

Caffeine has been used as a stimulant for thousands of years, but sometimes we don't want the side effect of coffee. However, in addition to this reason, there are more factors that make people choose decaf coffee rather than normal coffee, which of course includes public awareness of health problems.

2018 the American Coffee Association reported that 42 per cent of coffee drinkers chose decaf, most of whom were social youth. Some market studies have pointed out that consumers who choose decaf coffee are more willing to spend more money on coffee for the sake of quality.

Carbon dioxide treatment

The carbon dioxide treatment is similar to the direct solvent method, which soaks the coffee beans in warm water, replaces the solvent with high-pressure liquefied carbon dioxide, extracts caffeine, and then returns to room temperature to become a gas.

Coffee made from decaffeinated carbon dioxide has a lower burden on the human body, and according to the study, this method extracts more caffeine than the direct solvent method, but the cost of this method is much higher than that of the direct solvent method.

Swiss water treatment method

This treatment will soak the raw coffee beans in hot water, and the soaking stage has actually partially removed caffeine. The soaked solution is then filtered with activated carbon and finally poured back into the coffee beans. This series of steps will be more effective in removing caffeine. In addition to not requiring the use of chemical solvents, the soaked solution can be reused in different batches of treatment procedures, but coffee still loses a lot of flavor in the filtration process.

The disadvantage of this method is that it is much more expensive to produce than the above two solvent methods, and the extracted caffeine is directly filtered out and cannot be used for other commercial purposes.

Mountain spring water treatment

This is the use of another special kind of water, water from glaciers to extract caffeine. The company Descamex says it uses a special filter to remove caffeine.

After treatment, you will get a caffeine-free aqueous solution, which also dissolves the solid substance of coffee and can be reused in the decaffeinated process.

This treatment and the Swiss water treatment are both methods that do not use chemical solvents, so some consumers regard it as a safer and healthier choice.

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