- Coffee facts
Decaf: Dreadful experience or good coffee?
Even if you don’t believe it as a coffee freak, there are good reasons for a decaf. Because you’re pregnant or breastfeeding or simply love coffee but don’t get on so well with the caffeine – to name just a few.
Karsten Suhr
The only question is how to find a decaf that doesn’t taste chemical. Or watery. Or so astringent that it makes you clench your jaw? It’s actually quite simple: It should definitely be an organic decaf.
How does the caffeine get OUT of the coffee?
There are various decaffeination processes. The most important difference – and not only decisive for the taste: Is the caffeine extracted from the beans using chemical solvents? Or in a natural way?
The latter is the case with organic coffee, otherwise it wouldn’t be coffee. At Mount Hagen, the unroasted beans swell with warm water and steam so that natural carbon dioxide can bind the caffeine. This process is repeated several times until the caffeine content is below 0.1%. This procedure is called the CO2 process. Carbonic acid (meaning carbon dioxide) occurs in nature as a gas or dissolved in water. It is a component of the air that we breathe in and out. Under certain temperature and pressure conditions, it is an ideal extraction agent for caffeine. This is how normal coffee is turned into a decaf using natural – and therefore not chemically synthesized – means. Although this is time-consuming, it is very gentle, and the taste certainly justifies it.
It is also a process (alongside the Swiss Water Process) that is approved for certified organic coffees. The CO2 process is somewhat more expensive than the Swiss Water Process, but the coffee retains its full flavor and aroma.
Unfortunately, most decaf packs do not state how the coffee was decaffeinated. (We will be doing this soon). It is clear, however, that almost all conventional coffees use synthetic solvents such as dichloromethane or ethyl acetate, as they are very inexpensive. As I said, it’s not really tasty.
So, organic decaf.
And then? What do you look for to find your favorite decaf? That’s actually not that difficult either: What do you like about your favorite coffee (the one with caffeine)? Is it low in acidity? Strong? Where does it come from? In principle, a decaffeinated coffee shouldn’t taste any different to one with caffeine. In fact, you should only be able to taste the difference – if at all – in a very direct comparison.
Now one could come up with the idea of looking for types of coffee that naturally contain less caffeine.
Welcome to low coffee.
This seems to be a new little trend that is currently circulating through the internet: Low coffees are coffees that have a caffeine content of less than 1% per se.
For comparison: “Normal” Arabicas have approx. 1.3% caffeine and Robustas more than 2%. Decaffeinated coffees have a maximum of 0.1%! So, the difference is quite small compared to classic coffee and quite big compared to decaf.
However, because low coffees are more susceptible to pests due to their lower caffeine content, cultivation is therefore more complex and the quantities grown are small, they are quite expensive. Another variant of low coffees are blends of non-decaffeinated, meaning “normal” coffees, and decaffeinated coffees, which are also quite expensive.
So, it remains to be seen whether this trend will catch on.
What do you think? Would this be a coffee to your taste?
