This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 6:57 pm and is filed under Decaffeinated Coffee. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Coffee-lovers who have kidney disease, anxiety disorders, hypertension or trouble sleeping may switch to decaf coffee on the advice of their doctors. They should be advised, though, that most decaf coffee still has some caffeine in it. Decaf coffee beans are 97% to 99.9% caffeine-free, but drinking five to 10 cups of decaf can give you the same amount of caffeine in a cup or two of regular coffee. Coffee-drinkers should consult their doctors about their consumption if they have conditions that limit their caffeine intake.
The great thing is that, in moderation, everyone can still enjoy the great taste of gourmet decaf coffee. That’s because decaf coffee beans go through decaffeination processes that are designed to keep flavor intact. For example, in the Swiss Water Process, a batch of green, unroasted beans is soaked in hot water to release the caffeine. The beans are discarded after they release all the caffeine and coffee solids into the water. The water and coffee solids then pass through a carbon filter that removes the caffeine. The resulting water is full of flavor, and put in another filtration device with new coffee beans. The flavor-charged water only removes caffeine from the new beans. The process is repeated until most of the caffeine is filtered out and the beans meet decaf standards, and then they are dried so they retain most of their flavor and aroma.