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| Unroasted decaf coffee beans. Photo: Erin Meister |
I say nuts to baristas who turn their noses up at decaf. As far as I'm concerned, decaf drinkers are the salt of the earth, and I think it's high time they get their due.
Just think of it: There are millions upon millions of regular-coffee guzzlers who'll down 20 ounces of swill just to get a fix, but I see decaf devotees as folks who pursue coffee just for the sheer love of it. It's gotta be love, since the buzz isn't the main draw. Not only that, but poor decaffers are often stuck with the dregs: Stale coffee left sitting in an urn for hours, espresso poorly made by way of utter dismissal and even snide service from pro-caffeinators.
Well call me naive, but I just gotta stick up for the (probably pretty tired) underdog. Though the FDA has long considered caffeine a "safe" substance (though it is, strictly speaking, a kind of drug), try telling that to the folks who toss and turn all night as penance for a 6 p.m. cuppa. (And I can definitely sympathize.) Or worse yet, people who are allergic to the stuff!
But how does the buzz get out of that little bean? Click through to find out. There are several different ways to decaffeinate beans, but one of the most effective (with a 99.9 percent extraction rate) is the Swiss Water method. Developed in Switzerland in the early 1930s (though the current plant is located in Canada), the process mostly utilizes regular ol' H2O to make your sleepytime joe.
In order to strip the stimulants in this process, green coffee beans are soaked in a coffee-extract-filled water, which draws the caffeine out while ostensibly leaving the flavor in (water can only hold so much of what the coffee beans have to give, so if it's already saturated with extract from green coffee, the flavor has no choice but to stay put).
The caffeine is then filtered from the solution using a carbon process, while the beans are removed from their watery den and dried, most of the flavor intact. The coffee is then cupped against its caffeinated counterparts, and you might actually be pretty surprised by how well they fare.
While most trained noses can sniff out a decaf, whenever one's on the table at the weekly cuppings I cohost in Manhattan (open to the public -- you should come sometime!), at least one person inevitably chooses it as their favorite before being told that it's caffeine-free. And sometimes that person is even me.
So be kind to your decaffeinated friends, friends!
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9-08-2009 @3:24PM doodoolemonque said... Nonsense. Years in the coffee biz taught me several things. The most immutable is that there is no decaf which compares acceptably in flavor to regular. The process is simply too ruinous to the bean to allow for anything like a common flavor profile to come through. Some may choose to drink decaf regardless, just as some people continue to buy cheap, flavorless Lipton teabags. That does not mean though, that either Lipton teabags or decaf coffees compare well to either fresh, quality teas or fully caffeinated coffees. Just as there are those who will choose the decaf at your cuppings, there are those whose taste buds taste things differently than most of us. That is no endorsement.
Rather, its simply a question of how successfully these items are marketed, which allows the taster to suspend their objective decision making. In fact, it is a testament to how well coffee has been marketed that those who would otherwise eschew it, accept the dissimilar decaf, despite its lack of palatability.
The fact of the matter is that the only methods which produce a decaf product, which even remotely resembles the original (the so-called Swiss water method is undrinkable, period), use chemicals or processes which are unhealthful to either the drinker or the environment. It is time the industry stops pretending it is still okay to ignore this. Asking consumers to ignore the harm to either themselves or the ozone layer in order to drink a demonstrably inferior product is a quaint notion which should be relegated to history. If you don't want caffeine, drink water, milk, juice, whatever. There's no real reason to drink decaf, period.
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9-08-2009 @4:42PM Jonathon Morgan said... I dunno, hard to imagine ever enjoying coffee that wasn't caffeinated. :)
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9-09-2009 @10:24AM Gary said... doodoolemonque needs to pull his snobbish nose out of the stratosphere. I am an avid coffee drinker and about 2 years ago I became downright intolerant to caffeine. Even a small amount early in the day will keep me up all night. I have since switched over to decaf because I LOVE the taste of coffee. Doesnt matter to me in the slightest if it has no caffeine punch. I am just happy that I still get to enjoy a couple of cups a day.
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9-09-2009 @11:57AM Keith said... You've got it all wrong. According to Alton Brown, decaffeinated coffee is unnatural and almost always low quality. That's because the decaffeination process is expensive and time consuming (not to mention wasteful). As a result, the decaf beans are expensive, leading manufacturers to use only the cheapest beans for decaf. Understandably, since I always had the impression that decaf was for older folks who like a warm drink but can no longer handle the caffeine.
And although this article may be an exception to my stereotype, I would argue that the perception that coffee drinkers are simply looking for a "fix" is WAY off. I love quality coffee in the same way I love craft beer... if I wanted to get drunk, I'd just drink cheap swill, and if I was looking for a buzz, I'd just drink freeze-dried.
I splurge for the quality because I drink less of it; but that's not to say the chemical effects are unwelcome. A small boost of caffeine in the morning leaves me a feeling great, and that's just one small cup. And one quality, micro-brewed beer works just as well to me as a relaxing, social lubricant. After all, these are things that give caffeine and alcohol such a high level of attention in our society. But like anything else, in moderation, there's nothing wrong with either and in fact can be quite beneficial.
What's next? Non-alcoholic wine?
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9-10-2009 @1:21AM doodoolemonque said... Gary, you are entitled to drink whatever you want. You say that you can really not tolerate even the slightest amount of caffeine. Then you would not be able to tolerate decaf, all of which DOES have caffeine. But studies have shown that there is a very significant psychosomatic component to caffeine's effect, and you may be demonstrating that. If you believe you are not drinking caffeine, it usually doesn't bother most people. And that, my friend, is the only justification for decaf; to allow human beings to drink caffeine and tell their bodies "nah, don't worry central nervous system, its only decaf. You won't feel a thing!"
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11-03-2009 @11:28AM wsl said... doodoo, you may have your facts in line, and some of us may agree with the general idea that decaff sucks, but for christ's sake it's not a matter of geopolitical import. Take it easy. Sometimes people just want to enjoy what others enjoy without all that comes with it. NA beer is horrible, but tell that to a recovering alcoholic at a New Year's Eve party and they'll tell you they just need a cold one to hang on to while they chat through the night. Who are you to say otherwise?
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