When I was pregnant and thinking about limiting my caffeine a bit, I learned a handy
way to "decaffeinate" tea: just brew it once. The second steeping of tea has almost zero caffeine. As I
typically use each tea bag twice, I thought to myself, that means two cups of tea equals one cup of caffeine. And then
I proceeded to forget I'd ever heard that caffeine was bad for my unborn child.
Evidently, coffee is decaffeinated the very same way. Except that, just like my second steeping of tea, once the beans are soaked to removed the caffeine, the flavor isn't much to write home about. According toAsk Yahoo!, this is where the science comes in: "In one practice, the beans' post-soak water is mixed with a solvent that separates the caffeine from the liquid. Alternatively, the caffeinated water can be forced through activated charcoal or carbon filters, which also separates the caffeine from the solution. After either method, the coffee beans are re-submerged in the now-totally-caffeine-free watery extract where (hopefully) they reabsorb their flavor."
I don't drink decaf coffee much - especially now that I'm a mom of a baby, I need the caffeine. But I wonder: can you coffee nuts out there taste the difference? It's a pretty chemically-charged process, and it seems when chemicals enter the mix, flavor always loses.
[Photo Sarah Gilbert]
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