E22: Decaf Coffee Deep Dive (Part 1)

No one knows what it means, but it gets the people sleeping

Welcome to my sacred pocket of the interweb. I’m DPo. If you’re new here and reading this wondering how it go into your inbox, well, you’ve chosen this path, friend. And boi are you in for a treat. I do deep dives on where our food comes from and also host Peruvian pop-ups in San Francisco. I also have 2 cats. This writer/illustrator/cook/researcher contains multitudes.

---

On this Edition of, “Wow I never thought about __noun__, but now that I have, I can’t stop” aka WINTANBNTIHICS we’re replacing the noun with decaf coffee.

This rabbit hole ran deep. Lawyers were involved (in a good way). There was even a quick Hawaii research stint to visit a coffee estate (it happened to also be vacation). And a lot of decaf coffee was drunketh.

Turns out decaf coffee is equal parts mysterious as it is surprisingly tasty.

Me in hawaii before realizing that decaf coffee was a bottomless pit of information

For this deep dive, I’ve decided to split it into a 2 part series. My editors said it was quote, “too much knowledge for a single brain to process in a single sitting.”

Jk, that was me.

Let’s dig in!!!

What is decaf coffee? 

The question no one is asking themselves but are still here to answer it.

Decaf coffee is regular unroasted coffee beans, but with the caffeine (mostly) stripped away. Once “decaffeinated”, they get roasted and packaged just like normal coffee.

We are not the same

You rn: ahhhh that’s pretty straightforward. I get it. ** x’s out of window **

Me rn: Waiiiiiiit it get’s crazier!!!

It’s worth noting….

There are some beans naturally low in caffeine: Laurina and Aramosa. My coffee friend (ya I have cool friends) said they’re promising, but not popular. I couldn’t get my hands on it for this edition and you best believe I looked real hard for it. So for now, we’re going to omit them from the deep dive.

How is it “decaffeinated” though?

Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly (idk ur lyfe), decaffeination has been around for a long long time. Like over a century.

Back then they used benzene as a chemical solvent to remove the caffeine. Surprisingly effective, a touch carcinogenic (the chemical, not the coffee).

Today, there are several methods used to “strip” or “remove” or “extract” or “__insert another verb__” the caffeine from the bean.

There’s a lot of chemistry and bond diagrams involved in the actual caffeine removal, but because most of are not chemists (or most of us dipped out after Orgo 1, aka me), I don’t think it’s necessary to go deep into the science.

But I do think it’s worth unpacking the basic mechanics of both sides of the spectrum below because it sets some important context for us to all be *~educated consumers~*

For my bring-back-the-early-2000s-word-art readers, here is the simplified version of all the ways to decaffeinate coffee:

Artwork designed in MakeWordArt.com; Sources: Brittanica and many other SEO hungry websites.

For sake of simplicity, we’ll go cover the chemical solvent method and the “Swiss Water Method." Two very common methods and ones that were best documented in the vortex that is the internet and my own first hand research.

I’ve decided to omit the carbon dioxide method because it’s quite costly and I haven’t found all that much data about it’s popularity or utility comparatively. But I’m still learning this stuff so lmk if it’s worth adding to a future deep dive. Also you’ll have tutor me on it.

The solvent method, aka bath time with a steamy ending.

I think the easiest way to imagine how the chemical solvent method works is to look at the solvent as a very effective caffeine magnet.

Basically the solvent itself (aka methylene chloride or ethyl acetate) gets added directly into the beans or into a water solution after the beans have been soaked. They selectively bind to the caffeine molecules in either case, leave us with a mostly-caffeine-free bean (citing 97% removal).

If you’re as unhinged as I am, maybe conceptualizing it as the splish splash hit youtube video makes more sense to you:

Srsly what’s wrong with me?

Or if you prefer an actually helpful visual, I guess I liked this one:

Source

Ultimately they’re steamed off to remove the chemical residue and the caffeine. Then they’re dried and roasted.

Eventually you buy them and look like this guy from a 1930’s decaf ad who was duped into drinking decaf but surprisingly loved it:

This whole comic strip is well, bonkers. I highly recommend the 30 second read followed by the jaw drop moment.

There is reason to be wary of these chemicals on their own, especially methylene chloride. But the FDA also has guidelines in place to keep us all feeling like we can sleep at night (hehe, see what I did there).

In the case of methylene chloride, the FDA states that the final product should not exceed .001% of it (source). And when it comes to ethyl acetate (the other chemical commonly used), the FDA is cool with it too.

For decaf connoisseurs out there, they may be saying, “woah woah DPo, ethyl acetate should be called the sugarcane method because it’s naturally derived from it.” To that I say, “Ok ok, I see your point. But it’s a grey area.”

You’ll commonly see folks market it as such and I think in some cases, it might actually be a natural derivation. But in others, and certainly at scale, it’s more likely a synthetic version.

The bottom line is that the spectrum and definition of “naturally derived” is incredibly broad so I think it’s best to look at a case by case basis vs. generalizing it as “natural”

The visual in my head when I think of “naturally derived”

To push back on my own argument (lol), here’s an example from Descafecol a manufacturer that specifically calls out the use of “natural EA, not a “synthetic solvent”:

This was the only public information I could find about it. Not saying they’re lying, but it’s just hard to find all that much about it. I should probably just reach out to them.

None of this is to claim that the use of chemicals in decaffeination is intrinsically bad or good. Just an overview of how it’s supposed to go down and some of the regulations in place. The juicy stuff is coming soon I promise.

The Swiss Water Method

aka a fancy word for carbon filtration and water.

The biggest player in this space is Swiss Water and well, the process for removing caffeine with only water is called “The Swiss Water Process”. Genius. It’s been in commercial use since the 1970s, so it’s not incredibly new by any means, but it is 100% nat-ur-al. It’s also incredibly effective at removing caffeine - citing 99.9% caffeine-free (source).

The premise of it is very ingenious, but I really can’t explain it with words. Instead, here is my feeble attempt at explaining this in a cohesive-yet-DPo-way:

It’s not orange, but I needed contrast. Source: SwissWater Youtube Channel

It’s more expensive to process than using chemical solvents for a couple of reasons. First off, you have to ship the beans to their processing plant in Canada and then ship them back to get roasted. Also, it’s my understanding that the processing itself ain’t cheap.

Some well-known brands partnering with the Swiss Water folks include Allegro, Counter Culture, Stumptown, and Linea.

Broadly speaking it also seems that water processing is growing trend beyond just the craft coffee scene- even Peets is committing to decaffing their coffee this way.

Buying your beans

After all this theoretical knowledge, it might be helpful to actually apply it.

When it comes to buying your beans, you may now have more questions. Liiiiiike howwww decaffeinated are we talking here? 95.675% or 99.27373%? DPo said 97% and then 99.99%, which one is it?? Or maybe you want to know which method was used??? Swiss water? Chemical solvents?

If you were to flick flip your beans, you’d find a single ingredient listed: Decaffeinated Coffee

You will likely not find any mention of the percent removal (I have yet to find one that does).

It didn’t always use to be this way. In the past, they’d proudly advertise the percent removal. But they didn’t advertise the carcinogenic benzene so I guess some tradeoffs were made.

Full video from the Internet Archives

You best believe I scoured the FDA website to find labeling requirements for caffeine removal. No dice. I kept seeing 97% being tossed around, but couldn’t validate it against regulatory docs or even the beans themselves.

I texted Dane, a food lawyer, my conspiracy-laced questions about it. Here are snippets from our thread:

Me: Decaf coffee is not 100% decaf - I’ve seen sources site that it needs to be 97% decaf to be considered “decaf”. Where is that written?

Dane: This isn’t actually a codified FDA reg but a general guideline that some spokesperson said once.

The exact image I had in my head after reading that text.

Me: Does this mean that my decaf could be 90% caffeine?

Dane: People have kind of gathered around 97 - 99% caffeine free but I believe it’s quite variable which is why most producers don’t label percentages.

I tried to find some data points for testing done on percent caffeine removal, but since no one seems to care all that much about this, this was hard. Here’s a study done in 2006 that measured the caffeine content of decaf coffee (spoiler: there’s a big range).

So where does that leave us as consumers? Decaf yet jittery? Decaf conspiracy theorists? Naked and afraid?

Nothing is real anymore. Source

The plot thickens

There is also no labeling requirement to disclose the method of decaffeination. Blerg. This makes Research DPo say, “whaaaa?” and Regular DPo say, “whaaaa? Ehhh, I sorta get it”

But Research DPo prevailed and I went out into the wild to do some on the ground research, aka I looked at a bunch of coffee beans.

Turns out the only beans I could find proudly labeling anything on the bag itself beyond just “decaffeinated coffee” were Swiss Water processed beans. Not incredibly surprising as the method itself is highly regarded. In my head it’s the equivalent of the organic type label but for decaf coffee

Check out one bag on the left without much info and on the right, you’ll see “Water Process”

Now this became a game. Find it everywhere!!!!! Here are a few more examples of Swiss Water spottings - all were either on the front of the bag or in a description on the bag or online:

Sources: Stumptown, Allegro, Blue Bottle

Oftentimes I’ve found the online description says more about the beans than the bag, so if you’re on the hunt to find that out, I’d also look there.

If you're specifically looking to buy Swiss Water beans I also found this search tool on their website: check it out here.

No, they didn’t endorse or sponsor this Edition, but if they flew me to Canada to tour their plant I wouldn’t be mad about it.

Why does Regular DPo say, “whaaaa? Ehhh, I sorta get it.” aka my thoughts on the whole decaf thing.

As a generalization, I think as consumers we’re not always great at discerning the differences between “good” and “bad”, but when stuff is omitted, the reflex is to assume it’s bad. We then start brewing up (ayyy) lots of ideas of what else “they” could be hiding and the mistrust grows even further.

Assuming brands are following the FDA regulations, we can believe that there is a negligible amount of chemicals in the final products. Putting it on a label wouldn’t make sense. It would also just be straight up bad for business. No one would buy anything that said, “methylene chloride has been used on this product.” But to push back on that, folks will buy stuff that says, “ethyl acetate” because it’s perceived and sometimes is, a more natural alternative. So hey, maybe I’m wrong.

But it’s not totally fair to have to purely “assume” standards are being met especially given the lack of transparency all around and the need to find any sort of information outside of the bag o’ beans themselves.

When it comes to the percent decaffeination, that part trips me up a bit. Given Dane’s information about the range and the study from 2006, I don’t have the utmost faith in decaf coffee always being in the 97% range.

So ultimately, signs keep pointing me back to Swiss Water or Water Processed coffee because it’s the most well documented on all fronts: Highly effective at caffeine removal and easy to spot on the label itself… ah also, no chemicals involved. But of course this isn’t always available so that may not be possible.

Also, this is a personal decision (again, idk ur lyfe). For some, this information may not change anything about their behaviors. But for others who are explicitly trying to eliminate caffeine entirely, it’s a tough world out there with lots of grey area. Sorry friends, I don’t make the rules!!

But what about taste, DPo?

When it comes down to taste, it’s not JUST about the processing - it’s also the quality of the bean itself, the roasting process and of course the freshness. This is just one part of the whole equation.

So on Part 2 we’re doing a lil taste test to find out what brands satisfied my almost-non-existant-decaf-craving!!

What I’m cooking

Topping off our edition with some recent updates on my end - I've been cooking at Mijote, a unique french inspired restaurant here in SF. The chef, Kosuke, is brilliant and the team is amazing. Here’s a picture of one of the four courses we served on Monday. ‘Twas a delicious monkfish:

Alright folks, that’s it for Edition 22.

Much love,

DPo