Decaf Coffee Beans
Caffeine is natural to coffee beans. When you want decaffeinated (decaf) coffee beans you must subject the coffee bean to a process whereby the caffeine is removed from the bean. The official ability for beans to be labeled "Decaf Coffee Beans" in North America is when it has over 97 percent of the caffeine removed. In Europe the standard is 99.9 percent of the caffeine removed.
There are several methods to remove the caffeine from a bean. Each of these methods is relatively complicated. The reason it is complicated is because there are hundreds of chemicals in every coffee bean that creates the flavor of coffee. The process of making the beans into decaf coffee beans is a process that strips the bean of caffeine. Now you can see why the process is complicated. The caffeine chemical needs to be removed while leaving all of the other chemicals in place.
The first process to remove caffeine from the beans was called the Roselius method. This method was perfected in 1903. This method was abandoned due to the unsafe chemicals involved in the process. The next process was called the Swiss Water method. This is the least difficult of all the methods and uses a process of soaking and filtration. This is the method small coffee roasters use due to its relative simplicity compared to the other methods. In addition to these methods there are several others including the direct process, the indirect process, the CO2 method, and the triglyceride method. All of these methods are in use today. Each preferred by different coffee roasters.
Once the beans have been decaffeinated the caffeine content usually ends up at around 2 to 8 milligrams caffeine per cup of coffee. Obviously, due to the higher standards for decaf coffee beans in Europe, a cup of decaf coffee there has less than 1 milligram of caffeine.
In an effort to get around the "processing" of the beans to make them into decaf coffee beans there is ongoing agricultural research in the area of developing a plant that will naturally grow decaf coffee beans. This process is still in development but research is promising for this new plant. It was pioneered in Brazil and has been the subject of research since 2004.
Decaf coffee beans are readily available. You can purchase beans that have had the caffeine stripped away from any number of different processes. Soon you will be able to purchase decaf coffee beans that have been grown that way naturally. So whatever your taste, you should be able to find yourself decaf coffee beans to make your desired cup of coffee.
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