S1: Episode 7: All You Need To Know About Decaf
All about decaffeinated coffee, or decaf for short. All coffee naturally contains caffeine so any coffee that is labelled as decaf has to have gone through a manufacturing process to remove its caffeine. This episode covers what’s involved in that process and how decaffeination affects the way coffee brews and tastes. This week’s FACQ asks just how decaffeinated is decaf coffee?
As mentioned, you can read more about decaf in this article on the Consumer Reports website.
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This shows how the decaffeination process affects the colour of the raw coffee. Although the coffee beans on the left labelled ‘Decaf’ appear to be roasted due to their brownish colour, they are in fact raw (uncooked). For comparison, both of the coffees shown here are from Colombia. The colour of any coffee that goes through a decaffeination process will be affected in the same way as the beans on the left.
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Hello and welcome to The Coffee Drinker’s Guide, a podcast for the coffee curious where I explore and explain the world of specialty coffee to make your daily coffee better and more satisfying.
I’m Angela Holder a coffee roaster and writer on a mission to fight back against bad coffee by giving you the knowledge you need to help you get good coffee and a happier (coffee) life in coffee-break sized episodes. So grab your coffee, pull up a chair and take a break…
This week's episode is all about decaffeinated coffee, or decaf, for short. We are gong to cover all the essential Need To Know facts about decaf…… and later I’ll be answering a question about just how decaffeinated decaf coffee is….
I can’t remember who said it or where I heard it but someone once pointed out that people who drink decaf coffee are the real coffee lovers. Why? Because they don’t get the caffeine hit but want to drink coffee anyway. Whoever said it, they have a point. It has to be said that decaf coffee has historically had a poor reputation - for well, not tasting much like coffee at all - but things have thankfully changed. For those of us who want to enjoy a coffee in the evening and still get a full night’s sleep or who simply can’t tolerate caffeine but still want to drink coffee the decaf options have never been so good…
In this episode I am mixing up my usual segment order so firstly decaf and the bean
Lets start with a question. Why does coffee contain caffeine in the first place? Coffee plants naturally produce caffeine as a defence mechanism to protect themselves against insect attack. Aside from using it to protect their leaves, the plants also use it to protect their most precious asset: their seeds. Coffee seeds are the beans that we brew coffee from - so that explains why coffee has caffeine in it. A few years ago rumours of a naturally caffeine free Ethiopian coffee variety got the coffee world very excited - but as far as I know, beans from this mythical variety have yet to be produced for sale. Contrary to what some people think, you can’t decaffeinate coffee by roasting it. So any coffee that is labelled as decaf has to have gone through a manufacturing process to remove its caffeine. Certified decaffeinated coffee is produced by taking normal raw beans and putting them through a process which uses a solvent to remove the caffeine from the bean. Regardless of the type of solvent used, the first step involves steaming or soaking the beans prior to the application of the caffeine removing agent. After the decaffeination process the beans are dried again and repacked to be sold to roasters as decaffeinated coffee. If you want to read more about the ins and outs of decaf coffee, I’ll put a link to an article about it in the show notes. Coffee that has been decaffeinated roasts a little differently than regular coffee due to the processes it has gone through so roasters have to take that into account when planning their roasts. The most noticeable difference for the consumer is that roasted decaf beans look a lot darker than their un-decaffeinated counterparts - even when roasted to a light or medium level. This is because the process the beans go through changes the raw bean colour from green to a kind of taupe colour. I’ll put a photo in the show notes too to show you just how different the raw beans look. The roasted beans will also quickly develop oily spots on their surfaces due to the bean pores being opened as part of the decaffeination process to allow the solvent to access the caffeine inside.
Next decaf and the taste
Any coffee can be processed to become decaffeinated so in theory decaf coffee flavours should encompass the wide variety of flavours available in coffee generally. However, the decaffeination process does affect the flavour of the beans to a lesser or greater extent, depending on the method used. The least pleasant tasting decaf is processed using synthetic chemical solvents such as methylene chloride which makes the coffee taste, to me at least, hardly like coffee at all. The exception to this is the Sugarcane processing method which uses the chemical Ethyl Acetate derived from fermenting sugarcane to remove caffeine from the beans. While it can make the coffee taste a little fruiter, it does actually still taste like coffee. Other decaffeination methods that avoid the use of harsh chemical solvents also manage to produce coffee that tastes like coffee, but they do also have an impact on the flavour. These other methods are the liquid carbon dioxide method, and the Water process method. Of these, my least favourite is the liquid carbon dioxide process which to me makes the coffee taste cardboardy or woody. Water Processed decafs are arguably the best as the coffee keeps more of its original flavour. With all decafs, the processing that the green beans go through means that they tend to age faster making them taste woody sooner than they would normally do if undecaffeinated. It should be noted that despite the fact that caffeine is bitter, removing it does not make the coffee much less bitter as many other bitter tasting compounds are developed during roasting. I’ll be talking about bitterness in coffee in an upcoming episode so look out for when that drops, and if you haven’t already, hit subscribe if you are interested to know more about the bitterness in your coffee.
And finally decaf and the brew
Just like regular coffee, decaffeinated coffee can be brewed using any brewing method. As I mentioned back in Episode 4, the main thing to note is that the grind size is likely to need tweaking to get a good brew. In my experience, the grind for brewing espresso needs to be finer than you would use for ‘normal’ caffeinated coffee but coarser than for normal coffee when brewing by the filter method. Go figure. When you buy a new decaf coffee - by which I mean from a different origin or a new roaster - expect to spend a little time fiddling around with your grind settings from brew to brew to get it right. Or if you buy pre-ground coffee you may need to adjust the variables of your usual brewing method such as the amount of coffee or water used, brew time and so on to get a brew that hits the spot for you.
In each episode I answer a Frequently Asked Coffee Question
This episode’s question is:
Just how decaffeinated is decaf coffee?
No decaffeination process will guarantee that the coffee is 100% caffeine free. The usual percentage given is that the coffee is 94% to 97% caffeine free after processing, although the trademarked Swiss Water® Process decaf claims to be 99.9% caffeine free. So if you are highly sensitive to caffeine, sadly you need to be aware that just about any decaf coffee you drink will have trace amounts of caffeine in it. Sorry.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide and that was all about decaf coffee. I hope you found this useful. Let me know if you have tried decaf coffee and what you thought about it. If you are a regular decaf drinker do you have any hints and tips you’d like to share to help people get the best out of it and do you have a preference when it comes to the decaf processing method? I’d love to know. In the next episode we are getting into freshness in coffee: does it matter and can we trust best before dates on packets? Hit subscribe so that you don’t miss it and find out. If you know someone who is also into coffee please tell them about the show and rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts to help other coffee curious people find the show too. If you have a question about coffee or a topic that you would like me to cover please get in touch. I’m on Instagram @thecoffeedrinkersguide or email me at thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com. Thanks to my executive producer Viel Richardson at Lusona Publishing and Media Limited. You can find him at lusonapub.co.uk. Until next time I’m Angela Holder thanks for sharing your coffee break with me - the best way to tackle life is one coffee at a time and here’s to better coffee!
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