Is there such a thing as truly excellent decaf?

[Fat Guy]

I haven't found it. Is it out there?

[Holly Moore]

No

[slkinsey]

I'm with Holly.

No such thing.

[fresco]

You might as well ask, "Is there such a thing as truly excellent dealcoholized beer or wine." Defeats the whole purpose.

[slkinsey]

Is there such a thing as truly excellent lowfat butter?

[fresco]

Flavored coffee?

[Fat Guy]

I don't buy these analogies. Caffeine is flavorless, odorless, colorless, is it not? So how is it analogous to the fat in butter (which is responsible for so many of butter's properties)? And the stimulant effect of coffee is something plenty of people would rather live without.

Were it possible to remove all the caffeine from coffee without doing any damage whatsoever to anything else about the coffee, could anybody here actually taste a difference? It seems unlikely.

The problem seems to be that the processes for removing caffeine from coffee ruin the coffee. At least, that's the case with the beans I've tried. I was just wondering if anybody had come across a method that works any better than what I've encountered.

[fresco]

A big part of the pleasure in drinking coffee comes from the caffeine, the flavor quite aside.

Butter is not butter without fat.

Etc.

[Jason Perlow]

I don't buy these analogies. Caffeine is flavorless, odorless, colorless, is it not? So how is it analogous to the fat in butter (which is responsible for so many of butter's properties)? And the stimulant effect of coffee is something plenty of people would rather live without.

Were it possible to remove all the caffeine from coffee without doing any damage whatsoever to anything else about the coffee, could anybody here actually taste a difference? It seems unlikely.

The problem seems to be that the processes for removing caffeine from coffee ruin the coffee. At least, that's the case with the beans I've tried. I was just wondering if anybody had come across a method that works any better than what I've encountered.

I've had some swiss process decaf 100 percent Kona by Bay View Farms in Hawaii. Its expensive shit. But quite good. $25 a pound.

http://nisbet.net/mivastore/merchant.mv?Sc...duct_Code=Decaf

[slkinsey]

I was only joking about the butter. But seriously, do you know what happens when coffee beans are decaffeinated? The green beans are soaked in water (or a solvent) until the caffeine and the flavor agents have been dissolved into the liquid. Then the beans are removed from the liquid and the caffeine is removed from the liquid, theoretically leaving behind all the flavor agents in the liquid. Finally the beans are recombined with the liquid where they supposedly reabsorb the flavor agents (minus caffeine), after which process they are dried and ready for roasting, etc. This does not strike me as a recipe for great-tasting coffee.

[Fat Guy]

A big part of the pleasure in drinking coffee comes from the caffeine, the flavor quite aside.

Butter is not butter without fat.

Etc.

I would not say that's the case for all coffee drinkers. Some people just like it because it tastes good, but find the stimulant effect to be a net negative. I really don't see how it's at all similar to the question of fat in butter. The presence or absence of fat in butter fundamentally affects the way it tastes, affects baked goods, etc. The presence or absence of caffeine in coffee affects only a discrete stimulant property.

[Jason Perlow]

I was only joking about the butter.  But seriously, do you know what happens when coffee beans are decaffeinated?  The green beans are soaked in water (or a solvent) until the caffeine and the flavor agents have been dissolved into the liquid.  Then the beans are removed from the liquid and the caffeine is removed from the liquid, theoretically leaving behind all the flavor agents in the liquid.  Finally the beans are recombined with the liquid where they supposedly reabsorb the flavor agents (minus caffeine), after which process they are dried and ready for roasting, etc.  This does not strike me as a recipe for great-tasting coffee.

My understanding is there are different decaffination processes. The "Swiss Process" is not supposed to do this.

http://www.swisswater.com/direct.htm

[slkinsey]

I was only joking about the butter.  But seriously, do you know what happens when coffee beans are decaffeinated?  The green beans are soaked in water (or a solvent) until the caffeine and the flavor agents have been dissolved into the liquid.  Then the beans are removed from the liquid and the caffeine is removed from the liquid, theoretically leaving behind all the flavor agents in the liquid.  Finally the beans are recombined with the liquid where they supposedly reabsorb the flavor agents (minus caffeine), after which process they are dried and ready for roasting, etc.  This does not strike me as a recipe for great-tasting coffee.

My understanding is there are different decaffination processes. The "Swiss Process" is not supposed to do this.

Jason, that is the Swiss process... otherwise known as the "Swiss Water Process" to indicate that it uses water rather than a chemical solvent to dissolve the caffeine and flavor agents. This page from the swisswater.com site you referenced illustrates the exact process I describe above.

Edited to add: the swisswater.com people's use of "used" soaking water may mitigate the dissolution of flavor agents into the soaking water I don't see is any way it could prevent it entirely or even mostly. For sure, the more careful the decaffeinization process, the better tasting the coffee. But the fact is that they're monkeying with the beans and there is no way decaf can ever taste as good as regular made from the same beans.

Edited November 29, 2003 by slkinsey (log)

[fresco]

But that "discrete stimulant property" was, I think, a big reason that people drank coffee for centuries. Coffee without the caffeine is, in my view, an entirely different category of beverage.

[tommy]

The problem seems to be that the processes for removing caffeine from coffee ruin the coffee. At least, that's the case with the beans I've tried. I was just wondering if anybody had come across a method that works any better than what I've encountered.

rare earth magnets.

[Jason Perlow]

http://www.swisswater.com/sources/swmovie/swmovie.html

Click on the link to view the flash movie

EDIT: Yeah, ok Sam, I get it.

[tommy]

But that "discrete stimulant property" was, I think, a big reason that people drank coffee for centuries. Coffee without the caffeine is, in my view, an entirely different category of beverage.

it's also an improvement on the same beverage for a lot of people.

[Fat Guy]

The site makes the point that the "flavor saturated water" uses osmosis to prevent the flavor from coming out of the beans; only the caffeine comes out, according to that site. Could this be correct?

[slkinsey]

The site makes the point that the "flavor saturated water" uses osmosis to prevent the flavor from coming out of the beans; only the caffeine comes out, according to that site. Could this be correct?

As stated above, I don't see how it could possibly prevent the dissolution of flavor agents into the soaking water entirely or even mostly. In order for that to be the case, the soaking water would have to be literally saturated with all of the flavor compounds, which is to say "a solution that is unable to absorb or dissolve any more of a solute at a given temperature and pressure." I hardly see how this could be the case, and if it were I cannot but imagine that the use of a saturated liquid as the soaking medium would inhibit the dissolution of the caffeine into the soaking liquid.

[Jason Perlow]

The site makes the point that the "flavor saturated water" uses osmosis to prevent the flavor from coming out of the beans; only the caffeine comes out, according to that site. Could this be correct?

Yes. They're wasting a whole bunch of beans to saturate the water with the coffee essence so that when they put the next batch in, those beans have the caffeine drawn out thru reverse osmosis, but the flavor in those beans stay in. Thats why decaf coffee is so expensive using this process because they have to waste whole batches of beans to make the flavor saturated water for the caffeine to seep into.

http://www.swisswater.com/general.asp?ac=&id=90&pg=141

[Fat Guy]

The site makes the point that the "flavor saturated water" uses osmosis to prevent the flavor from coming out of the beans; only the caffeine comes out, according to that site. Could this be correct?

As stated above, I don't see how it could possibly prevent the dissolution of flavor agents into the soaking water entirely or even mostly. In order for that to be the case, the soaking water would have to be literally saturated with all of the flavor compounds, which is to say "a solution that is unable to absorb or dissolve any more of a solute at a given temperature and pressure." I hardly see how this could be the case, and if it were I cannot but imagine that the use of a saturated liquid as the soaking medium would inhibit the dissolution of the caffeine into the soaking liquid.

It doesn't have to be saturated, does it? It just has to have enough of the stuff in it that the osmotic pressure is greater than the whatever-the-hell gradient of the something-or-other of the same compounds in the beans, right?

[Varmint]

Correct, and remember different solutes have different saturation concentrations in different solvents. Gee, this is fun!

[slkinsey]

Fundamentally, the only difference between the various methods of high-end caffeine removal is the mechanism by which the caffeine is removed. This from "Home Coffee Roasting" by Kenneth Davids:

Three principal processes are used today in the world of fancy or specialty coffees: the traditional or European process, the water-only or Swiss-Water process and the CO2-water or Sparkling-Water process.  ALl are consistently successful at removing all but a trace (2 to 3 percent) of the resident caffeine. ...

In the water-only [aka "Swiss-Water"] process the caffeins is removed by means of activated charcoal filters.  In the traditional or European process the caffeine is removed by means of a solvent, usually ethyl acetate.  The solvent selectively unites with the caffeine, floats to the surfacew of the hot water, and both caffeine and solvent are skimmed off the surface, leaving only the flavor agents behind. ...

The water-only approach is attractive to consumers because it uses no chemicals.  The traditional or European process has fallen out of favor because of the sinister notion that a solvent is involved in the procedure.  Reassurances that (1) the solvent never touches the coffee itself; (2) the most widely used solvent, ethyl acetate, has not been implicated in health of environmental issues; and (3) the solvent is so volatile that any trace that persists through the process is undoubtedly burned off during roasting, together constitute too complex a response for most coffee drinkers. ...

Traditional or European-process decaffeinated coffees continue to appear in stores because they're a bit cheaper than the water-only kind, and because some coffee professionals find that they better retain the characteristics of the original coffees. ...

The Sparkling-Water process ... soaks the caffeine out of the beans with compressed carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous and altogether harmless substance.

[slkinsey]

It doesn't have to be saturated, does it? It just has to have enough of the stuff in it that the osmotic pressure is greater than the whatever-the-hell gradient of the something-or-other of the same compounds in the beans, right?

Ah... right. (Me: "duuuuh.")

But. I still don't see how the "saturated" soaking liquid could have so much of the flavor stuff in it that none of the flavor agents would be dissolved into the soaking liquid and still be effective at dissolving 97% of the caffeine.

Maybe I don't quite get it, though. If one had a solid substance that contained a lot of sugar and a lot of salt, would it be possible to soak that substance in a sugar solution such that 97% of the salt was dissolved into the soaking medium and none of the sugar?

[Varmint]

Without looking into it, Sam, think of it this way: there's a substantial difference in the water solubility of the flavor agents and the caffeine. Now, that may not be the case, but it's what I'd guess.