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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

How is the caffeine in decaffeinated coffee extracted?

Question by Emperial_Guard_09: How is the caffeine in decaffeinated coffee extracted?
I was discussing this with my co-worker. I told him decaffeinated tea leaves are plucked early in order for it to have less caffeine, so maybe in the case of coffee maybe the beans are picked early. Does anyone know the answer?


Best answer:

Answer by auguman
the beans are steamed then the caffeine is removed probably using solvent



Add your own answer in the comments!

1 comment:

  1. In the case of coffee, various methods can be used. The process is usually performed on unroasted (green) beans, and starts with steaming of the beans. They are then rinsed in solvent that contains as much of the chemical composition of coffee as possible without also containing the caffeine in a soluble form. The process is repeated anywhere from 8 to 12 times until it meets either the international standard of having removed 97% of the caffeine in the beans or the EU standard of having the beans 99.9% caffeine free by mass. Coffee contains over 400 chemicals important to the taste and aroma of the final drink; this effectively means that no physical process or chemical reaction will remove only caffeine while leaving the other chemicals at their original concentrations.

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