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TIL about one of the solvents involved, ethyl acetate, and the fact that it is not good for you. How do I know that my local coffee shop's machine is working correctly and provides only safe levels of this solvent?
The decaf process seems expensive so you might expect the end result to cost more, but it never does. Which means either the producers are making less profit on decaf, or they are using lower quality beans. If the latter is true, which seems more likely, that might explain why decaf sometimes tastes less good, separately from the effect of the process itself on taste.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m a big advocate for replacing coffee with cacao. I drink it in the morning instead of coffee. Made from raw cacao paste and hot water, I use an immersion blender to mix it well and then add half and half for flavor. Way more nutrients than coffee and the theobromine is much gentler than caffeine and lasts all day.
Huh! Gonna have to try that!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the extracted caffeine has some market value that can make up for some of the cost of extracting it.
Dry Arabica beans are about 1.5% caffeine by weight. Synthetic caffeine costs maybe $40 per kilogram, wholesale. A kilogram of beans could have perhaps $0.60 worth of caffeine extracted from it, unless there's a price premium for "all natural" caffeine extracted from beans.
Bit of an eye roll from me, but hey whatever.
The decaf process seems expensive so you might expect the end result to cost more, but it never does. Which means either the producers are making less profit on decaf, or they are using lower quality beans. If the latter is true, which seems more likely, that might explain why decaf sometimes tastes less good, separately from the effect of the process itself on taste.
They use higher-caffeine beans for decaf coffee - Robusta instead of Arabica. Robusta beans aren't considered as good so they're cheaper, and they sell the caffeine they extract to e.g. soda companies.
The decaf process seems expensive so you might expect the end result to cost more, but it never does. Which means either the producers are making less profit on decaf, or they are using lower quality beans. If the latter is true, which seems more likely, that might explain why decaf sometimes tastes less good, separately from the effect of the process itself on taste.
There is value in having flat pricing across all your products. Especially if some of them aren't as popular, yet might driving purchasing decisions.
Consider cafes that need to stock decaf, but want to buy from a single supplier. If you don't have decaf you're not going to see their custom, despite their order largely being non-decaf.
So they'll want to supply decaf, but in order to encourage the sale of it (so they can reach a better economy of scale) keep the price the same as the equivalent non-decaf.
A good video explanation from James Hoffman: https://youtu.be/yYTSdlOdkn0 And a quick follow up: https://youtu.be/IszQ2JR3Olc
The decaf process seems expensive so you might expect the end result to cost more, but it never does. Which means either the producers are making less profit on decaf, or they are using lower quality beans. If the latter is true, which seems more likely, that might explain why decaf sometimes tastes less good, separately from the effect of the process itself on taste.
The German inventor of a decaf process sold the extracted coffein separately in pills, which might have given him a second income: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Roselius
I wonder why we don't use genetic modifications to get caffeine free coffee?
At least part of the reason coffee plants produce caffeine is as a defense mechanism from insects. If you genetically engineer out the caffeine, your effort to farm the plant just went up if you aren't also able to genetically engineer insect resistance.
What I've never seen quoted is a comparison of caffeine's toxicity to insects compared with other common plant toxins (pyrethrins, terpenes etc.) and whether its toxicity is aimed at insects that specificly attack coffee beans.
As far as I'm aware caffeine isn't used as an insecticide whereas pyrethrins are commonly used (but both have comparatively low toxicity in humans). Why I ask is that pyrethrins are effective against a broad spectrum of insects, that caffeine isn't used could imply its action is narrow and only targets a specific species of insect.
No doubt this info is buried somewhere deep in the scientific literature and or within pesticide manufacturers' papers but it's curious it isn't common knowledge given the ubiquity of caffeine.
Perhaps those in the coffee business don't want it known in case it affects business. :-)