Decaffeination is a Long and Challenging Process

Decaffeination is a complicated process of removing caffeine from coffee beans, cocoa, tea and other caffeine-containing materials. In the de-caffeination process not all of the caffeine is removed. There is still 1-2% of the original caffeine retained. There are various ways of removing caffeine from materials. In the case of coffee it starts with unroasted green beans.

The beans are streamed and rinsed with a solvent that extracts the caffeine. The process is repeated from 8-12 times until about 97% of the caffeine is removed. The process does not affect the other essential chemicals that are important to the taste and aroma of the beverage. That is the reason why decaf coffee beans are more expensive. It is a long and challenging process to remove caffeine from the beans while retaining other chemicals at their original concentrations.

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