The Mystery of Decaffeinated Coffee by Gary Gresham

It's referred to as Swiss Water Process because a Swiss company originally developed and patented the procedure.

Carbon Dioxide Processing

With this method the beans are soaked with water-softened materials in highly compressed carbon dioxide. The small caffeine molecules are extracted from the beans allowing the larger flavor molecules to remain untouched. This method retains the best overall flavor of all of the methods used.

Not all of the caffeine is completely removed with any of these current methods. To qualify as decaffeinated coffee in the United States, coffee must have at least 97 percent of its caffeine removed.

Coffee beans are decaffeinated before they are roasted because that's when it has the least effect on the beans flavor.

The reason decaffeinated coffee costs more is because of the additional labor, equipment and material needed to remove the caffeine.

So what do they do with all of that caffeine? The extracted caffeine is manufactured and used mostly in medicines and soft drinks.

As an example, the caffeine content in soft drinks mainly comes from the caffeine extracted from these decaffeination processes. The kola nut accounts for less than 5 percent of the caffeine in cola drinks.

For the past 30 years scientists have done extensive research on coffee and the effects of caffeine. New research has even shown that caffeine has many positive effects.

Some of these effects include more energy, the ability to concentrate better and has even been used as an appetite suppressant.

But not all scientists agree with these findings and coffee and the effects of caffeine will continue to be thoroughly researched.

There will always be a market for decaffeinated coffee because some people just love their coffee without the caffeine buzz.

The rest of the 100 million regular coffee drinkers either love their coffee for the wonderful flavor or enjoy the effects of a caffeine boost. For most of us, I'm sure it's a little of both.

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BIO:

Gary Gresham is the webmaster for http://www.perfectcoffees.com where you can purchase quality coffee, tea, cups & mugs, coffee gifts and delicious desserts online. He offers a free monthly coffee newsletter with articles like these at
http://www.perfectcoffees.com/newsletter.html

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