How is decaffeinated coffee processed

German chemist Friedlieb F. Runge is often considered the godfather of caffeine because he was the first scientist to isolate caffeine from coffee in In , Ludwig Roselius, a German coffee salesman, patented the first decaffeination process for commercial use which involved steaming green coffee beans with water and various acids and then using Benzene as a solvent to dissolve the caffeine.

Caffeine is removed from coffee beans while they are green. Green coffee beans are beans that have been harvested, removed from the fruit and dried but have not yet been roasted. Once green coffee beans are ready for decaffeination there are a few different methods for removing caffeine in use today. Solvent-based decaffeination utilizes Ethyl acetate found in ripening fruit and alcohol or Methylene chloride solvents applied directly or indirectly to green coffee beans to dissolve the naturally occurring caffeine.

The US Food and Drug Administration has determined that neither of these solvents poses a health risk, but some coffee connoisseurs find that coffee decaffeinated with a solvent-based method has less flavor and depth than coffee decaffeinated by other means. In a nutshell, the Swiss Water Process relies on caffeine solubility dissolvability and osmosis to remove caffeine from green coffee beans. To begin the decaffeination process, green coffee beans are soaked in hot water to dissolve the caffeine.

Although methylene chloride CH 2 Cl 2 , aka dichloromethane in Europe or MC, is a solvent, its use as a decaffeination agent is not considered a health risk. While the FDA regulation allows up to ten parts per million ppm residual methylene chloride, actual coffee industry practice result in levels closer to one part per million. Furthermore, while it is probable that traces of the solvent remain in the decaffeinated beans it seems very unlikely that methylene chloride would survive the roasting process.

This colorless liquid is highly volatile and vaporizes at degrees F. Now if you take into consideration that coffee is roasted at a minimum of degrees F for at least 15 minutes, and that proper brewing temperature is at about degrees F, it seems unlikely that much if any methylene chloride would end up in your cup of Java.

However, because of the impracticality of gathering natural ethyl acetate and its cost, the chemical used for decaffeination appears to be synthetic. Ethyl acetate is produced commercially from ethyl alcohol and acetic acid, which in turn may be produced from natural ingredients or petroleum derivatives. Ethyl acetate, like methylene chloride, is very volatile and hence the point made above also applies here. In the indirect-solvent method the coffee beans are soaked in near boiling water for several hours, which extracts the caffeine as well as other flavor elements and oils from the beans.

The water is then separated and transferred to another tank where the beans are washed for about 10 hours with either methylene chloride or ethyl acetate. The molecules of the chemical solvent selectively bond with the molecules of caffeine and the resulting mixture is then heated to evaporate the solvent and caffeine. Lastly, the beans are reintroduced to the liquid to reabsorb most of the coffee oils and flavor elements.

This method is very popular in Europe, especially in Germany, and primarily uses methylene chloride as solvent.

In this method of decaffeination the beans are steamed for about 30 minutes in order to open their pores. Once the coffee beans are receptive to a solvent, they are repeatedly rinsed with either methylene chloride or ethyl acetate for about 10 hours to remove the caffeine.

The caffeine-laden solvent is then drained away and the beans are steamed again to remove any residual solvent. Typically, if a process is not named for a decaffeinated coffee, it has been treated by either the direct or indirect solvent methods. This chemical-free water decaffeination process was pioneered in Switzerland in and developed as a commercially viable method of decaffeination by Coffex S.

In the Swiss Water Method was finally introduced to the market and its facility is based near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In addition, they are also certified Kosher by the Kosher Overseers Association. Rather, it relies entirely on two concepts, namely solubility and osmosis, to decaffeinate coffee beans. It begins by soaking a batch of beans in very hot water in order to dissolve the caffeine. The water is then drawn off and passed through an activated charcoal filter.

In , Goethe saw the chemist Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge demonstrate how deadly nightshade extract could dilate a cat's pupils. Impressed, Goethe gave Runge a small box of coffee beans from Greece and tasked the chemist with figuring out why the stuff kept him up at night. A couple of years later, Runge became the first scientist to isolate and identify caffeine. Those who are extra-sensitive to the jittery effects of a cup of strong coffee probably won't be surprised to hear that the discoverer of the stimulant had a penchant for working with deadly substances ; his colleagues and students allegedly nicknamed him "Doktor Gift," which means "Dr.

Poison" in German. According to the Max Planck Institute , it took almost another years after Runge's discovery before scientists figured out how to extract caffeine from coffee and still have a beverage that tasted somewhat like the real thing.

Generally, decaffeination involves water-logging coffee beans when they're still green before roasting so that the caffeine inside can be made soluble, meaning that it can be dissolved.

But there are different ways of washing that caffeine out of the beans. The first commercially successful decaffeination method was invented around , by German coffee merchant Ludwig Roselius. According to Atlas Obscura , one bit of lore about the origins of decaf claims that Roselius received a shipment of coffee beans that was soaked in seawater. Instead of tossing the beans, Roselius decided to process and test them. He found that the coffee had been stripped of its caffeine content but still basically tasted like coffee, albeit a bit salty.