It is a lazy Monday morning. You are sulking in your chair. You do not want to get involved in any kind of work but you already have deadlines to meet and tasks to complete.
It is a lazy Monday morning. You are sulking in your chair. You do not want to get involved in any kind of work but you already have deadlines to meet and tasks to complete. So you make yourself a cup of coffee and you as soon as you take the first sip of the beverage, you are feeling energetic. There is a surge of energy, your sluggishness has been warded off by the roasted beans. So what makes coffee so special? The thing is everybody likes to have a cup of coffee. Some like to have a frappe, some prefer the classic cappuccino, some like their coffee freshly brewed while some fitness enthusiasts go for black coffee. Not only this, but people having coffee also have different reasons. Some coffee drinkers claim that it helps them to get through the day, while some people drink only because they have a sheer likeliness for the taste of the coffee. Well, whatever might be the reason, you can always ask someone for a cup of coffee and the answer will most likely be in affirmative. But there are some people who have a problem with the caffeine present in the coffee. For example, people with diuretic problems or people with high blood pressure are advised to stay away from caffeine based products. Hence they enjoy the decaffeinated coffee. The decaffeinated coffee is popularly known as decaf. The coffee is without caffeine and tastes very much similar to normal coffee. You might be wondering how is this possible? Well here are the processes that are used to manufacture decaffeinated coffee.
1. Roselius process
This process was invented by Ludwig Roselius in the early 1900s and thus the name. Roselius was certain that the caffeine in the coffee was the cause of his father’s death and considered caffeine to be poisonous. So he tried to extract caffeine from coffee beans. In his case, he ironically ended up making the beans even more deadly after extracting the caffeine. The process involved steaming of beans with salt water soluting and then using a benzene solution to extract the caffeine out of them. It was not discovered back in the 1900s but benzene is a well known carcinogen. After this discovery, this process has been abandoned and is no longer practiced.
2. Chemical based
This process also involves chemical but it is not as deadly as the Roselius process. In this process, a solvent such as ethyl acetate or methylene chloride is added to coffee beans. The coffee beans may be directly soaked in the solvents or they can be soaked in water so that water absorbs the caffeine from the beans and then these solvents are added. Whatever might be the method, it has been scientifically proven that very small amounts of these solvents can be found in the coffee beans and they are also present after the beans have crushed to a powder form. But the solvents get removed in brewing the coffee and this fact also has scientific backing to it.
3. Swiss water process
Swiss water process does not involve the use of any chemicals or reagents to make you a cup of decaf coffee. The first step in this process involves the soaking of the coffee beans in a highly heated water solution. The solution is the residue from the previous cycle of the swiss water process. A charcoal filter is used to remove the caffeine from this highly caffeinated solution. The only residue is the flavorless beans. New coffee beans are then made to go through the same process and then you get the decaf coffee.
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