How is coffee decaffeinated?

With water or carbon dioxide, before roasting. Good raw material makes good decaf.

Caffeine is extracted from the green coffee, before roasting. There are several processes:

Swiss Water: the green beans are soaked in water and the caffeine is then captured on an activated carbon filter. No chemical solvents, and it preserves the flavour well.

Carbon dioxide: high-pressure supercritical CO₂ dissolves the caffeine selectively. Here the CO₂ itself is the solvent — no chemical solvents — and it is efficient at scale.

Sugarcane-based (ethyl acetate): common in Colombia, using ethyl acetate obtained from fermenting sugarcane. Naturally derived, and many people think it preserves the sweetness best.

Why so much decaf is bad: because it is made from poor raw material. Decaffeination is hard on the bean by itself, and if you start with mediocre coffee the result will be flat.

With us: all three of our decafs come from a lot grown by the ASOMUJER women’s producer association in Colombia — Timaná (light), Pereira (medium), Manizales (dark). The same logic as every other lot.

Is there any caffeine left? Yes, a little. In the EU, decaf roasted coffee may contain at most 0.1% caffeine in dry matter; in practice 97–99% of the caffeine is removed. So a cup holds roughly as much as a cup of decaffeinated tea.

Taste it