What Does Low-Caffeine Coffee Mean? Starbucks Low-Caffeine Coffee Content | Low-Caffeine Coffee

Understanding Low-Caffeine Coffee

Coffee is an essential daily beverage for many people—not just for boosting energy or refreshing the mind, but as a lifestyle choice. However, many individuals cannot enjoy delicious coffee due to fears that caffeine will cause sleeplessness. Could it be that drinking the wrong type of coffee is causing your concerns about insomnia or heart palpitations? Perhaps we should explore what low-caffeine coffee truly is.

The Scapegoat: Alkaloids Are the Real Culprit

It's important to understand that "alkaloids, not caffeine, are the initiators." Caffeine isn't exclusive to coffee—it's also found in tea, cola, and even energy drinks. Yet we rarely hear about people experiencing heart palpitations from drinking tea or cola, while coffee often triggers this response. Why is this the case?

Caffeine itself isn't the culprit; the real issue lies with alkaloids. When coffee cherries are harvested before fully ripening, or when coffee beans aren't properly roasted during processing, alkaloid residues remain. These alkaloids then release into the coffee during brewing. When we consume this coffee, our bodies attempt to eliminate these toxins, resulting in heart palpitations—a natural poisoning response where the body accelerates heart rate and contraction power to quickly metabolize and expel the toxins.

What Is Low-Caffeine Coffee?

The definition of low-caffeine coffee is coffee that, after processing, contains no more than 0.1% caffeine by weight of green beans. Starbucks' standard (which also serves as a general international standard) requires reducing caffeine content to less than 3% of its original amount. This can only be called "low-caffeine coffee" rather than "decaffeinated coffee."

Commercial low-caffeine coffee is readily available online, and even Starbucks sells it. However, because low-caffeine coffee undergoes processing that reduces caffeine content, it also loses many of the inherent flavors that coffee should have. This defeats the original purpose of drinking coffee.

Processing Methods for Low-Caffeine Coffee

Indirect Solvent Method

In this method, coffee beans are soaked in near-boiling water for several hours, which extracts caffeine and many flavor compounds into the water. The water is then separated from the beans and mixed with either dichloromethane or ethyl acetate. These chemical molecules break down the caffeine, which is then evaporated through heating. The final liquid is reintroduced to the coffee beans, allowing them to reabsorb coffee oils and aromas. This method is quite popular in Europe and is also known as the European method, dichloromethane method, or European process.

Direct Solvent Method

This method involves steaming coffee beans for about thirty minutes to open their pores through heat. Then, solvents—typically dichloromethane or ethyl acetate—are added for rinsing. After about ten hours, the caffeine is removed, the solvents are discarded, and the coffee beans are re-steamed to eliminate any residual chemical traces. This method typically uses ethyl acetate and is sometimes called the natural decaffeination method or ethyl acetate method.

Swiss Water Process

When coffee beans are soaked in warm water, caffeine dissolves into the water. Using activated carbon equipment, the caffeine is filtered out, and the resulting solution is returned to the coffee beans. This method doesn't use chemical solvents, but coffee loses many of its flavors during the filtration process.

High-Pressure Carbon Dioxide Extraction

In this method, coffee beans soaked in water are placed in stainless steel containers. High pressure causes released carbon dioxide to become liquid, which then extracts the caffeine. This carbon dioxide liquid then returns to room temperature and becomes gas again. Due to cost considerations, this method is typically used for large quantities of coffee beans—brands that can be found in supermarkets often use this approach.

Caffeine Content in Low-Caffeine Coffee

If you want to reduce caffeine intake when drinking coffee, it's actually related to coffee bean variety, grind size, roasting method, brewing technique, water temperature, and extraction time. Additionally, you can choose specially processed low-caffeine coffee. Coffee beans have their caffeine extracted before roasting, reducing it to less than 3% of the original content. According to European Union standards, low-caffeine coffee, after processing, should contain no more than 0.1% caffeine by weight of green beans.

FrontStreet Coffee's Recommended Brewing Parameters for Low-Caffeine Coffee

V60/90°C/1:15/two minutes

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