What's the Difference Between Low-Caffeine Coffee, Decaffeinated Coffee, and Regular Coffee?

A couple of years ago, a "decaffeinated coffee" trend suddenly swept through the coffee market. People who couldn't sleep after drinking coffee due to caffeine intolerance needed alternatives to satisfy their cravings, and then they discovered the wonderful existence of decaffeinated coffee, which perfectly addresses this need!

Decaffeinated coffee is a relative concept, not a separate variety. We can understand it this way: it's coffee beans with lower caffeine content than regular coffee beans!

As we all know, coffee contains caffeine! Currently, the most commercially valuable coffee varieties are divided into two main categories: Arabica and Robusta. The caffeine content in Arabica coffee beans ranges from 0.9% to 1.4%, with an average of 1.2%; Robusta coffee beans contain twice as much caffeine as Arabica, ranging from 1.8% to 4%, with an average of 2.2%; and people discovered that the Bourbon variety Laurina, grown on Réunion Island, contains only half the caffeine of Arabica varieties, thus the name decaffeinated coffee was born.

The Role of Caffeine

In terms of consumption, caffeine can provide us with a refreshing and alertness-enhancing effect, while during the growth and development of coffee cherries, its main function is to "defend against external enemies" (disease and insect resistance).

Coffee cherries attract pests to come and feed on them, so coffee trees need to secrete caffeine to resist these pests. The lower the altitude, the more pests there are, and naturally the more caffeine coffee trees need to secrete; at higher altitudes, pests find it difficult to survive and are fewer in number, so coffee trees naturally don't need to secrete excessive amounts of caffeine. Therefore, we can understand that besides variety, caffeine content is also related to cultivation altitude, which explains why Robusta varieties have such abundant caffeine.

Types of Decaffeinated Coffee

The types mentioned here don't refer to bean varieties, but rather to the production of decaffeinated coffee. The production of decaffeinated coffee can be divided into two methods: natural growth and artificial processing! At this point, some friends might ask:既然 it can grow naturally, why is artificial cultivation still necessary?

Here's the situation: due to lower caffeine content, its disease and insect resistance capabilities are relatively lacking. High altitude doesn't mean there are no diseases or pests, so cultivating decaffeinated coffee is extremely difficult and it was once nearly extinct. Since cultivation is so difficult, the final harvest quantity is naturally small, while the market demand for decaffeinated coffee continues to grow. Therefore, people need to use post-harvest decaffeination methods on regular coffee cherries to obtain decaffeinated coffee in large quantities to meet market demand. So, the decaffeinated coffee typically referred to on the market today usually means artificially decaffeinated coffee!

Artificial Decaffeination Methods

Since decaffeination is done artificially, caffeine can be removed more thoroughly, so these decaffeinated coffee beans contain even less caffeine. According to EU standards for such products: caffeine content must not exceed 1% of green beans! The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standard requires reduction to less than 3% of the original caffeine content, which is actually similar to the EU standard.

Artificial decaffeination methods are mainly divided into three categories: supercritical carbon dioxide processing, Swiss water processing, and indirect/direct solvent processing. Among these, the Swiss water processing method is currently the most mainstream decaffeinated coffee processing method, so let's briefly understand how it works.

Swiss Water Processing Method

The Swiss water processing method was developed by the Swiss company Coffex in the late 1970s! This processing method involves first soaking green beans in hot water. During soaking, the coffee beans begin to remove some caffeine, and then people filter the soaked solution with activated carbon. After filtration is complete, it's poured back over the coffee beans to achieve the goal of eliminating caffeine. However, besides caffeine, coffee flavor is also lost along with it.

How Does Decaffeinated Coffee Taste?

Whether artificial or natural, decaffeinated coffee does have much lower caffeine content than regular coffee, but in terms of flavor expression, it's relatively mediocre.

As mentioned earlier, artificial decaffeination removes flavor along with caffeine. Additionally, caffeine is one of the main contributors to bitterness in coffee. Bitterness plays a role in maintaining balance and enhancing mouthfeel in coffee. When the support of this bitter taste is lacking, coffee doesn't provide a rich layered experience and feels rather one-dimensional.

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