Talk:Decaffeination

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Green Tea Talk

Decaffeination is the act of removing caffeine from coffee beans.

Then what about decaffeinated green tea? Are any or all of the same processes applicable to tea leaves? --LostLeviathan 22:48, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As far as I know there is no such thing as decaffeinated green tea. Green tea is naturally very low in caffeine. --Zenyu 06:10, Dec 25, 2004 (UTC)
Decaffeinated green tea does exist [1]. Other types of tea can also be decaffeinated [2]. --ErikStewart 19:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] More Tea Talk

Could we have some more tea-leaf specific information on decaffeination please? --81.178.110.53 11:57, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

According to this page [3] both ethyl acetate and carbon dioxide methods are used to decaffeinate tea. The carbon dioxide method allegedly leaves more of the health-benefit-related compounds in the tea intact. 18.142.6.208 15:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I decaffeinate tea leaves by steeping them in hot water for 20 seconds. I discard this water and then reuse the leaves. I learned this from a friend who worked at a coffee shop and said that it removed up to 99% of the caffeine.Morganfitzp 19:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Nonsense unless supported by scientific evidence! 87.114.155.130 (talk) 14:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The Upton Tea Imports Winter 2003 newsletter has an informative article, "Tea and Caffeine," which discusses the caffeine content of tea and different ways of decaffeinating tea (with references). I will the URL as a reference to this article, and create a short summary of the content as a placeholder. Edalton 17:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Direct Process" cleanup

I removed the following sentence: In the direct method the caffeine reacts with the solvent to form a chemical that is not soluble in the solvent. It's nonsense from a chemical standpoint-- solvents extract caffeine unchanged, they don't react with it, and if caffeine got converted into something that wasn't soluble, the extraction process wouldn't remove it. Is the intent to discuss at a more basic level "how extraction works", or to extend the discussion to cover what might be done with the caffeine solution after extraction? DMacks 20:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Headaches

I get terrible headaches from drinking decaf along with many other people. Any studies on that? --chad 08:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Possibly because you are so accustomed to caffeine, that when not consuming enough, you get withdrawal syndromes. By adapting yourself to decaf, you may find that it will eventually work the other way around njaard 13:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is that really decaf?

It's interesting to note that you often don't get decaffeinated coffee, even when you order it, probably due to human error (or perhaps shared brewing equipment). [4] 18.142.6.208 15:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons?

It might be worth adding a few sentences about why decaffeinated drink are disireable in the first place. --Alamaison 14:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

  desirable? There'd be no wiki, infact no software at all without caffeine!

[edit] Health concerns

Any health concerns regarding the decaffeination process should be mentioned.

[edit] Swiss Water Process

There's something about this section that (you should pardon the expression) smells a little funny. The phrasing sounds like it was lifted from a press release or company website, especially with the repeated references to "fresh, pure water." I don't have time now, but I'm thinking this bears some investigation. Septegram 20:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Good nose! Looks like much of it is copyvio from swisswater.com [5][6] DMacks 22:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Concur. I'm frantically trying to leave the office to go on vacation, so I certainly can't work on it now. I may get to it later, but if you want to rework it I won't feel that my toes have been a-step-ped upon.
Septegram 22:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
What's funny is that the people at swisswater.com don't seem to know how to spell "caffeine."
Septegram 22:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the suspicious content from the page...better to have a copvio-free but incomplete page until such time as someone writes it. The text was:

Originally, unroasted coffee beans were immersed in the pure water. The water extracted both the coffee flavor solids and the caffeine from the beans. These beans were then discarded and the caffeine was removed using a carbon filter, leaving just the water, super-saturated with coffee solids. Flavor-charged water, integral to the Swiss Water Process, was created.
Each batch of beans decaffeinated using the Swiss Water Process is first soaked in pure water, partially saturated with coffee flavor solids, in preparation for caffeine extraction. Next, the beans are immersed in the flavor-charged water. Initially the water is caffeine-free, and as a result the caffeine diffuses from the beans into the water. Since the concentration of flavor components in the bean and in the water is equal, only the caffeine is removed, leaving the flavor intact. The water then passes through a carbon filter that traps the caffeine. The now caffeine-free, flavor-charged water flows back to the beans to remove more caffeine. This process continues for approximately 8 hours, until the beans are 99.9% caffeine-free.
Following decaffeination, the trapped caffeine is removed from the carbon filter. The flavor-charged water is then recycled to the start of the process for the next batch of beans.

DMacks 19:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Concur. Thanks for jumping on this; I've been meaning to see to rewriting it, but I think you made a good call. Plus, it means I don't have to rewrite it now {grin}
Septegram 19:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Leftover caffeine in decaffeinated coffee

I am curious about a contradiction between two sections of this article:

  • The first section mentions "the international standard of having removed 97% of the caffeine in the beans or the EU standard of having the beans 99.9% caffeine free by mass". According to the US Standard, it would then take 33 cups of decaffeinated coffee to equal the amount of caffeine in one cup of regular (unless brewing decaf somehow removes a larger percentage of the caffeine in the beans than brewing regular...?)
  • In the last section before the references, entitled "Not caffeine free", one reads "Drinking five to ten cups of decaffeinated coffee could deliver as much caffeine as one or two cups of regular coffee".

Does anybody have an explanation for this contradiction? Are coffee producers simply not meeting the standards? Or is one of those tidbits of information incorrect? 207.108.254.113 20:35, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

The description of the extraction notes that it takes many cycles of extraction to get to the "decaffeinated" level. So it's possible that any one brewing cycle can only remove a certain amount of caffeine, not necessarily an amount in ratio to the concentration in the beans. No idea for sure for this particular situation though. DMacks 20:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What do they do with the caffeine they remove?

What do they do with the caffeine they remove? Marnanel 01:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CO2/O2 process

There are several incorrections in this part of the article:


CO2/O2 process With the CO2 process, pre-steamed beans are soaked in a liquid bath of carbon dioxide

It is not liquid, it's supercritical. It's a different matter state and shouldn't be confused.

at 73 to 300 atmospheres.

SI units shoul be used: 7,3 to 30,0 MPa.

After a thorough soaking, the pressure is reduced allowing the CO2 to evaporate, or the pressurized CO2 is run through either water or charcoal filters to remove the caffeine.

This should be rephrased into something like: After a thorough soaking, CO2 is run through either water or charcoal filters to remove the caffeine, and then the pressure is reduced allowing the CO2 to evaporate.

This same process can also be done with oxygen (O2).

Never heard of this.

These liquids work better than water because they are kept in supercritical state near the transition from liquid to gas so that they have the high diffusion of gas and the high density of a liquid.


Again, they are not liquids, they are supercritical fluids, and they don't work better than water, they work better than LIQUID water. Water can also be in supercritical state, which also enhances it's solvent properties, but has the drawback of being highly corrosive. And they have the DIFFUSIVITY of a gas.

16:39, 31 August 2007 (UTC)Ricardo Couto

[edit] Aflatoxin/ochratoxin

Might anyone be willing to add a section on these mycotoxins, and how they might contaminated decaffeinated beans? I am aware that the fungi which produce these toxins are inhibited by caffeine, but don't know much more. Is the final aflatoxin content more than, say, commercially produced peanuts? I'd be interested to know. Tuckerekcut (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)