How is caffeine taken out of coffee beans?
I’ll leverage my experience as a former Coffee Master at Starbucks to answer this. Wrote a paper on methods for removing caffeine for my review. There have been many methods of removing caffeine. The basic method (sometimes known as the “Direct Method”) is to soak the coffee beans in hot water or to steam them. This brings the caffeine in the beans to the surface included with the oils in the bean. Then a chemical is used to strip the oil off the bean. This is why decaf coffee usually looks dry (as opposed to caffeinated coffee which can have a shiny layer on the bean). The oldest is called the Roselius process. This involved steaming the coffee beans and applying benzene. However, benzene is toxic and this method has gone the way of the dodo. The next process is the Triglyceride process. Green coffee beans are soaked in a hot water/coffee solution. The beans are transferred to another container and immersed in coffee oils. After several hours of high temperatures, the triglycerides in
