How do they decaffeinate coffee and tea?
In: Chemistry
“They”, as well as you and me, all function the same. We defecate coffee and tea like any other drink or food. It goes in through your mouth, in your stomach, it gets digested, water and nutritional matter travels via the bloodstream to all the organs, then dangerous or unneeded matter gets out of the body via pee or poop. When you go to poop, that is what is called “to defecate”. You sit on the toilet, relax, poop comes out. Why would you ever think that coffee and tea would have to be defecated in any other way than all the rest of the stuff?
Roasting coffee beans actually lose caffeine the longer they are roasted as well! I always thought that darker blends contained more caffeine, but it’s often the opposite.
Super critical CO2. The raw materials (leaves, beans) are subjected to VO2 that is superheated and acts as a solvent, this dissolving the caffeine. The mixture is then cooled and the caffeine crashes out. Pretty interesting process.
The normal way is to put the coffee/tea into liquid CO2 (so at high pressure!). The caffeine dissolves into the CO2. You then pour away the CO2 and release the pressure which turns it into a gas, and leaves the caffeine.
Tea can be any blend of herbs and flowers, many of which are naturally decaffeinated.
Coffee can be decaffeinated by using chemicals, or by washing the beans over and over again (this is called “Swiss water processing” and is the kind to buy!).
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