My BIL, who thinks he knows everything, tried to convince me that when soda is made, they add caffeine to it, and when they make decaf, they chemically remove it. This seems rather counter-intuitive to me if they add caffeine, then why not just make a run without adding it? But since he ‘knows everything’ he swears that is how it is made. Can someone how true or not this is?
In: Chemistry
Well he’s not wrong assuming we’re talking about colas like Coke or Pepsi. These are traditionally flavored by the Kola nut, which contains caffeine so for a cola to be caffeine free it must go through the process of decaffeination however pretty much all modern sodas that have caffeine have most of it added to them – caffeine that has been removed from other products, mostly decaffeinated coffee.
On the other hand non-cola sodas like Sprite or Root Beer have no ingredients with caffeine naturally in them so they don’t need to be decaffeinated to be caffeine free – but ones that are caffeinated like Barq’s have it added.
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