What exactly is caffeine? Can you see it? Can you have a bowl of caffeine? How are some drinks decaffeinated?
In: Chemistry
Yes, caffeine is a white powder when extracted. There’s a couple ways of extracting it, a common one is to take coffee beans and soak them in liquid carbon dioxide as the caffeine will disolve into the liquid, then the beans can be removed and liquid can be boiled off and leave behind essentially pure caffeine. The process also doesn’t majorly impact the coffee beans flavor so this also is a way to make decaffeinated coffee.
There are other solvents and processes that can be used, but generally follow similar procedure, soak beans in caffeine targeting solvent, remove beans, extract caffeine from solution. Most pre-made caffeinated beverages have caffeine powder added to them because it’s easier to get a consistent product, so decaffeinated versions just skip that step.
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