Should Coffee Be Caffeinated Or Decaffeinated?

Everyone knows that the beverage industry is truly a money generating enterprise. As such, there are thousands of advertising companies competing to be the one to ply the manufacturers’ wares. Of course, coffee is one of these major beverages and just like bottled water, sodas and teas, they are all marketed around at least one main ingredient; caffeine. Yet often, when dealing in the non-caffeine segment of the market, a consumer may notice that there are several terms that are used to describe the drink including caffeine free, naturally decaffeinated and just plain decaffeinated.

Normally, a beverage is considered caffeine free only if it never contained caffeine from the start. Of course, this would rule out the tea leaves and coffee beans since they both have caffeine content in their unprocessed, natural form.

So, if you love your tea or coffee and do not want any caffeine in your drink, then you need to pay attention to the content of caffeine that occurs naturally in various teas and coffees, as some may have too much caffeine, while some will have less. You should also understand the actual process that is used to remove the caffeine from a specific product.

Even in this day of modern technology there is no way that any method can completely remove all caffeine content from a product. In the United States there is no “law” about removing caffeine but the standard indicates a beverage can be sold as decaffeinated if 97% of it is removed. In Europe, they have a higher standard that indicates it can be termed decaffeinated if 99% of the caffeine is removed. There are certain things that affect the content of caffeine that are actually out of the manufacturers control and that includes the steeping times and methods of brewing, which both drastically impact the amount of caffeine that you end up drinking.

Try doing an internet search about how coffee is decaffeinated and you may be surprised at the amount of different, confusing, conflicting and perhaps even misleading results that come up. This seems to be because there is a large amount of consumer money at stake and the beverage producers will do whatever they can to assure the consumer that there is or isn’t caffeine in their beverages and that their drinks are completely healthy and safe. Once you research the different methods that are available to extract caffeine from the coffee beans, you are likely to spend a little more time to consider which beverage is your best choice.