Decaf coffee has 25% of the caffeine of regular coffee? Really?
Well truth is, it varies quite a bit. But from what I've been reading this morning while running the SEM, the only decaf w/o caffeine is Folgers Instant crystals.
Now I dunno about you but when I think about coffee (even in my current non-coffee drinking state) I think about drinking good stuff. Blue State. Coffee Depot. Coffee Exchange. Stumptown. Tullys. Even FourBucks, SBC. They all have decaf beans. And from the reading I've done they generally range in the higher caffeine content of the decaf range.
Roasting (darker is less coffee), and location, growing conditions, bean type, all play a part in determining the original amount of caffeine in there. And then the variable of how you remove the caffeine from the coffee.
There is a lot of data out there. Plenty to find with a search engine. My 25% of regular coffee (where you see about 100-130mg/serving) for decaf is based on those high end beans. The good stuff. A can of coke (last time i checked on one around here it said 30mg/12 oz) is maybe not exactly equal to 25% of the caffeine of a 12 oz cup of all coffee but it is pretty close. And decaf is pretty close in range to the amount of caffeine in a coke.
some studies have it coming in about 1/2 the amount of coke... so, maybe that's a better guide to go with. and most conventional wisdom suggests that you need about 5-10 cups of decaf to equal 1-2 cups of regular coffee.
One thing that seems to be consistent is the quality. The better the beans the less the difference between decaf and regular. *shrug* make ya own call.
some sources:
http://www.myproductalert.com/decaf-coffee.html
http://www.webmd.com/news/20061011/decaf-coffee-isnt-caffeine-free
or just try google... or what ever other search engine you prefer...
so i might be off a bit... but bottom line good decaf beans are not caffeine free...
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4 comments:
In my Analytical Chem class in college, we had a segment on HPLC and we extracted caffeine from beverages: coke, sunkist, tea, decaf tea, coffee and decaf coffee.
The numbers I remember were coffee and tea having around 70-80mg/mL of caffeine and the decaf version were closer to 5-10mg/mL. This is reliant on IIRC.
For a dude who is ostensibly off coffee, you sure got a lot to say about the devil brew.
CTodd... my guess that when you took Analytical Chem, it was at the cusp of fancy brew coffee. Chances are the stuff you tested was a folgers type brew...
and
MIF
yeah, well, i "grew" up with the rise of the coffee culture, IE Starbucks. A seattle boy who lived on Fancy coffee and Fancy Microbrew...
18 years of snobbish coffee consumption tends to stick with ya...
I'm sitting at home writing the next best-seller and just finished my second pot.
FYI
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