How to Decaffeinate Coffee
Have you ever wondered how they get the caffeine out of the coffee beans? Me too! Today is the day we find out!
Okay, I just went and found out and now I’m going to share the knowledge with you. You can thank me later.
Method 1
So. What you do, is you soak your beans in water, and the caffeine leeches into the water. With it goes a lot of the coffee deliciousness, though, so you are left with manky tasteless wet beans.
No problem! Pass your delicious, decaffeinated water through some activated charcoal (such as in your Brita filter), which will remove the caffeine, but leave the yummy tastiness in the water. Then you pop the beans back in the water and dry out the lot, and you’ll be left with yummy coffee beans, no caffeine!
Method 2
Make some supercritical carbon dioxide by popping some (gaseous) carbon dioxide into a Tupperware. Add some (liquid) carbon dioxide, snap the lid on tight, and heat that sucker up, creating a weird gas/liquid hybrid.
Force the supercritical carbon dioxide through the coffee beans, and it’ll tell the caffeine it is rubbish and has poor dress sense, causing it to storm off in a huff.
Result: yummy coffee beans, no caffeine!
Method 3
Soak the coffee beans in a toxic substance, such as benzene or chloroform.
No one does this any more. Because toxic substances are TOXIC.
Result: delicious coffee beans, no caffeine, a frisson of DANGER.
Method 4
Genetically modify some coffee beans to not contain caffeine.
They’re still working on this one though, so no need to worry about the beans you buy from Asdas being GM, yet, if that sort of thing worries you.
Result: Ungodly MUTANT coffee-bean cow HYBRIDS.
(The source of my decaffeinating knowledge)
