Should Coffee Be Caffeinated Or Decaffeinated?
Posted by rashidakay on 02 Jul 2009 | Tagged as: Coffee
One of the major revenue producing enterprises is the beverage industry and of course coffee is a major part of the industry. This leads to thousands of different advertising companies competing for the chance to advertise the products, like coffees, bottled water, sodas and teas. There is one major ingredient that most products have; caffeine. In advertising, you generally see different terms applied to non-caffeinated drinks, such as decaffeinated, naturally decaffeinated and caffeine free.
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.
The results are very interesting if you do an internet search on how coffee is actually decaffeinated. You may find results to be confusing, conflicting and possibly even misleading. Manufacturers do not want to lose out on any of the consumers’ money that is spent on beverages. This can lead to manufactures telling the public whatever they think they want to hear about their product being caffeine free. Try doing a little of your own research on the methods that are used to extract the caffeine content from common beverages and you are very likely to be a lot choosier with your next purchase.
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