(WFN) I love coffee. I can’t get enough of that rich aromatic flavor.
But, like so many of us today, too much caffeine is a health concern for me. So a few years back I reluctantly switched to decaf. It was not a happy switch because I drank coffee not just for the caffeine rush but also for the flavor. What a dilemma.
I’d been drinking coffee since I was a kid and my mom started to put a teaspoon of coffee in my milk so that I would drink it. I hated milk (of course back in those days the term lactose intolerance was virtually unknown) but I loved the smell of my mother’s morning cup of coffee. One day when I was 8 or 9, refusing to drink my milk and after great insistence, she let me have a sip of her coffee. It was all over from there. I loved the rich taste. My mom used plenty of cream and sugar so to me it was like having desert for breakfast. So began the ritual of putting coffee in my milk. As time went on there was less and less milk and more and more coffee so that by the time I was a high school senior I drank my coffee black. When I went off to college my first purchase was a coffee pot. I discovered espresso while working my way through school in an Italian restaurant. On a trip to Miami I experienced my first “colada” or Cuban coffee. Today I have at least 3 different styles of coffee makers for any occasion and I only use the finest, shade grown, organic, Fair Trade, specialty roasts.
I am sure you can understand, given my attachment to that superior black liquid, how difficult it would be to give up a full flavored brew but my health came first. I suffer from hypertension and one of the first things my doctor encouraged me to do was to give up caffeine. Oh, the horror!
And that is when I discovered that not all decafs are made the same. You see, most decaf, like the kind you get in a restaurant or at Dunkin’ Donuts or even Starbucks, are decaffeinated by a process that uses nasty chemicals like benzene or methylene chloride or ethyl acetate to get the caffeine out. That’s why the unpleasant aftertaste. If you think about it, the idea of drinking a liquid that has been soaked in these harsh chemicals is really nuts!
Here’s a fact about decaf coffee: in order to be called decaffeinated a coffee must be 97% caffeine free. In Many European countries that number is as high as 99%. So there is always some trace of caffeine in your decaf coffee. That is why for people who suffer from high blood pressure or other ailments where caffeine is bad news, a quality decaf is an important factor. But adding these harsh chemicals to your body is not a good idea either.
There is a way to get the caffeine out without chemicals however and only the best coffee roasters, ones who care about their customer’s health and taste buds, go to the added trouble and expense to make it. Sometimes referred to as the Swiss Process or European Process, it is a method of using only water to draw out the caffeine. The results are better tasting, healthier coffee.
I’m sure it’s the last thing you want to think about when you reach for that morning cup or after dinner Café Ole but next time you smell that familiar aroma and get ready to sip, remember the four elements of a great cup of decaf coffee:
- Shade grown Arabica coffee beans
- Skilled roasting in small batches
- Organic growing without harmful pesticides
- Fair Trade growers and distributors for a better world
- Water process decaffeination without harsh chemicals
Today you can buy flavored coffees, whole bean, ground and bulk coffees but for real coffee lovers who want to reduce their caffeine intake, only Water Processed Decaf will do.
