Reviewing Your Coffee Choices

There is a great deal of money generated in the beverage industry and naturally, this includes coffee. And, just like bottled water, sodas and teas there is one ingredient that seems to be the major component and that would be caffeine; or no caffeine. Advertising companies compete to be the company to advertise the manufacturers’ products and you may notice that several different terms are used by them to describe non-caffeinated beverages, such as naturally decaffeinated, caffeine free and 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.

Actually, there is a certain amount of caffeine that is contained naturally in various coffees and teas, so if you really need your cup of coffee or tea to be non-caffeinated, then pay attention to the natural amount of caffeine that is in the product and then find out how the remainder of the caffeine is removed from a specific type or brand.

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.

If you were to do an internet search about how the decaffeinated process work, then you might find some interesting things, such as conflicting, different, misleading or just plain confusing results. One reason for this is because of the amount of money that consumers spend on these beverages. It is so much that manufacturers do not want to take any chances of losing that revenue. So, they do anything they can to be sure that consumers continue to purchase their products. However, if you do a little research on the different ways that are available to remove caffeine, then it may be enough to make you seriously consider your next beverage choice.

Tags: caffeine content, Coffee, coffee beans, teas