WHEN YOU CRAVE coffee, but not the buzz, decaf seems like a good and rational choice.
Not so, says at least one section of the Internet. Yes, controversy is percolating around decaf, thanks to concerns about (of all things) a chemical used to remove caffeine from coffee beans. And with all the hype around coffee dupes made from stuff like cocoa, dates, and herbs, you have to wonder: Is decaf dead?
The Decaf Drama, Explained
EARLIER THIS YEAR, the Environmental Defense Fund petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban four cancer-causing substances from the U.S. food supply. On the list is methylene chloride, a solvent often used to decaffeinate coffee.
There’s no question that methylene chloride is dangerously carcinogenic in large doses. The Environmental Protection Agency recently banned most uses of methylene chloride because of its deadly effects on people who regularly worked with products containing it, such as paint and paint thinner.
But the EPA’s steps haven’t gone far enough, according to other advocacy groups. “The cancer risks resulting from the use of these solvents in food may be small, but they are completely unnecessary, as there are safer alternatives that can be used,” according to a statement from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Coffee can simply be decaffeinated with water, for example.”
Social media has reacted (as it tends to) by stoking uproar around methylene chloride and decaf, while directing followers to Swiss water decaffeinated coffee, decaf processed with the carbon dioxide method, and decaf alternatives.
But, hold up, should you actually worry about methylene chloride in decaf coffee?
Is Decaf Coffee Bad for You?
EXPERTS SAY NO—even if processors use methylene chloride. To understand why, it helps to know the most common method for decaffeinating coffee in the first place.
During the manufacturing process, decaf producers add solvents like methylene chloride or ethyl acetate (an alternative derived from sugarcane) to bind to the caffeine in green coffee beans. This allows for water to rinse away the caffeine. And the solvents themselves are also volatile, which means that they boil off easily in the next step: roasting.
“During the roasting process, coffee is heated to at least 200 degrees Celsius to 250 degrees Celsius, and so any residual methylene chloride that’s there should evaporate,” says Tonya Kuhl, Ph.D., chair of the chemical engineering department at UC Davis and co-director of the UC Davis Coffee Center. “Of course, you could have a teeny, teeny, teeny amount left, but it’s not at a level that would be concerning.” Under FDA regulations, the maximum concentration of for methylene chloride in coffee is just 0.001 percent.
In other words, you don’t need to panic about the traces of methylene chloride in your last cup of decaf—even if the Internet is telling you to.
The Unexpected Perk of the War on Decaf
HEALTH CONCERNS ADDRESSED, there’s another problem with methylene chloride: It makes decaf taste horrible. Decaf coffee made with other methods is usually yummier anyway, says Christopher Hendon, Ph.D., an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oregon who studies coffee.
“The goal of decaffeination is to remove caffeine, and ideally, leave behind everything else in the coffee, so that you still get the flavor profile of that coffee, but it’s just missing the caffeine,” says Hendon. “This is an extremely challenging thing to do because what you’re asking science to do is to selectively remove one molecule from the inside of a seed, and seeds are notoriously hard, and they don’t want to let the insides come out.”
While solvents like methylene chloride and ethyl acetate remove caffeine, they do collateral damage to coffee. “You lose some other compounds, the structure of the seed is impacted by the process, and as a result, when you go to roast it, it generates flavors that don’t taste as good as one that had caffeine in it,” says Hendon.
There are other ways to cut caffeine from coffee. One alternative, the subcritical carbon dioxide method, uses nontoxic high-pressure carbon dioxide to remove caffeine. Like the traditional method, this one is also hard on coffee beans, causing similar flavor problems, says Hendon.
The tastiest beans tend to be made with the Swiss Water Process, which involves soaking green coffee beans in water until their caffeine leaches out, he says. “You lose very few other compounds, and as a result, the Swiss Water Process tends to yield very high-quality coffees at the end,” says Hendon. “They basically taste exactly like the previous coffee, but without caffeine.”
“I think a lot of people who are used to drinking decaf coffee, they kind of just acquiesce to the fact that it’s not going to be that great, because it’s decaf coffee, but it’s OK, it gets the job done, or whatever,” says Taylor Young, a certified Q grader (the coffee version of a sommelier) and quality specialist at Copper Moon Coffee, an Indiana-based roaster that makes a Swiss Water Organic Decaf Coffee. “But depending on the method that is used for decaffeination, and the quality of beans that you buy, you can really have a cup of coffee that is just as good as any other cup in the world.”
Other Swiss Water Process decafs from brands we love are Trapper Creek Decaf by Stumptown Coffee or Honduras – Luna Azul Decaf by La Colombe. To see what method your favorite coffee brand uses, visit the Check Your Decaf database by the advocacy group The Clean Label Project.
The Rise of Decaf Alternatives
YOU MIGHT HAVE noticed friends (or influencers) buzzing about coffee alternatives like Choffy, MediDate, and Atomo. Simulated coffee is on the rise, thanks in part to the success of alternative meats from companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, says Hendon.
Some say alterna-brews are healthier than coffee, but there’s no scientific evidence to suggest that. Meanwhile, decades of research link antioxidant-rich coffee with health benefits when consumed in reasonable amounts, like three cups a day, caffeinated or not.
As for the taste of coffee alternatives? “These are fine substitutes, but what makes them good is that they have many of the same compounds as coffee itself, so it should be unsurprising that many of the same principles apply,” says Hendon.
After all, some of coffee’s flavor comes from the Maillard reaction, which turns proteins and sugars in coffee beans (and foods like caramel and toast) brown when cooked at high temperatures. “You can create some of these roasted flavor molecules with other materials,” says Kuhl.
