Should Coffee Be Caffeinated Or Decaffeinated?
It is no secret that an industry catering to beverages is a huge money making enterprise. This, of course, includes coffee. However, no matter what the beverages are, such as teas, bottled water and sodas, there is one main ingredient that gets most of the marketing attention and that is caffeine. You may have noticed that in the no-caffeine marketplace, there are several different terms that may be used, including decaffeinated, caffeine free and even naturally 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.
Obviously, if you really cannot do without your daily cups of coffee or tea, yet you do not want any caffeine in either, then you need to check out how much caffeine occurs naturally in the various coffees and teas. Some have too much caffeine and others have less. You should also check out how the caffeine is physically removed from your favorite brand or blend.
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.
