CoffeeForums Coffee Facts

Coffee is one of the most widely enjoyed drinks all over the globe irrespective of the nationality and culture. But the coffee does contain caffeine which is not at all good for health. There are a variety of methods which can be employed to decaffeinate coffee. The following are the usual methods employed for decaffeinating the coffee:

Direct methods

Indirect methods

Swiss Water process

French roast coffee is a type of roasting method employed to roast the coffee beans. The French roast is a decidedly self indicative expression. It basically means that the coffee beans have been roasted reasonably well before being used in the coffee making machine for making espresso coffee or coffee drinks. The coffee beans which are used in the French roast are made certain to be green and also fresh before they are roasted. The roasting process needs to be sustained for about eleven to thirteen minutes and the temperature is ensured to be kept between 185 and 285?C.

The Direct Decaf French roast Coffee:

The process is the most popular and highly used method for decaffeinating the coffee. Here the French roast coffee beans are subjected to soaking in steam for about 30 minutes. This steaming of the coffee beans allows the pores on the skin of the beans to be opened up. These steamed coffee beans are then thoroughly washed in a chemical solvent for about ten long hours. The whole process is done under high pressure and the chemical used is known as ethylene acetate, or the other common chemical used is methylene chloride. The solvent forms a chemical reaction and then bonds itself to the caffeine and is thus separated from the coffee beans. These decaffeinated beans are now again subjected to steam to get out all the residual or remaining solvent which may be attached to the surface of the coffee beans. The other components inside the coffee beans are also attached to the solvent during the process, but they are again detached from the solvent and again added back to the coffee beans.

The Indirect Decaf French roast Coffee:

The method used is entirely same here. But the main difference is that the beans are subjected to soaking in water instead of steam. The caffeine is then removed from the watery solution, rather than the coffee beans directly.

The Swiss Water process:

This method soaks the beans in hot water and they are repeatedly soaked until about 99 percent of decaffeination is done.