Anyone who knows much of anything about me knows I adore a cup of coffee. And I enjoy a nice cup of tea as well. In my opinion, a warm beverage is just one of life's great simple pleasures. At least two cups of coffee are essential to my morning routine. And a cup of coffee or tea is a lovely way to refresh myself during the afternoon, especially if the day is chilly or rainy.
The afternoon cuppa is often a decaffeinated variety to avoid a wide-eyed and restless night ahead. Or rather ... it was.
During out anniversary trip last year, the Man of the House and I visited the Charleston Tea Plantation. While we were touring the grounds, the guide mentioned that they produce no decaf teas and how the decaffeination process would involve introducing harsh chemicals such as acetate to the teas that they have grown with no herbicides or pesticides.
Which is when I had one of those "Wait... WHAT?" moments.
Maybe this is common knowledge. But I had been living in blissful ignorance for all these years! That was all over now. As soon as we arrived home, I started doing my research. And realized I had been consuming something without any clue as to how it was actually made.
The most common method for decaffeinating coffee or tea is typically by steaming the beans or leaves and then rinsing them with either methylene chloride or ethyl acetate to remove the caffeine molecules.
That makes me feel a little queasy when I consider that methylene chloride (often used as a solvent in paint removers, metal cleaners, and degreasers) has been banned for use in hair sprays and is considered by OSHA to be a potential occupational carcinogen. And many of you may recognize ethyl acetate as a common ingredient in nail polish removers. It is also used as an industrial solvent, and is popular with insect collectors as an efficient method of quickly killing "samples" without destroying their appearance.
Yes, the FDA has approved both of these as safe for the use of decaffeinating tea and coffee.
Yes, there is reportedly almost no trace left in the coffee or tea once the process is complete and especially after roasting of the coffee beans has occured.
And yes, companies can legally label products decaffeinated using ethyl acetate as "naturally decaffeinated" because the chemical is derived from fruit.
But for me, personally, that doesn't make me feel much better about the whole thing.
If you do some shopping around, you can find some coffees and teas which use a process of cooking the leaves or beans with carbon dioxide using high temperatures and high pressure to remove the caffeine.
There is also a "water method" which is primarily only used for coffee. But many coffee lovers feel it leaves the beverage tasting, well... watered down.
After taking in all of this information, I made the personal choice to eliminate decaffeinated coffee and tea from my diet.
Notice, I said "decaffeinated". There is a difference between "decaffeinated" tea and "caffeine-free" tea. Many herbal teas are naturally caffeine-free. As in, they never contained caffeine in the first place. I keep a small variety of herbal teas - such as mint, chamomile, and a nice red raspberry leaf - in the house for those occasions when I really don't want to consume any caffeine with my hot beverage.
I'll just stick to having my coffee and tea the way nature intended - full of naturally occurring caffeine, or have something which never contained caffeine to start with.
Do you drink decaf? Does knowing a bit about how the caffeine is removed make you feel any differently about it?
Much Love,
