Should Coffee Be Caffeinated Or Decaffeinated?
Everyone knows that the beverage industry is truly a money generating enterprise. As such, there are thousands of advertising companies competing to be the one to ply the manufacturers’ wares.
Of course, coffee is one of these major beverages and just like bottled water, sodas and teas, they are all marketed around at least one main ingredient; caffeine. Yet often, when dealing in the non-caffeine segment of the market, a consumer may notice that there are several terms that are used to describe the drink including caffeine free, naturally decaffeinated and just plain 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 (Read more ...)