Impact of decaffeination on coffee quality - a chemistry perspective
(Room Room W)
26 Jun 25
2:00 PM
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3:00 PM
Caffeine is a psychoactive substance that is consumed widely around the world, not only as part of the morning routine of many people around the world. However, since caffeine tolerance is very person dependent as well as caffeine consumption can affect sleep quality, the sector of decaffeinated coffee has grown significantly over the past years.
An important process of decaffeination is the Swiss Water decaffeination (SWD) process, where a water-based, caffeine-free green coffee extract is used to remove caffeine from green beans. The objective of our study was the comparison of pre-decaf and post-decaf coffees to understand, how decaffeination impacts the composition of the green coffee beans, the roasting as well as the Espresso-extraction and the final coffee. The results were performed on three decaffeinated coffee pairs, which were analysed before and after the decaffeination process.