Did you know about 75% of decaf coffee on the market uses harsh chemicals to remove the caffeine. Why? Because it is the cheapest method.
Surprisingly, it isn’t required to list how a coffee was decaffeinated on the label. At Savorista, we want you to know which decaffeination method was used in our coffees (spoiler alert, only the ones that use natural ingredients) so we label it clearly on every bag.
Most coffee is decaffeinated with harsh chemicals, including methylene chloride which has been banned by the EPA for use in paint thinners.
The Clean Label Project recently tested some of the most popular mainstream decaf coffees for methylene chloride, and found levels that were higher than they expected in many coffee brands, but still under the FDA limit.
But, even if the FDA approves, we just didn’t want to add more chemicals (even at tiny amounts) to our bodies. There are so many chemicals that are almost impossible to avoid, so when we can, we prefer to choose natural ingredients for ourselves. And we thought you'd appreciate that, too.
At Savorista, we only use decaffeination methods that use natural ingredients: the Swiss Water Process, the Mountain Water Process, or the Sugarcane EA Process.
The Swiss Water Process
The Swiss Water Process uses diffusion (a process similar to osmosis) to remove the caffeine.
Remember the idea that if you slept with a textbook under your pillow, knowledge would flow from where there is a lot (the textbook) to where there is less (your brain)?
At Swiss Water, diffusion is used to relocate caffeine from where there is a lot of it (in the bean) to where there is less of it (the water it soaks in).
The Mountain Water Process
The Mountain Water Process is a natural, chemical-free way to remove caffeine from coffee while keeping its full, rich flavor intact. Named for the pure spring water that flows from Mexico’s Pico de Orizaba mountains, this method uses only water and time to gently draw caffeine out of green coffee beans.
First, the beans are soaked in warm mountain water, allowing caffeine and some flavor compounds to dissolve. The water is then passed through a carbon filter that removes only the caffeine, leaving behind a flavor-rich solution called Green Coffee Extract (GCE). When a fresh batch of beans is added to this extract, caffeine naturally diffuses out—without stripping away the taste and aroma that make each coffee unique. Once the caffeine is gone, the beans are dried and roasted to perfection. The result is a smooth, aromatic cup that’s just as delicious as its fully caffeinated counterpart.
The Sugarcane EA Process
In Colombia, sugarcane molasses is fermented to produce EA (ethyl acetate), which is commonly found in wine, fruits and in bananas too. The beans are steamed and moistened before being bathed in a natural EA bath which captures the caffeine from the bean.
