THE DECAFFEINATION PROCESS

“Do you make decaf?” is a FAQ we hear the most.  The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company does not decaffeinate any of our gourmet coffees.  And we’ll tell you why in a moment.  First, know that whatever the decaffeination process, the resulting coffee beans still retain caffeine.  The standard is 97% of caffeine removed.  In Europe it is 99.9% free by mass.

The original process, invented by Ludwig Roselius in 1903, steams the coffee beans with acids or bases and then uses benzene to remove the caffeine.  Thankfully, due to health concerns related to benzene, this process is no longer used.  Whew!  The following methods are used:

SWISS WATER PROCESS calls for soaking green coffee beans in water to remove caffeine.  Oils and solids that give coffee its favor are also removed so they first saturate the water with components they’re going to remove.  Doesn’t that sound natural?

DIRECT METHOD steams the coffee beans with Dichloromethane Ethyl Acetate for about ten hours then steams them again for another ten hours to remove the solvent.  So, with that method, you can have your java with cream, sugar and dichloromethane ethyl acetate!  Yummy!

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NDIRECT METHOD soaks the coffee beans in hot water for a few hours and then that good old Dichloromethane Ethyl Acetate that we all love is used to pull out the caffeine.  It is recycled over and over again, too.

CO2 PROCESS immerses the pre-steamed coffee beans in liquid carbon dioxide in a pressure chamber.  The caffeine and CO2 are removed by charcoal filters.  They decaffeinate tea the same way.

TRIGLYCERIDE PROCESS soaks green coffee beans in a mix of hot water and coffee (yes, coffee immersed in coffee) to float the caffeine to the top and then soaks the beans in coffee oils they get from old spent coffee grounds.  Doesn't that sound appetizing?  The beans are then dried and the caffeine is removed from the oils to sell to caffeinated beverage makers such as Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper.

Let’s get back to that FAQ: “Do you make decaf?”  I’m a Tennessee Whiskey drinker.  It’s a product that goes back to colonial days.  I even like it in my coffee.  No, I love it in my coffee.  One of the taste factors in whiskey is alcohol.  One of the taste factors in gourmet coffee is caffeine.  I maintain that you can’t remove the caffeine without removing an important part of the coffee flavor.  So, to answer that FAQ, we don’t make decaf.  If your doctor told you to cut back on caffeine, drink one cup instead of two but drink good coffee.  If your doctor told you to cut out caffeine altogether, I suppose you’re stuck with Pepsi Free.

The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company is proud to provide the finest, caffeine-laden coffee available.  You’ll get a great cup of Joe with PANIOLA 100% Kona Cowboy Coffee, grown on Hawaiian volcanoes and roasted in the Rocky Mountains … the one with no bitter aftertaste and no acidity.  CAFÉ PINON de Nuevo Mexico is the Southwest’s favorite with pinion nuts and a perfect way to improve your coffee experience during the day.  And our MOKA-JAVA is a medium dark roasted blend of Indonesian and Ethiopian coffees that just might be high octane!   We also make COWBOY ACTION COFFEE, the Official Coffee of the Single Action Shooting Society!   If you are a Chai drinker, you’ll love the Coconut Spiced Chai we bring in from Honolulu.  The Kona Cowboy Coffee Company has updated our website with new prices, new products and more!  Go to www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com and look at the coffees.  Go to the “Chocolates” page and find our new Cowboy Coffee Choco-Drops, a coffee caramel smothered in milk chocolate and dusted in cocoa powder!  We have new Mescalero Morning Cowboy Coffee Candles on our “Bath Products” page, too.

The purpose of this blog is to unite Kona coffee lovers and perhaps learn a little about coffee and all the benefits of coffee at the same time.  Join up, become a member, comment and have fun!  You can find the Kona Coffee Fiends group on Facebook and we’d appreciate it if Facebook users would “LIKE” the Kona Cowboy Coffee Company page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kona-Cowboy-Coffee-Company/222070817858553.  Just copy and paste to your browser.  You can also find us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/jackshuster.  And on the web at www.KonaCowboyCoffee.com to order your gourmet coffee and coffee products.

You know you’re a coffee fiend when you can jump-start your car without cables!  So enjoy your coffee, make it Kona, and remember, Kona is the home of the Hawaiian cowboy…and we had cowboys in Kona before there were cowboys in Texas!