What is the CO-2 Decaf Method?

An overview of the CO-2 decaffeination process, also known as Sparkling Water decaf.

This method uses two natural elements, pure water and carbon dioxide ( together they make “Sparkling Water”) to extract caffeineAn alkaloidal compound that has a physiological effect on humans, and a bittering taste. It is found throughout the coffee plant but is more concentrated in the seed... from the coffee grains. This method was discovered by Kurt Zosel, a well named scientific, of the Max Plank Institute.

Steps for the CO-2 Decaf Method:

Coffee is mixed with pure water.

• When the coffee absorbs the water the grains expand, their pores get opened and the caffeine molecules become mobile.
• At this point carbon dioxide is added ( A 100% Natural Element) at a 100 atmospheres pressure to the pure water.
• Basically the water and the carbon dioxide are mixed to create the sparkling water.
• The carbon dioxide acts like a magnet and attracts all the caffeine molecules that became movable.
• When the caffeine is captured by the carbon dioxide, this is removed.
• The carbon dioxide is very selective and it doesn’t touch the carbohydrates and proteins of the coffee beans.
• The carbohydrates and the proteins are the ones that give the coffee the flavor and smell after it is made.
• When the carbon dioxide has finished removing the caffeine, the coffee seeds are dried naturally
• Carbon dioxide is then recycled and caffeine is sold for other commercial uses.

Benefits of this decaf method:

• Extracts Caffeine, effectivly. Is a direct contact method but does not use chemcals.
• Doesn’t chemically affect proteins or carbohydrates of the coffee beans.
• The byproducts are natural and a 100% recyclable.

Carbon Dioxide Decaffeination Process Article:

from Scientific American, June 1997
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DECAFFEINATING COFFEE   by Saul N. Katz  CAFFEINE is a small, bitter-tasting alkaloidDry and bittering flavors, usually in the aftertaste, caused by alkaline substances,: A taste sensation characterized by a dryness and related bittering flavors, sometimes at the posterior of.... High-quality ArabicaArabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the taxonomic species name of the genus responsible for around 75% of the worlds commercial coffee crop.: Arabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the... coffee beans (the source of most specialty coffees) are typically 1 percent caffeine by weight, whereas cheaper and more bitterBitterness is one of 5 basic tastes: Sour, Sweet, Salty, Bitter and Umami (savory flavors). There are many types of bitterness, hence not one avenue to tracking down... RobustaAteng is a common name for Catimor coffees widely planted in Sumatra and other Indonesia isles.: Ateng, with several subtypes, is a common name for Catimor coffees widely... beans have twice that amount.   Spurred by the belief that excessive coffee drinking had poisoned his father, the German chemist Ludwig Roselius, in about 1900, found a number of compounds that dissolved the natural caffeine in coffee beans without ruining the drink’s taste. Chloroform and benzene did the job but were toxic, so for 70 years methylene chloride became the solvent of choice. When it was discovered in the 1980s to be a suspected carcinogen, the chemical was abandoned by all the big U.S. coffee labels. The Food and Drug Administration continues to permit the use of methylene chloride if the residues in the coffee are below 10 parts per million. ProcessingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural... for specialty decafs still often uses it because it perturbs other flavorings so little. Many other solvents can serve to debuzz coffee. An “all-natural” label may mean that ethyl acetateA chemical decaffeination process, but one using a mild type with low toxicity. It sometimes imparts fruity flavors to the coffee. This is a "direct contact method" of... is the solvent in use, because that chemical occurs naturally in fruit. Water also works as a means of decaffeination. The so-called Swiss water process soaks green coffeeGreen coffee refers to the processed seed of the coffee tree fruit. Coffee is a flowering shrub that produces fruit. The seeds of the fruit are processed, roasted,... beans in a solution that contains the chemical components of beans dissolved from a previous batch, except for the caffeine. Because the water is already saturated with sugars and peptides, only the caffeine passes from the beans into the water. Another process, illustrated here, uses supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent; in this state, the carbon dioxide is intermediate between a gas and a liquid. The varietyA botanical variety is a rank in the taxonomic hierarchy below the rank of species and subspecies and above the rank of form (form / variety / subspecies... of caffeine extractionRefers to the process of infusing coffee with hot water. Hot water releases or "extracts" the flavor from the roasted, ground coffee. The term is used mostly with... methods demonstrates that a lot of sleepless nights have gone into helping the world get a good night’s rest. SAUL N. KATZ retired in 1989 as a principal scientist at the Maxwell House Division of General Foods. He holds several patents on the process for supercritical fluid extraction of caffeine. http://www.scientificamerican.com

1. SOAKING green coffee beans in water doubles their size, allowing the caffeine to dissolve into water inside the bean. 2. CAFFEINE REMOVAL occurs in an extraction vessel, which may be 70 feet high and 10 feet in diameter, suffused with carbon dioxide at roughly 200 degrees Fahrenheit and 250 atmospheres. Caffeine diffuses into this supercritical carbon dioxide, along with some water. Beans enter at the top of the chamber and move toward the bottom over five hours. To extract the caffeine continuously, the beans lower in the column are exposed to fresher carbon dioxide, which ensures that the caffeine concentration inside beans is always higher than in the surrounding solvent. Caffeine therefore always diffuses out of the beans. 3. DECAFFEINATED BEANS at the bottom of the vessel are removed, dried and roasted. 4. RECOVERY of dissolved caffeine occurs in an absorption chamber. A shower of water droplets leaches the caffeine out of the supercritical carbon dioxide. The caffeine in this aqueous extract is then often sold to soft-drink manufacturers and drug companies. The purified carbon dioxide is recirculated for further use.

Our Water Process Decafs:

We haven’t carried CO-2 decafs in quite a while, or anything other than Swiss Water Process. This is an all-natural decaffeination method that uses only water to remove 99.9% of the coffee’s caffeine content with the aid of heat and time.

We look to Swiss Water exclusively for our decafs because, in our opinion, it is the most transparent decaf process available. In addition, we have a wider selection of coffee origins to choose from since we send our own coffees off for decaffeination.

Read more about the Swiss Water Process HERE.