Decaf coffee tastes as good as regular coffee now.

Decaf coffee has improved almost beyond recognition over the past 5 or 6 years.

Six or seven years ago, I wouldn’t have had any enthusiasm for a cup of decaf coffee. It just wasn’t very good. Even then, so recently, decaf wasn’t taken half as seriously as it is now. It was treated as something of an oddity, to mollify people who didn’t really like coffee anyway, or who weren’t serious about their beans.

I’ve just had a cup of our Decaf Dream this evening and I can’t believe how good it is, how satisfying. I’d been running around all day and for a variety of reasons I hadn’t a chance to have my afternoon coffee(s) and it was getting late (even for me) to have a cup of Bossa Nova Blonde, which is what’s in the grinder at the moment. I chose the Decaf Dream instead and I’m glad I did. It’s just so good and so satisfying that I didn’t even miss the caffeine. We know that Decaf Dream is special. It’s an absolutely top notch decaf and a total outlier in its taste profile. We’ve never drunk anything else as good, but decaf in general is getting better all the time.

Swiss Water Method

How come decaf coffee is so good now? What has happened? Decaf Dream is decaffeinated using the Swiss Water Method, a completely natural and chemical free process that removes the caffeine without damaging the bean or extracting any of the coffee oils and aromas. The Swiss Water Method involves soaking the beans in an organic green coffee extract which essentially leeches the caffeine out of the green beans without damaging the beans’ flavour and aroma.

It’s a longer process than chemical decaffeination but it’s worth it. I just don’t like the chemical process. I find it hard to believe that every last trace of methylene chloride or ethyl acetate is removed following the decaffeination. In any case, apart from everything else, it just doesn’t taste good.

Decaf prices falling

The Swiss water process has been around since the mid-eighties but it’s becoming more common now among specialty coffee growers. Crucially, as the the process spreads and gets refined, it’s becoming less expensive too and this is reflected in the very keen price of very good decaf coffee, our own Decaf Dream has barely any decaf premium built into its price.

So after my evening cup of decaf, I went to bed a few hours later and slept like a baby. I can’t ever see myself converting to decaf all the time, I love my caffeine fix too much, but it’s good to know that there’s a real, viable, credible alternative there on the days you’ve had enough of caffeine.