Note that decaffeinated coffee often still contains caffeine: “decaf coffee typically has 2-15 milligrams in an 8-ounce cup”, caffeinated is 80-100mg [1].
> In 1985 the US’s Food and Drug Administration said the likelihood of any health risk from methylene chloride was so low “as to be essentially non-existent”.
This is somewhat poorly phrased. Methylene chloride is a neurotoxin and likely carcinogen, but it will be driven off by the roasting process. The boiling point of DCM is 40C, and roasting occurs at 200C, so any residual solvent should be long gone early in the roasting process. Nevertheless, this solvent is destructive to the ozone layer and should be phased out of industrial processes as much as possible.
There’s pollutants in literally every square inch of soil of anywhere mankind lives or lives near. Even seals eaten by Inuit in the Arctic Circle are polluted.
Seals are quite high up the food chain so are one of the most polluted foods regularly eaten by humans. It's much safer eating herbivores than carnivores.
One does achieve "none", tis marketing hype and wasteful. For instance, if you eat or drink any fermented foods, you are regularly consuming organic solvents. Undistilled alcoholic beverages contain quite a few interesting organic solvents that contribute to flavor (and hangovers).
I drink both, caffeine in the morning and once past midday I move to decaf until as late as 5pm, I heavily favour much lower caffeine decaf. In my experience decaf tastes the best from either swiss or CO2 methods and from the beans. The best decaf can come pretty close to decent coffee but its also just as expensive as well. I find it works better under pressure immersion than drip, so more Aeropress or Turkish stove method than French press or V60.
There is such a variant and numerous attempts are under way to breed such a plant. There are many hundreds of natural coffee plant variants and some do produce almost no caffeine but also do not produce good fruit. So far there hasn't been much success on combining the properties, there is a commercial bean out of africa naturally low in caffeine but its not great or very available.
I don't drink but I was always under the impression that alcohol-free beer doesn't quite taste the same (i.e. that the process of removing alcohol doesn't only remove the taste of alcohol, but somehow additionally damages the overall beer taste and makes it inferior).
Those terms you use, "damage" and "inferior", are of course, subjective, relative, and circumstantial, rather than absolute.
When I used to drink a lot of beer, I might have agreed with their sentiment, since I would mostly be drinking because I wanted the effect of the alcohol.
But since I stopped drinking alcohol, after several months I found, to my surprise, that a zero alcohol beer can be quite a pleasant experience. The taste reminded me of what I used to like about drinking beer with friends, whilst the differences helped me to stay connected to my new found appreciation of clarity.
I've been sampling non-alcoholic beers recently. A few of the brands taste pretty good. I like Athletic Brewing, and the Heineken is good for what it is.
Beer has a incredible variety of tastes. Don't compare alcohol free beers with the alcoholic beers of the same brand, just view it as a separate family of beers. Try some and pick your favorite.
I understand why, though some of us think of decaf "coffee", much the same way others view white "chocolate". At some point, the thing you modified it to be, isn't representative of the original thing. IMO, it should not be called coffee or chocolate, even with a descriptive adjective up front.
This is a minor nit to pick, but still, for those of us with a strong love of (addition to) coffee (or chocolate), its an important distinction.
They're both still coffee and chocolate, though. That reminds me of my college roommate who tried to argue that gelato isn't ice cream, using light beer vs dark beer as an analogy!
TIL gelato isn't ice cream. I'm from Italy, where "ice cream" is the translation of gelato, and by that I mean the sweet and icy milk-based stuff people eat during the summer, however you English speakers decide call it.
> I understand why, though some of us think of decaf "coffee", much the same way others view white "chocolate".1
Had a cardiovascular adventure some time ago. Caffeine was involved, and so I don't have. I agree decaf is a poor substitute, as is white, but they are all I can get.
If you try to define what is or is not coffee (or chocolate, milk, meat, ...) using its composition you'll end up with a lot of ambiguous and incorrect rules.
The correct way to solve this is to remember that language is an imprecise medium to transmit ideas. White chocolate is chocolate because people consider it chocolate, not the other way around.
You can also buy straight caffeine powder to try to make your own drinks. I made a few attempts at creating my own energy drinks with my Sodastream, flavoring, and caffeine powder... it never quite worked though. The powder just tastes like powder, and you can drink it straight with water if you just want the caffeine kick.
Coffee has way more active ingredients than just caffeine, so removing just that does not really negate majority of the effects. This would be similar to removing nicotine from cigarettes.
Better just go to tea instead of decaf if you're sensitive. Another alternative that allows you to keep using coffee would be to go to your grandparents' coffee cups. They're 2-10 times smaller than the current ones!
[1] https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-bean...