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Maxespresso
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16 de noviembre de 2018
Caffeine is present in beverages and foods such as tea and chocolate, but we usually associate it with coffee.
Caffeine is a stimulant and appetite suppressant, it is for this reason that drinks like coffee are so preferred by students in exam season, people who work at night, as well as anyone who needs to be awake. Likewise, its consumption can bring negative effects in the human body, such as anxiety, insomnia, excessive sweating, acceleration of the heart rate and muscle tremors.
However, this caffeine can be eliminated from coffee through a process that is not as simple as it seems.
The person who discovered the decaffeination method by accident was the German Ludwig Roselius, head of the coffee company Kaffee HAG. In the year 1903 a shipment of coffee had been covered by sea water during his transfer trip, this was the reason why the caffeine was filtered, but this did not affect its taste.
Roselius, developed an industrial method to repeat this process. This process was based on bathing steam and chemicals, such as benzene, coffee beans to eliminate caffeine. Since then, new, less invasive techniques have been sought to extract caffeine from the grains, while leaving the taste intact.
Do you want to know how it is done?
There are several ways to do it, the most common is soaking the grains in a solvent, usually methylene chloride or ethyl acetate, the first is used as a paint remover and degreaser, the second, meanwhile, is a natural ether of the fruit, made of acetic acid, the basic component of vinegar.
The first step is to soak the green coffee beans in water and then cover them with a solution that contains some of these solvents. Caffeine is extracted by the solvent.
The water with solvent will be used several times until it is filled with natural coffee flavors. In this stage, the grains will lose very little flavor because they are practically soaked in a concentrated essence of coffee.
This procedure is not so invasive in health, since both agents have been approved by health agencies worldwide. Similarly, if you really want to avoid caffeine, it is advisable to drink something that never had.
