Dude, It's Only Coffee! 10

 Another word about decaf.  It's pretty darn good these days.  I mentioned my very pleasant surprise when "Jaume" was distributing free samples outside his coffee shop.  It wasn't always this way.  Remember Sanka?  Okay, I'll give all of you exactly one minute to stop gagging.... Better now, Gentle Reader?   I don't want to make you ill now.  

Sanka is that famous brand of instant coffee that first hit the market over a hundred years ago, decaffeinated in order to help grandpa and grandma get a good night's sleep.  The makers were a wealthy and powerful corporation, sponsoring various TV shows, I Love Lucy and the Twilight Zone among them (go figure!)

Here is the straight brew about the process of getting the caffeine out of green coffee beans before drying and roasting them...

There are several ways to decaffeinate coffee but the most prevalent is to soak them in a solvent – usually methylene chloride or ethyl acetate. Methylene chloride can be used as a paint stripper and a degreaser as well an agent to remove caffeine.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180917-how-do-you-decaffeinate-coffee#:~:text=There%20are%20several%20ways%20to,methylene%20chloride%20or%20ethyl%20acetate.&text=The%20beans%20are%20first%20soaked,drawn%20out%20by%20the%20solvent.

There are of course, some derogatory nicknames for decaffeinated coffee, such as brown water, or, Why bother, or my fave, maiden's water.

Sanka is something I never touch.  The idea of putting those chemicals in my mouth,however miniscule their amounts is enough to make me want to drink regular coffee late into the night, then lie awake till the small hours of dawn.  I have on occasion tried Postum and Inka, two coffee substitute made from roasted cereals (how about a coffee substitute made from Fruit Loops or Cap'n Crunch.  Cocoa Puffs, anyone?)   They're okay if you actually like them and aren't expecting coffee, and naturally they are not going to keep you awake, but honestly I had the same can of Inka that festered in my cupboard for over a decade before I drew enough courage to throw it in the garbage..  It was first developed in Poland in the sixties and is made from roasted wheat, barley, chicory and sugar beet. Yum!

Then there is the Swiss water method, which involves repeatedly flushing water through the green coffee beans till at least 95 percent of the caffeine is removed.  It's more expensive, but I think safer and the coffee usually tastes a lot more like...well...like coffee.

The litmus test occurred for me when around fifteen years ago, I invited a tenant in my building, a Colombian for a cup of coffee one evening.  I warned him at first that it was decaf and, being very health conscious, he was going to turn it down.  However, I persuaded him, and to his surprise he loved it.  Being reassured that it didn't contain trace amounts of formaldehyde or dry cleaning chemical was also for him a boost.  And it was fair trade.

To this day, I buy French Colombian decaf, which appears to be fairly traded, according to my coffee broker and it is good.  I usually alternate or mix it with a full flavoured dark roast, these days from Guatemala, also fair trade.  But as much as I enjoy the sybaritic luxury of savouring fine coffee early in the morning, it is, after all, only coffee, and the beans are picked by human hands, often of underpaid and exploited workers, which is why I still try to opt as much as possible for fair trade, or similar.  It is the very least I can do.  And yes, fair trade tastes better.  It always tastes better.  Even when it's awful, Gentle Reader!