Yahava investigates Swiss Water Decaffeinated Processing Plant in Vancouver

Decaffeinated… for the everyday coffee drinker this is probably the one word that falls away from the purpose of drinking our beloved cup each morning. What’s the point?
You drink coffee for the buzz right? It’s almost like a light beer… but that’s another discussion point entirely.

For someone who has never ordered a decaff coffee, I don’t really understand the necessity of it. I realise that there are people who drink it for necessity and being that we are asked about it so frequently I thought I  would take the opportunity to visit the Swiss Water Decaffeinated Processing Plant (SW) in Vancouver when I travelled there in 2008.

‘Swiss Water Process’- originally the Decaf process was indeed done in Switzerland (originally owned by ‘Kraft’) before it moved to Canada (when it was sold to the Canadians they tried to keep the operation in Switzerland but it was too expensive to manage away from home)..hence the ‘Swiss Water Process’. No Swiss Water is used in the process!!

Yahava's decaffeinated blend is a make up of Swiss Water Processed Mexican and Peru beans. The same beans go into our Organic blend, but of course these haven’t made the trip to Canada to have the caffeine removed. This method is the only one that does not use chemicals to remove the caffeine.

Being that any coffee can have it’s caffeine removed by this process, SW receive beans from all over the world. Couple this with the fact that Vancouver is one of 2 sites in the world and you can only imagine how many beans travel through here.

While I am not a scientist I still only really understand the basic points of this amazing method….. firstly the beans are scrubbed to remove particles and then placed in large tanks where they stay from anywhere between 8-10 hours (time depends on origin of the bean). 

The tank also contains water that is flavour charged, to try and enable the beans to contain as much of their original flavour as possible.

Essentially what is happening in these tanks is that the flavour particles stay while the caffeine particles leave, trying to equalize the beans make up with that of the water they are soaking in. The caffeine is then removed by carbon filtration and used for other means – medicine, energy drinks etc. Remember, this is all done over the course of up to 10 hours.



From the tanks the coffee then has to be dried. This procedure is very close to that of roasting the beans, so again, depending on the origin the temperatures change. The beans are fed along these large belts that handle them as gently as possible; using gravity assisted vibrations to slowly move the beans through heated elements to dry them completely.

Tthe whole process is much more complicated than my basic terminology and is closely observed from beginning to end. The plant runs 24hrs/day and being the case only 2 or 3 origins are handled in this time. Everything is monitored, from measuring caffeine levels, to the temperatures.

Being that Swiss Water Process is based on the friendliest method available to remove caffeine from the beans, upmost care is taken to ensure the flavour of the beans isn’t altered too much.

Following our tour we were lucky enough to be asked to participate in a cupping of decaff and original beans. 5 origins were lined up and the idea being that each were judged on flavour, aroma, body etc. The results from this tasting are then used to alter the process if it’s required.
And yes, spitting is part of cupping.















The one thing I like about coffee is that there always seems to be something to learn.
My eyes have been opened to another part of the coffee world, where people who are just as passionate about coffee as you and I, are trying to enable all of us to enjoy a cup, no matter what time of day.

Have I ordered a decaff coffee since… No.

ENJOY!

The Koffee Purist