I just made my first cup of half caf coffee, using up the end of my previous bag of regular coffee and finishing off the fill with my new decaf. Caffeine doesn't give me energy like it does for most people - in fact it often makes me sleepy, as I found out when I was working graveyard shift and drinking energy drinks to try and stay awake, only to feel more tired. When I fell asleep while actively midway through a Rockstar, it finally dawned on me that hey - this isn't working, is it? 馃槀
Caffeine does, however, fend off a migraine for me (people apparently tend to either get better or worse on caffeine with migraines; luckily it helps me), so it's not like I'm anti-caffeine. But since I have a cup or two every day in my protein shake for the taste, I thought, maybe I should try decaf. Maybe I would have more energy, lol.
However, I was a little concerned about how decaffeination happens, so I looked it up. According to this article, there are different methods of doing it, some using toxic chemicals (tho the FDA says the amount left in decaf isn't dangerous, I'd rather have none, thanks, and frankly, the FDA isn't exactly stellar about food safety, as evidenced by all the things which are allowed here but banned in the EU, for example). But there is one called the Swiss Water Process that just consists of soaking the beans in water and taking the caffeine out of that water with carbon, then soaking a new batch of beans in that uncaffeinated green coffee extract, which draws out their caffeine. Okay, that sounds good.
So then I did a little digging to find out which companies use that process instead of chemicals, and found this list. I picked up one from the list - San Francisco Bay Coffee - in a two pound bag to try. It certainly smells good!
Though decaf isn't totally caffeine-free, the first article says that an 8-ounce cup has around 2 to 15 milligrams of caffeine, compared to a regular cup at 80 to 100 milligrams.
So the experiment begins to see if decaf gives me more energy, ha ha. And don't worry - I still have espresso on hand in case I get a migraine. 馃槈
