Decaf Drinkers Beware!

It is another Sunday and a day where I try to be informative…..so today instead of history it will be an FYI.

I admit it I love a good cup of coffee…..when my blood pressure went high my doctor said I needed to cut out salt (no problem for I use very little salt) and to cut my coffee drinking….so under his advice I went to decaf, I would rather drink urinal water then this stuff and then Sue got me some half-caf, better than decaf but still lacked taste….for you see I drink my coffee straight….no milk, no sugar, no flavors of any sort….so taste is important to me….after about a month I chanced it and went back to real coffee (actually Sue got it for me for she was tired of my ‘bitchiness’).

Now that I have given you my diatribe of coffee maybe it is time for me to get to the point……

So if you are a drinker of decaf coffee you might want to pay attention….

For fans of decaffeinated coffee, we have some bad news.

The not-so-buzzy version of coffee can harbor a chemical that can cause cancer, CNN reports, which has health and environmental activists pushing to have the substance banned for its use in making decaf coffee.

Methylene chloride is the substance in question and it’s used by coffee roasters to remove caffeine from coffee beans. It’s also utilized as a solvent in various manufacturing and commercial processes, but the federal government banned its use as a paint stripper in 2019 and is now considering an almost complete kibosh on its use for consumers and industry except in limited settings.

The reason? Short-term exposure to the chemical, research shows, can harm your central nervous system. And being exposed to the chemical for a longer period can induce liver and lung cancers, as well as liver damage more generally.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/decaf-coffee-cancer

My taste buds saved me from this worry….and I thank them.

As long as I have you here and interested….

Is there a coffee apocalypse coming?

When Henri Kunz was growing up in West Germany in the 1980s, he used to drink an instant coffee substitute called Caro, a blend of barley, chicory root, and rye roasted to approximate the deep color and invigorating flavor of real coffee. “We kids drank it,” Kunz remembered recently. “It had no caffeine, but it tasted like coffee.”

As an adult, Kunz loves real coffee. But he also believes that its days are numbered. Climate change is expected to shift the areas where coffee can grow, with some researchers estimating that the most suitable land for coffee will shrink by more than half by 2050 and that hotter temperatures will make the plants more vulnerable to pests, blight, and other threats. At the same time, demand for coffee is growing, as upwardly mobile people in traditionally tea-drinking countries in Asia develop a taste for java.

“The difference between demand and supply will go like that,” Kunz put it during a Zoom interview, crossing his arms in front of his chest to form an X, like the “no-good” emoji. Small farmers could face crop failures just as millions of new people develop a daily habit, potentially sending coffee prices soaring to levels that only the wealthy will be able to afford.

To stave off the looming threats, some agricultural scientists are hard at work breeding climate-resilient, high-yield varieties of coffee. Kunz, the founder and chair of a “flavor engineering” company called Stem, thinks he can solve many of these problems by growing coffee cells in a laboratory instead of on a tree. A number of other entrepreneurs are taking a look at coffee substitutes of yore, like the barley beverage Kunz grew up drinking, with the aim of using sustainable ingredients to solve coffee’s environmental problems—and adding caffeine to reproduce its signature jolt.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/04/coffee-cup-best-bean-brand-climate.html

Damn climate change!

I shall continue to drink that magical brew until my last breath or until I can longer afford it whichever comes first.

A little FYI for my readers….have a marvelous Sunday and as always….Be Well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

10 thoughts on “Decaf Drinkers Beware!

  1. My wife drinks de-caff coffee and de-caff tea, as she says the caffeine keeps her awake at night. I told her the thing about the chemicals used to take out the caffeine, but she insists it’s safe. So I buy myself full strength tea. (I stopped drinking coffee because it gives me too many stomach acid problems)

    Best wishes, Pete.

      1. Since I have been plagued with the first constant arthritis-like pain — especially at night — keeping me from sleeping — I understand the hinderance that caffeine can be….but I have been drinking decaf for years now and with cream and sugar I can tolerate it…I only drink one or two cups per day — I am going to have tgo learn something about pain management now, I guess… Getting old is a bummer.

      2. Yes getting old sucks! I drink at6 least 5 cups a day and no side effects….my pain is horrendous at times and that keeps me from good sleep. chuq

      3. I was on pain management until they started treating me like a 4 year old and I dropped it….I now just bare it as best I can. chuq

  2. I drink about 5 cups a day. I’m a bit of a coffee nerd. I used to have a robotic espresso maker but after it wore out I found a Ninja brand coffee maker for a tenth of the price that produced coffee just as good. I tried a lot of different brands, especially the small market roasters in the area but I haven’t found anything as good as 8 o’clock Italian espresso roast as long as I get the whole bean stuff and grind it myself. The 8 o’clock also sells for less than half the cost of the “premium” brands.

    The history of coffee is interesting. There have been various campaigns over the year by misguided individuals to declare it to be unhealthy, and it turns out that all of them were flat out wrong.

    I’ve tried various decafs over the years and none of them are very good. To me the smell and taste, especially the smell, is just nasty. The only brand I’ve found that’s drinkable is Illy.

    Decaf is a problem indeed. The issues with the chemicals used to decaffeinate it have been known for years now. There is a water process that doesn’t use the chemicals but it manages to taste even worse somehow.

      1. Blue mountain is good stuff but my goodness it can get expensive! The last time I looked the genuine stuff straight from Jamaica was going for about $40/lb.

        We have a local roaster called Terra Verde who puts out a decent product but he’s pretty much priced himself out of my range as well in the last few years. I’m getting 8 o’clock Italian roast for about $7.50/lb, about $15 for a 2lb bag. TV’s prices are up to about $16 for 12 oz. 😩. Starbucks, which is actually horrible coffee to begin with is going for about $10/12oz.

      2. I totally agree about Starbucks….it needs all the flavors one can muster…..I have been drinking 8’Oclock Columbian and like it a lot….a medium roast. chuq

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