Decaf

Ethyl Acetate (EA) Decaffeination

Ethyl acetate is a naturally occurring component of sugarcane, coffee, and fruits like muskmelon, strawberries, and bananas, but it is also produced synthetically. It is also used as a natural or artificial flavoring in food products. Ethyl acetate is used in decaffeination because it is very selective toward caffeine and can physically extract it from green coffee beans gently yet selectively.

To do this, green coffee beans are first treated with steam to remove the silver skins. The water content of the beans is increased to open up the cellular structure.

Then, a solution of water and ethyl acetate is used to selectively extract caffeine from the beans in several stages, where the caffeine diffuses from the beans into the surrounding water and solvent solution. Subsequently, steam is used to remove any remaining ethyl acetate from the beans, which are finally dried to their original moisture content.