Swiss Water Process Method of Decaffeinating Coffee Beans

Good Morning Coffee Lovers,

If you look at the online coffee order sheet on the Brown and Jenkins website you'll find listings for items like the SWP Columbian Supremo and the SWP Kenya AA coffee. If you haven't yet cracked the code, SWP stands for Swiss Water Process and is a method of decaffeinating coffee beans. It's a better process that the traditional method because it avoids the use of chemicals. Here is the difference.

Traditional decaffeination works by soaking coffee beans in a chemical solution like ethyl acetate or methylene chloride. After the beans soak in the solution, and the caffeine has been soaked up by the liquid, the coffee beans are removed. This is usually done up to three times until the desired amount of caffeine is taken out.

The Swiss Water Process method of decaffeination soaks the coffee beans in green coffee bean extract. Somehow, this is enough to remove 99.9% of the caffeine. The process takes 12 hours to complete. It is completely chemical free and a lot more appealing to those folks who are trying to remove caffeine from their diets, or who can't drink caffeine after a certain time of day.

So, if you order coffee online and are wondering what that SWP means- now you know!

Until our next cup,
Sandy Riggen