Good decaf is out there. It is just annoying to find.

I still drink plenty of regular coffee — this isn't a site about giving that up. But I also want a good cup at nine in the evening, and the more I looked into decaf, the more interesting it got. It is a genuinely odd corner of coffee, and much better than its reputation suggests.

It is also weirdly hard to shop for. Roasters who do decaf well tend to bury it three clicks into the site, and a lot of what is written about it online is wrong. So I started keeping notes: where to buy it, what the processes on the bag actually mean, and what the coffee is like once it's in the cup.

Where to buy it What the processes mean

Roasters who only do decaf

All 9 roasters →

There are fewer of these in Europe than you would expect — 4 that I can confirm, and none at all in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Poland or the Nordics. If you want a shop where decaf is the whole point rather than one sad SKU, this is the list.

D Stands For

Vienna, Austria

Decaf onlyLow-caf too

Austria's first dedicated decaf roastery, roasting small batches in Vienna on an electric Stronghold. They buy both direct from producers and from decaffeination plants, which is an unusually candid thing to say out loud. Notable for carrying a genuine low-caf lot — a Los Nogales Typica — alongside the decafs, which almost no decaf-only house does.

Their shipping policy page still references an October 2024 resumption date for paused EU destinations. Treat the country list as indicative and confirm at checkout.

Ships to: Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway — shipping to some other EU countries was paused over packaging (EPR) rules — check before ordering
Processes: Swiss Water Sugarcane EA

decaf.at

Verified 14 August 2026

Decadent Decaf Coffee Company

Littlehampton, United Kingdom

Decaf onlySubscription

The longest-running decaf-only specialist in the UK, roasting in West Sussex since 2014. Deliberately narrow: seven decafs plus the occasional guest, all year round — the opposite strategy to the rotating single-origin houses. Swiss Water is the only process named across their site.

Ships to: United Kingdom — no EU or international shipping found; the storefront offers only GBP / United Kingdom
Processes: Swiss Water

www.decadentdecaf.com

Verified 14 August 2026

Decaf Coffee Club

Cotswolds, United Kingdom

Decaf onlySubscription

The widest confirmed process spread of anyone surveyed — Swiss Water and Mountain Water both organic-certified, plus CO₂ and sugarcane. They are the only European seller I could confirm offering Mountain Water process at all. UK-only delivery makes them a reference point for comparing processes rather than a source for EU readers.

Ships to: United Kingdom — UK only, free tracked delivery over £25
Processes: Swiss Water Mountain Water CO₂ Sugarcane EA

thedecafcoffeeclub.com

Verified 14 August 2026

Les Révélations

Paris, France

Decaf onlyLow-caf too

The most flavour-ambitious of the European decaf-only operations: a Q Grader roasting on a Loring S35, with a range split between DÉCLIC blends and DÉCOLLAGE single origins from Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Panama. Water process covers most of the range, with a handful of EA and at least one CO₂ lot. They state plainly which lots are not organic-certified and why, which is more honesty than the category norm.

Seasonal pause — the site says roasting resumes 31 August 2026. Check availability before ordering.

Ships to: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, EU-wide — 30+ European destinations; free delivery to a French pick-up point from €39
Processes: Swiss Water Sugarcane EA CO₂

revelationscoffee.com

Verified 14 August 2026

Shipping is the part that catches people out. What actually reaches Belgium, Germany or the Netherlands, and what it costs to get it there.

What the words on the bag mean

All processes →

Swiss Water, sugarcane EA, CO₂, Mountain Water. Four processes cover basically every decaf you will meet in Europe, they taste different, and some of what is printed next to them is not true.

Swiss Water Process
A water-only process run at a single plant in British Columbia, using coffee extract already saturated with everything except caffeine. The best known name in decaf, and the most misunderstood — it is a company guarantee, not a certification.
Sugarcane EA
Ethyl acetate fermented from sugarcane molasses, used as an extraction solvent in Colombia. The sweetest-cupping process and the one whose marketing is furthest from its chemistry.
CO₂ process
Caffeine dissolved out under pressure by carbon dioxide above its critical point. The most selective process and the best for body and mouthfeel — and the most expensive to run, which is why you see so little of it.
Mountain Water Process
A water process run in Veracruz using glacier-fed watershed water. Mechanically a close cousin of Swiss Water — and the process most often described with a number its own plant does not claim.

The two things everyone asks

Is decaf actually caffeine-free?
No. A cup of decaf carries roughly 2–15 mg of caffeine against about 95 mg in a regular cup. Here is what the measured figures actually say, and why the legal thresholds are looser than most people assume.
How to brew decaf
Most decaf brewing advice is shop-floor lore, and the one controlled study contradicts it. What the evidence actually supports, what is folklore, and how to dial in a decaf without inheriting someone else's assumption.

Everything else I've written up — low-caffeine varietals, how the processes compare, and the rest.

Recently changed

All updates →

BLACKBIRD closed 4–26 August
The Stuttgart-area roastery is closed for the summer, though online orders are still being accepted and will ship on reopening. Worth knowing if you were planning to use them for a side-by-side process tasting.
D Stands For has paused shipping to parts of the EU
Packaging regulation — extended producer responsibility — has taken an EU decaf-only roaster partly off the map for EU customers. Check their current country list before ordering rather than assuming EU-wide delivery.
The directory opens with nine entries
Nine roasters and curators, four of them decaf-only. Targeted searching in six languages found no decaf-only roaster in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Poland or the Nordics — that absence is a finding, not a gap in the research.