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Sugarcane EA decaffeination process diagram

Cafe Imports · 2023 · images.cafeimports.com

An importer's process sheet for sugarcane ethyl acetate decaffeination. The primary source for the 97% minimum removal figure and the 10 ppm residual ethyl acetate maximum.

How much weight this carries

Reasonable, but not settled. Worth stating with hedging.

What it says

  • The method removes a minimum of 97% of caffeine originally present
  • Maximum 10 ppm residual ethyl acetate in the bean — For scale, a ripe banana carries roughly 200 ppm ethyl acetate naturally.
  • Ethyl acetate is produced by fermenting sugarcane molasses

What it does not say

  • Molasses-derived ethyl acetate is chemically identical to any other ethyl acetate. The sugarcane origin is a sourcing fact, not a difference in what touches the bean, and "natural" on this basis is marketing.
  • 97% minimum is not 99.7%. Descamex and Descafecol claim higher figures from their own testing; those are separate claims from separate parties.

Recorded because the errors in this subject all point one way: toward claims more confident and more flattering to decaf than the evidence supports.

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